The waterfront crab market is Kep's most famous institution. A row of floating seafood restaurants sits on stilts over the water, where you pick your crab from tanks and have it stir-fried with fresh Kampot pepper. It's not fancy and it's not expensive, and it's one of the better meals you'll have in Cambodia. Come at lunch or early evening. The market also sells smoked fish and dried seafood if you want to bring something home.
Kep Crab Market
Waterfront seafood stalls famous for Kampot pepper crab
A story
The blue swimmer crabs from the Gulf of Thailand are cooked here with Kampot pepper — Cambodia's prized black pepper grown in the hills nearby. The combination became locally famous long before Kep became a tourist destination, and the market has been running in roughly the same spot since the town's resort days in the 1960s.