Arjuna Solitaire Hotel, Sihanoukville – Episode 3: Twenty-third Floor, Cambodia in Six Provinces and a Rice Wine

Ten floors above the pool, Angkasa is the Arjuna Solitaire's panoramic restaurant. It is also the home of Sora, a Khmer rice wine the hotel makes itself and has placed at the centre of its new menu, the "Heritage Journey of Sora": six provinces, six dishes, six glasses. Third episode of our series: Saturday evening, from Siem Reap to Kompong Som without leaving the table.

The nave of Angkasa on the twenty-third floor: copper-ribbed vault, mezzanine, spiral staircase and a cloud of glass drops

A nave beneath the sky

One enters Angkasa as one enters a nave. The room rises two storeys under a barrel vault whose ribs of coppery wood, lit from below, follow one another like the timbers of an upturned hull. A mezzanine planted with greenery runs the length of the room; a spiral staircase, black and lacquered, descends from one corner; and, hanging over the tables, a cloud of glass drops and small white birds scatters beneath the vault like a flock startled by the light. Below, buffet counters with brass-framed cases, copper pots, and the espresso machine of an Indonesian roaster, Roemah Koffie, which the group brought along in its luggage. In the evening the buffet recedes and the room becomes an à la carte restaurant, white cloths and faceted coupes.

The bar extends the room. That is where everything begins, in front of a row of glass jars with cloth-covered lids, their labels bearing the hotel's name and a bottling date.

Sora, or the legend of the drunken birds

Sora sor means "white wine" in Khmer. The name misleads the foreigner: there are no grapes, only rice. The hotel tells its origin through a legend it has set down on paper for its guests. In the time of the Buddha, a monk is said to have seen birds fall from the trees, dazed, after drinking water from a hollow trunk where wild fruit had fermented. He tasted it, felt the warmth rise, and the village learned to ferment first fruit, then bark, then rice. The Buddha, having observed the effect on his monks, forbade its use: that is the fifth precept. The tradition, for its part, survived in the countryside.

At Arjuna, the rice wine is made on the premises, in what the hotel calls its "production shack", by a ten-step ritual guests can follow with the master brewer: broken rice steamed, dried for three hours, seeded with a mother yeast ground to powder, fermented for three days, lengthened with water overnight, steamed again, sealed in a pot with bran, then distilled until the liquid runs at 25 degrees – the point, the house says, at which the alcohol stays pure without turning bitter.

That base Sora is then set to infuse. On the bar that Saturday: a jar of cashew apples dated 1 April 2026, another of honey, pineapple and cinnamon sticks, and small amber flasks labelled "Sora Infusion".

Behind the counter, chef Pisith Theam, white jacket and round glasses, explains all this with his hands in motion, between the glass teapots and the jars. He is the one who designed the menu and its pairings, and one quickly sees why the cook is standing at the bar rather than in the kitchen that evening: Sora is his subject, and he talks about it the way he would about a dish. The cocktail list carries titles that are also places: 1000 Linga River (cashew-apple Sora, calamansi, lychee), Golden Otres (noni Sora, sea-salt-preserved lime, wild honey, soda) and In Love with Bopha Indonesia, banana Sora, Roemah Koffie coffee, Martini Rosso and pineapple juice, a nod to the 1960s song by Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea that celebrated the friendship between the two countries. A first glass, pink and frothy, arrives before anyone sits down.

Chef Pisith Theam in front of his infusion jars and glass teapots

Cashew-apple Sora, jarred on 1 April 2026; behind it, honey, pineapple and cinnamon

A first glass at the counter, before the journey

Six provinces, six glasses

The "Heritage Journey of Sora" fits on two sheets. Six provinces, north to south, each with a small-plate dish and a Sora infused with a fruit or spice of the place. The menu warns that the journey begins where the sun rises over Angkor Wat and ends on the coast where it sets over Kampong Dewa. We took it in order.

Siem Reap opens with tuna barely seared in a herb crust, set on a golden toast and a green leaf, mango chutney and a blue petal, served with a mango Sora, pale and soft, in a coupe. Kompong Thom follows with grilled dried buffalo, tamarind-glazed, almost black, heaped with fried shallots, balanced on an upturned glass; the soursop Sora alongside has exactly the acidity needed to cut the sweetness of the glaze. Kompong Cham, land of cashew and banana, brings two skewers of chicken satay on a banana leaf, peanut sauce, and a rosella Sora, deep pink in a fluted coupe.

The Heritage Journey of Sora menu: six provinces, six dishes, six infusions

Siem Reap: herb-crusted tuna, mango chutney, mango Sora

Kompong Thom: tamarind-glazed dried buffalo with fried shallots, served in suspension

Kompong Cham: chicken satay on banana leaf, rosella Sora

Phnom Penh, at the halfway point, is the plainest dish and perhaps the truest: a cube of roasted duck, plum sauce, set on cucumber batons with two petals, and a noni Sora – amber, served in a hammered glass cup on a square of indigo paper, like a sake. Noni is bitter by nature; here one barely notices it, it plays the role of tannin instead. Kampot is the "adventurer's" stage, the menu says: a wok-fried prawn with Kampot black pepper, Kampot fish sauce and basil, in a terracotta bowl on a celadon stand, and a pepper Sora – the menu also promises durian in the glass, which is not for everyone, but the pepper wins. Kompong Som closes the journey on the coast: a roll of white sticky rice with jackfruit, coconut milk and pandan, and a last Sora of pineapple and cinnamon, orange-toned, that tastes like a dessert.

Phnom Penh: roasted duck with plum sauce on cucumber, noni Sora served like a sake

Kampot: prawn with Kampot black pepper, fish sauce and basil, on a celadon stand

Kompong Som: sticky rice with jackfruit and pandan, pineapple-and-cinnamon Sora

What stays, beyond the plates, is the coherence of the gesture. Each province has its own tableware – black slate, celadon, terracotta, banana leaf – and each glass its own shape, coupe, cup or faceted tumbler, as if the service had been designed by someone who had driven National Road 6 before drawing up the menu. The portions are small, and deliberately so: six glasses of 25-degree rice wine, infused or not, call for a clear head. The youngest of us had the dishes without the glasses, and declared the buffalo the winner.

It was a little after nine when we went back down to the bar. Sihanoukville's night was lighting up beyond the windows, and it was not over. That is the subject of the next episode.

Practical information

Angkasa Restaurant & Bar, 23rd floor of the Arjuna Solitaire Hotel, Kampong Dewa Resort, Otres Marina Road No. 833, Sihanoukville.

All-day dining, wood-fired pizzas, Roemah Koffie coffee, private dining rooms. "Heritage Journey of Sora": six dishes and six infused Soras, from Siem Reap to Kompong Som, by reservation.

Also on the menu: "The Sip of 3 Cultures", three Sora cocktails (Mei Nu, Bopha Kompot, Bidadari) inspired by Cambodia, Indonesia and China; Sora Ice Cream, USD 8.80 net per glass; "A Night of Flavor", limitless dinner on Fridays and Saturdays from 6:30 to 9:30 pm, USD 30 net; Tajima wagyu tomahawk from USD 138 net.

Reservations at arjuna.jhlcollections.com.

Next – Episode 4: the night, from the Sky Bar to the KBC stage, dancers and musicians included.