What a crazy life we seem to be leading lately! A few days ago we were sipping champagne and chatting up the social scene in Hong Kong. Last night we decided to sample the other end of the Hong Kong culinary spectrum.
There’s a restaurant in Hong Kong that sells the Cantonese version of chili crab. Now chili crab is one of the most wonderful foods I’ve ever eaten, but it’s a Singaporean specialty and you pretty much have to go to Singapore to sample the real thing. This restaurant is located in Causeway Bay, on the Canal Street close to Lockhart Road. This is almost to Times Square, just past the girlie district in Wan Chai. From the outside it looks like a million other Hong Kong Dai Pai Dongs – a small place with the kitchen outside, plastic tables inside, and little plastic stools to sit upon - nothing glamorous. The name of the restaurant is “Under the Bridge Spicy Crab”. It used to be a floating restaurant run by people that lived on sampans, but they were forced ashore twenty years ago and there they remain.
Three years ago Lee could probably not have gotten me in that place, but nowadays nothing much scares me. Besides this place is “very famous”, with pictures of Canto-pop stars on the walls, and long lines outside. We got there relatively early (8 pm) so the line wasn’t too bad.
We sat in chairs on the sidewalk waiting our turn. We could watch them sorting the crabs, but couldn’t for the life of us figure out their system. Old vs. new crabs? Big vs. little crabs? They all looked about the same to us. They waved one of the crabs at us, asking if it met our approval. Lee said if we were Chinese we would follow our choice into the kitchen to make sure they didn’t try to pull a “bait-and-switch” but since we’re just trusting gueilos we didn’t bother.
When it was our turn we took our place at a tiny table in the corner. We ordered chili crab, medium spicy, garlic clams and sautéed shrimp with cashews. Oh and beer of course. The menu had English descriptions and pictures so we were okay.
We washed our bowls and chopsticks in hot tea nonchalantly, another action that would have creeped me out several years ago. First the garlic clams arrived at our table. They were pretty good. When the chili crab came it was piled high with fried garlic and spring onions. It turned out to be more like Singaporean pepper crab than real chili crab. It was cracked, but our gueilo status was made obvious by our need for some pliers to speed things along. The locals just crack the shells with their teeth. Lee has progressed to the stage where he can do that to a certain extent, but I still haven’t mastered that technique.
It’s a messy business, eating crab this way. This restaurant provides a roll of toilet paper in a convenient plastic case on your table. That was better than Singapore at least, where they don’t seem to think you need “tissues” to eat this gloppy mess.
This was good crab, but it wasn’t great. I’m glad we had the experience but I don’t know that I would necessarily go back. I’d rather go to East Coast Seafood in Singapore I guess. You know how first loves can be!
But this was fun, and a great contrast to a couple of nights ago. Today we were on a tour up in Sham Shui Po and part of the tour included sampling street food. I finally got to try the little red bean puddings on a stick I see them selling in Central by the Escalator sometimes. We also tried some medicinal Chinese tea that was made with honey and was very, very sweet.
I think my tummy has had enough strange food for a couple of days now. Good thing we had steak soup for dinner tonight! Made in preparation for the kid’s upcoming visit, steak soup is true comfort food for our family. I’ve also made lots of Christmas cookies and decorated the tree today. The tree looks very nice, as long as all of the needles don’t fall off before Christmas!
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