Angkor Chef restaurant along with Angkor sauces and spices featured in the San Jose Mercury News Eat Drink Play section as one of a dozen recommended great gift ideas for the holiday season!
Angkor Chef’s Cambodian sauces, spices
As Fremont chef Channy Laux’s career evolves from condiment developer to cloud kitchen chef to brick-and-mortar owner, she stays true to her mission: She wants to share her mother’s legacy by introducing people to the flavors of their birthplace, Cambodia.
She and her husband, Kent, recently expanded their business to include a downtown San Jose restaurant, Angkor Chef, now in its soft opening phase. There, diners can taste the sauces and spices she uses in her dishes and buy jars and bottles for the home cooks on their gift list.
The array includes her award-winning Lemongrass Paste (regular or vegan, used in stir-fries); Chrouk Metae (a traditional hot sauce); Tamarind Sauce (a natural tenderizer; think braised short ribs); Makrut Lime Powder (sourced from refugee farmers near Fresno); Kroeung Prawlak (a Cambodian barbecue marinade); Organic Thnot Sugar (with caramel undertones); Kampot Peppercorns and more.
DETAILS >> Condiments are priced at $8 to $12 at the restaurant, 86 S. First St., San Jose, and $10 to $20 online at www.angkorfood.com (those prices cover shipping). Market Hall Foods in Oakland and Berkeley and the Ferry Building’s Village Market in San Francisco also carry many of the products.
Zavoral, Linda. “Present Tense?: RELAX. WE’VE GOT A DOZEN GREAT GIFT IDEAS” The Mercury News, Sunday, November 26, 2023, p. F1.
Published by Channy Laux
Channy Laux is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. She was thirteen-years-old when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. From 1975 to 1979, Channy endured starvation, horrendous working conditions, sickness and repeated separations from her family.
In June of 1979, Channy arrived in Lincoln Nebraska as a refugee. After four years of no school and not knowing a word of English, she attended Lincoln High School; earned a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics from Santa Clara University and undergraduate degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Channy worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer in the Aerospace and Biotech industries for 30 years.
In 2017 Channy decided to focus on completing a promise that she made to herself as she and her family struggled to survive the Cambodian genocide. “If I ever make it out alive, I will make sure the world knows what happened to us.” Channy published her memoir “Short Hair Detention”, which receives multiple awards, including Nebraska’s 2018 Book Award.
Channy is also founder of Angkor Cambodian Food. Her goal is to bring Cambodian cuisine into American kitchens, by providing authentic and hard to find ingredients along with easy to follow recipes. One of her creations Kroeurng (Lemongrass cooking paste) receives sofiTM Award from Specialty Foods and Innovation Foodservice Award from IFMA.
Channy now balances her time between her business and educating communities on the Cambodian Genocide. She works with schools and other organizations to promote awareness of Cambodian Genocide. She is a member of Speakers Bureau for JFCS Holocaust Center.
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