Kimsan Sok from the Angkor W Group of Restaurants, together with four other members of the Cambodia Chef Association, will represent Siem Reap in Thailand’s biggest international culinary challenge, the Pattaya City Culinary Cup 2013.

The other chefs collaborating with Sok are from Borei Angkor Resort and Spa, Sokha Hotel and Nest restaurant.

The competition is from August 8-10, and the theme will be the Mekong River, with all dishes based around fish.

Eighteen teams from Mekong river countries including Cambodia will compete for the top prize – the HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s Trophy plus $3,000 cash. Teams will have three hours to prepare dishes.

The Siem Reap team has been training hard to perfect its dishes, according to Sok. And, as with the recent Thailand Ultimate Chef Challenge 2013 at THAIFEX-World of Food Asia, in which Sok and her team took second place in the Mekong Culinary Challenge category, the menu will be meat free.

Sok says, “We will make something modern, mixing Asian and western flavours. I am going to make the salad and a simple appetiser with fresh salmon, like sushi, but with some eggplant and other vegetables.”

Each team must make three main courses plus a buffet including a salad, a cold appetiser, soup, two cold tapas, two desserts and a cake. Sok says the chefs devised the recipes themselves, working together to ensure that all the dishes complement each other.

“Some we have to change if they don’t fit together,” she says. “So we might add this one, take this one out.”

After completing training at Sala Bai restaurant school, Sok worked at various Siem Reap hotels including La Résidence d’Angkor and Victoria Angkor Resort and Spa, before a stint at the Grand Hyatt in Dubai.

In October she will start working the kitchen at Angkor W restaurant Wok Republic in the new King’s Road Angkor complex.