More Adventures in Eating

On our second night in Singapore, we were joined by two Steelcase friends Caslin & Andrew. The evening's event was a seafood dinner by the sea.

We drove to the East Coast Seafood Center which is a huge complex of seafood restaurants. Caslin chose her favorite as our place for the evening.

Long Beach has outdoor dining just a few feet from the water and lots of good seafood. As we have been doing, we left our meal selection to our guide, Caslin.

Behind that beautiful smile lurks a true temptress. She filled the table with lots of great crab (specialty of the house) and a few very unique dishes. We could hardly wait.

The night was warm and breezy and the ships off the shore were too numerous to count. Singapore is one of the largest ports in the world. Across the water it looked like a parking lot or the freeway at rush hour.

If you look closely in the background, you can see just a small portion of the fleet. It runs like this for miles and miles and miles. After dark it looks like a city in the distance rather than the sea. After checking out the waterfront, we were ready to eat. First to arrive was the drunken prawn.

 Now many years ago a friend of ours was on a business trip to Japan and was served drunken prawn. I remember him regaling us with the story of this covered bowl of very large prawn that was opened and filled with sake. The prawn went into a feeding frenzy and as they slowed down the host opened the bowl and passed them around. I believe Rob ordered another beer. Lucky for us the Singaporeans have a slightly different prep method. The dish starts the same, but once the prawn are drunk they are cooked in a rich seafood broth (whew!) and brought to the table in a large bowl. After that individual servings are set out and the feasting begins. The prawns were delicious. Next up was two versions of the house specialty - crab.

No drawn butter here. Long Beach is known as the inventor of black pepper crab. We had smaller Sri Lankan crab so that we could try two kinds and they were still enormous. The black pepper crab is delicious and does not taste too spicy. There is, however, an after effect where your lips tend to feel a bit fiery for a while. It is well worth the fire. The meat is delicious and tender and there are lots of crab parts to pick through. The second is chili crab which comes covered in a wonderful chili-tomato-cream sauce and served with fresh baked rolls to sop up the extra sauce. There is a slight kick to it but not too much. I think this one was my favorite. 

We all had a fantastic meal and the company was the best part. (In person Andrew looks a little like an Asian Jimmy Smits) Both of our hosts are very tall. Caslin is nearly 6 ft. and Andrew is nearly 6'5" - boy do I feel short!


At the end of the meal we took a peek at the tanks filled with the seafood. We waited till the end because, as Grandpa Henry used to say, I don't want to get intimate with my food before I eat it. After looking at these photos you can see why.

The first photo is of elephant clams. I am really not sure what good the shell does since there is no way for the clam to fit inside it. We have seen them a lot but have not had any recommended yet. There isn't a good indication of scale, but let's just say I wouldn't want to meet the king crabs in a dark alley. The legs spanned over two feet. Lots of good eating there but you would need a very large family.