Cambodia is not where you’d expect to find good bagels. New York, yes; Montreal, yes; even Istanbul’s simits are up there. But in the stifling heat and humidity of Siem Reap—where the only temples are the thousand-year-old marvels of Angkor Wat—you wouldn’t have high hopes for finding an everything with a schmear.
And yet, they’re here. And they’re amazing.
The reason is as unexpected as the result: a bread-baking upstart from Canada named Zita Long. Long grew up in the small city of London, Ontario, the son of Cambodian refugees who’d escaped the country during the bloody reign of the Khmer Rouge. His parents eventually moved back to Siem Reap, and Zita followed ten years ago, first helping out in the kitchen of their Khmer-food restaurant and then switching to an office gig at a travel agency. “At the time I was not a foodie whatsoever, or whatever you want to call it,” he says. “I had no appreciation for high-quality food. I was the kind of person who would eat microwave food and noodles.”
All that changed with one good meal in March 2012. The highlight was dessert. “I’d never had anything like tiramisu at the time,” Long recalls. “I made the mistake of thinking that it had to do with baking,” he adds with a laugh. “So I got into baking thinking that it would lead me to making tiramisu.”
It didn’t. Several of the necessary ingredients were not available in Siem Reap so Long couldn’t make the Italian confection. But it did lead him to a new hobby—and after buying himself a toaster oven, he dove into it with enthusiasm.
A few months later, however, Long ran into a bigger challenge. “I started getting very intense rashes—so intense that I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I don’t know if it was the baked goods, but I eliminated them from my diet and in a few days the symptoms disappeared.”
Depressed at the thought of not being able to pursue his newfound love, he researched online and found people with similar symptoms who were reporting that sourdough didn’t affect them like other carbs did. So despite the fact that he’d never tasted sourdough bread, Long began to try to bake it.
And it worked.
After moving on from his allergy and his tiny toaster oven, Long honed his skills baking sourdough breads in the catering and wholesale business, and then launched his own baking company about a year ago. When he started selling directly to the public at a local farmer’s market, introducing bagels and flavored cream cheeses alongside his sourdough loaves and pretzels, he instantly attracted a cult following.
The bagel idea had come from his own cravings. But even though Long is Canadian, his inspiration was not Montreal’s famous boiled rounds. It was Tim Hortons. “I grew up with Tim Hortons and it’s nostalgic,” he freely admits. His variations ended up nothing like the fast-food chain’s. In fact, they’re more like a cross between something out of Brooklyn and something out of Mile End: small, mildly dense, chewy on the inside with a delicate crisp on the outside, available in sesame, poppy, plain, and everything. The bagels were such a hit that they quickly transformed the farmer’s market from a Sunday shopping spot to a trendy brunch hangout.
And then came the doughnuts.
“The doughnuts were an accident,” Long says. “I had another craving. A lot of doughnuts here don’t satisfy that craving; Asian-style doughnuts are quite different. So I decided to make my own.” Painfully aware that he wouldn’t be able to eat regular doughnuts, Long took an atypical approach and tried to make sourdough versions. That’s what ended up setting his doughnuts apart. The sourdough base gives the puffs a flavorful tang and a texture that manages to be both airy and substantial at the same time—they taste familiar, but also unique.
Now, the small market is teeming with hipster locals and expats every Sunday, as Long (effortlessly cool in loose clothing and a dashingly wrapped scarf) doles out bagels and doughnuts to those who eagerly follow his Instagram and Facebook feeds to find out what new treats he'll have each week. His original mango-filled doughnut is still available some weekends, and recently he unveiled a Bailey’s coffee cream indulgence coated with dark chocolate ganache and salted caramel almonds, and a banana-vanilla-bean cream doughnut topped with dulce de leche icing and sea salt.
The decadent treats are displayed alongside the rest of his tempting spread: sourdough breads, pretzels, quiches, sourdough cinnamon rolls, as well as those unexpected Cambodian bagels—all of them defying not only the heat humidity, but expectations too.
Zita’s Bakery bagels and doughnut are available only at Siem Reap's Asana Old Wooden House Farmer’s Market, held Sundays 9 a.m.–1 p.m.
