The Great Prawn Debate!

Last night I went out for a seafood meal with some Scottish friends, Al & Audrey who live here in Kota Kinabalu, and Audrey's parents Rob & Aileen, who are over from Aberdeen visiting.

Now, I am not the biggest seafood fan in the world, and unless invited, would not normally choose to go to a seafood restaurant. I do however, enjoy prawns. In England a prawn the size of a 50 pence piece would be considered quite a monster! Bah! SE Asia knocks socks of the puny prawns we ate as kids in our thousand island dressing smothered cocktails!  

While doing a bit of prawn research to give my posting a bit of an objective, I came across an article in the Singapore newspaper, The Straits Times, dated 19th March 09. I have put a clipping of the article below, but if the writing is too small, go and have a look at: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_351810.html .

Basically, a group of American tourists (ha!) went to the Newton Seafood hawker centre (I was there about this time last year) looking for some bargain seafood! Fools! Having ordered eight tiger prawns, some crabs (this hawker centre is famous for its chilli crabs), half a chicken and some beer, didn't think to asked for a rough estimate of how much it would all cost and merrily tucked into their feast. Not surprisingly, they were more than a little miffed when the total bill came to $491 - of which the prawns alone cost a staggering $239!! I'm sorry but I have to laugh at their ignorance for not questioning the price in the first place - especially in Singapore where if you want to eat bargain priced food, you eat chicken and rice in a place where you can only see Chinese people eating, or a curry where you can only see Indian people eating. 

I have no sympathy for them and for sure they'll be many more just like them.

I do think it's a bit off that the hawker who sold the prawns is now banned from working there for 3 months - just as well he charged them so much money as he will need it to cover his costs for the next 3 months!

How much would you be prepared to pay for a prawn?

We ate at the Suang Tain open air seafood centre, located at Kampung Air. Its a huge place, shaped in a square with loads of different restaurants arranged around the outside and hundreds of tables and chairs seating tourists and locals alike, in the centre.

I always find myself having a mental moral battle when I go to these places (being an animal lover and diver) and feel like a right hypocrite - surrounded by tanks stuffed with all kinds of fish, crabs (normal looking crabby crabs and more unusual coconut or horseshoe crabs), prawns (which seem to be grown in mineral water bottles - uh -  lump in the back of the throat thinking of poor prawny not being able to stretch his little legs his whole life), lobsters and writhing eels and frogs. I have never been able to pick a single live item of food and seal its fate in the wok or on the grill. I can't do it, and I do feel genuinely upset at seeing them all imprisoned in their glass walled fortresses awating iminent death, tossed with ginger and soy sauce and then ripped apart by a pair of savage chopsticks. So I get someone else to pick for me. I know, its cheating.

We had tiger prawns (5) cooked in a rich buttery, garlicky sauce, a large crab, some sayur manis (which is a green crunchy vegetable) and some garlic fried rice (nasi goreng bagi bawang puteh - in Malay I think!). The prawns were, as you might imagine, absolutely bloody lovely and a very big thank you to Al & Audrey for treating me to such fine fayre! Did they pay $200+ for the prawns? Would they? Of course not, they're Scottish!