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| - To understand Cambod-Ican Kitchen, you must understand it's proprietor Dan. Dan is the sometimes loud but always friendly owner of Cambod-Ican and he and nearly every member of his family have been filling the bellies of the later night Carson Street revelers since before Diesel was called Nick's Fat City.
Dan has his own roofing business, manages several properties, and yet still would spend all of his evenings and most of the early mornings on weekends outside, in the weather, gladly bantering with drunks, handing out kabobs and wontons with smiles and jokes. The hours must have been hell, but the lines were always long as he would hold court on the end of the "meat wagon" style set up until 3 AM every Thursday night through Sunday morning.
It's safe to say that Dan was years ahead of the food cart culture that has developed on the coasts in recent years.
When Nakama opened several years later and, although the Cambodican Wagon was considered a Southside institution, the powers that be forced Dan to close up shop because they didn't want someone underselling them outside their door. But after over a dozen years of working with the freakiest flakes on southside, Dan's dealt with stranger setbacks than "the man".
That's when he opened the full service restaurant at 1701 Carson. It features a bigger staff, indoor seating, a much deeper menu and still has all of the classics old school southsiders and slopies would stand outside for an hour to get.
My late night staple has always been the chicken on pita, no veggies with at least 6 friend seafood wontons and moon sauce on everything - (seriously, moon sauce is the best thing since the internet).
The only drawback to CK is that the crowd swells with the traffic on Carson so there are times when there's no way for the staff to handle the demand. If you come in at the wrong time, you can end up waiting a very long time in somewhat-to-extremely-rowdy crowd.
Other than that, the Cambod-Ican is a delicious, inexpensive, unique place that's a must visit when I have friends in town visiting Carson Street.
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