Every country has their own take on fast food and for Cambodia it is called Five Star, although there’s a decent chance you have probably never heard of this really popular franchise.
To read about Kai Bar click here.
What is Five Star Cambodia?
There’s relatively little online about CP Five Star as they officially known, bar a random article for the Phnom Penh Post from 2016. And though that article shows up on Google, the link us dead.
So, I have gone all journalistic and found out the following. CP Five Star is an indigenous Cambodian franchise that specialises in “western” and more importantly cheap fast-food, which will come more into play when we look at where you can find CP Five Star.
You can read a little something I wrote about franchises in Cambodia here.
What is the CP 5 Star Menu
There seems to be a bit of variety when it comes to the Five Star Menu, but there are at least some common staples, and these are hot dogs, sausages and fried chicken.
Fried chicken you say, so this is like KFC? No Five Star chicken is not like KFC at all, with the chicken being piping hot and not always exactly cooked a lot. The hot dogs on the other hand come in different flavours and are petty good. When you pay $1.25 for a nice big sausage who can complain? OK end of sausage gags.
Where can you find Five Star restaurants in Cambodia?
Where can you eat Five Star in Cambodia? Well pretty much bloody everywhere, with the exception of city centres, and well places where people have money. CP Five Star fits into the range of cheap Cambodian franchises. This means they can be found at rest stops, the side of the road and when you visit the boonies of Cambodia.
Photo: Five Star Chicken Cambodia
In fact although I have yet to find any actual exact numbers it does seem to be the mist numerous of Cambodian fast food joints. Franchise wise it would come second only to Seoul Restaurant, which I shall inevitably cover in another article at some point.
Where and why would you eat Five Star?
OK, so it seems like I am bagging CP Five Star, but that is clearly not the case! So while if you had the choice you would get a KFC, or a Burger King the great thing about CP Five Star is that it comes in places where you do not have the choice.
Therefore when you find yourself in the Stung Treng’s of this world and don;t fancy street food and are hankering for western for then Five Star steps yp tho the plate – no pun intended and does a job.
It is also an absolute fail safe when you are at a roadside stop, with my particle favourite joint being on the stop between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, where it knocks to shit the overpriced roadside restaurant.
So, there you are CP Five Stat, unlikely to win awards, but perhaps the best value Cambodian fast food around.
Shall I do a best fast food in Cambodia blog? I probably will