Vietnam will experience its first taste of authentic Spanish cuisine when Phnom Penh’s Pacharan unveils a sister restaurant with a raucous opening celebration in Saigon on September 29.

The new Pacharan promises the same Iberian atmosphere, similar food and wine menus and an equally breathtaking building — this time four stories high.

“It’s a fantastic spot to watch Saigon. It’s one of the busiest corners in the city,” said FCC operations director Anthony Alderson. “It’s right behind the opera house and right opposite the Park Hyatt. In fact, if you walk outside it, you’ll be standing in our building. It’s near the Caravelle and other 5-star hotels.”

Starting with a ground-floor deli serving snacks, pastries and coffee, and finishing off with a rooftop cocktail bar licensed to serve until 2 a.m., Pacharan Saigon is designed for all manners of imbibing. The middle two floors hold the restaurant itself, serving the signature tapas that have made the Phnom Penh eatery the most exciting new restaurant in Cambodia this year.

“What we are trying to achieve, again with the new place, is a real Spanish atmosphere,” said General Manager Andres Arias. “It should be exciting and fun. Spanish dining is an informal way to have very active social interaction.”

Arias is the point man at the new Pacharan and admittedly working around the clock to ready the restaurant for opening. Prior to Phnom Penh, the Brazilian-born but Barcelona-raised 26-year-old most recently worked for Robert DeNiro at the US actor’s Japanese-South American fusion restaurant in London’s Mayfair District.

Like the original Pacharan, the new place is the brainchild of Arias, his longtime colleague Roberto Mata and a management team led by Alderson and Steve Hayward.

The new site’s interior design was crafted by renowned artist Jerry Swaffield, who also handled Phnom Penh. Swaffield, a longtime collaborator with the FCC team, is famous for quirky, eclectic and generally fabulous creations that can be seen from Shanghai to Bangkok and beyond.

The tapas menu, created by Mata, will feature imported Spanish cheeses like manchego and the some of Iberia’s illustrious cured hams such as serrano. The seafood dishes range from Galician-style octopus to an assortment of paellas. Available among the segundso platos, or main courses, are roasted suckling pig, sea bass and fillet of veal. The cost for most of the dishes hovers around US$5.

“We encourage people to combine dishes to make a meal. Tapas should be shared from the middle of the table,” said 37-year-old Mata. “The key is that it’s simple. With everybody trying to do new things with fusion and flavors, we’re sticking to the basics of food.”

Alderson’s credits entrepreneur Rod Quinton with providing the impetus for the push for Pacharan II.

“He came to a party in Phnom Penh and said ‘Man, I love it. You’ve got to do this at a site I’m renovating in Saigon,” said Alderson. “I said ‘We’d love to.”

Beginning in May, the FCC team has been working in conjunction with Quinton, who is Dutch, and his two Vietnamese partners. The older building had to be completely re-engineered, but now promises some state-of-the-art technology such as touch screen sales registers that Alderson said will “raise the bar on quality of service.”

If you’re in Vietnam late this month, the opening party for the new Pacharan is not to be missed. Feel free to come late, too, as the food and drinks go until 2 a.m.

Straight-ahead independent rock-n-roll spiked with flavors of rockabilly and punk, Betty Ford and the GT Falcons play the rooftop terrace at the FCC Phnom Penh on Saturday October 7.

Fronted by American punk-rocker girl Melanie Brew, Betty and the Falcon’s have quickly earned a reputation as Phnom Penh favorites. Playing mostly original, guitar-driven music reminiscent of the early-80s, second-generation American punk scene, influences as diverse as Joan Jett, Motorhead and Hank Williams come through in the bands chunky guitar riffs and driving rhythms.

Behind Miss Brew, fellow American Jet Odrerir and Australian Matt Fox play guitars and also sing, bringing musical and vocal diversity to the bands work. British drummer Rupert Leighton, new to the band’s line up, shores up the percussion section.

As well as cementing the rhythms, Leighton’s addition to the band has also sparked a torrent of new music writing, and the set prepared for the FCC show, a solid 90 minutes of old-school rock-n-roll, will be substantially different to any of the band’s previous gigs.

The show starts at 9 p.m.

In her exhibit at the FCC Phnom Penh titled “Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam — Different Impressions in Black and White Photos,” Doris Boettcher follows the Mekong River from Laos down to Vietnam, clicking away at the exotic scenes that define Asia and capturing the details of a diverse and historic region.

Boettcher worked for years as a travel guide in the region before settling down in Cambodia, and her knowledge of Southeast Asia comes through in her photography. She displays a knack for capturing those serendipitous moments that so often compel our travels.

Standing on the bank of the Nam Song River in Laos, the photograph Boettcher takes provides a study in contrasts. A row of long-tail boats shine in the sun against a backdrop of dark, shallow waters. The smooth, flowing textures of the river drift by jagged and immovable karst mountains. Fisherman at work down in the river stand juxtaposed with a photographer at play up on the river bank.

With her photos of Vietnam, Boettcher shows off her affinity for spotting rich textures and subtle details. In one photograph, Boettcher again finds herself at the water’s edge. In a deceptively simple composition, a lone fishing net pregnant with potential energy hangs just above choppy waters. In the sky, an afternoon sun shines through receding rain clouds. The scene is an eye blink in time but could easily describe the country, if not the region, as a whole.

When she turns her lens toward Cambodia, Boettcher focuses more on people than she does elsewhere, which is probably the result of a deeper understanding of local life that has come with calling Cambodia home. It is the people more than anything, she says, that makes Cambodia great.

In one shot, a young girl walks briskly with a soda bottle tucked under her arm. It could be filled with petrol or tea. Whatever it is, her purposeful stride and sharp look give the impression that the mission she is on is an important one.

Other photographs catch a trio of monks strolling across the causeway at the Baphuon, a group of kids laying about on the now nearly famous “bamboo railway”, a family at work on a dilapidated houseboat.

The photographs catch just a brief moment in time, but like all great photography Boettcher’s images allude to a reality much greater than that in the picture alone.

In all, Boettcher’s narrative of the region frames the big pictures that captivate – the gorgeous riverscapes, iconic pictures of Cambodian monks at the temples, the fisherman’s life in Vietnam – yet at the same time does so while reveling in the smaller yet not insignificant details, the subtle contrasts and complex textures that make the Asian way of life so alluring.