One of the things I love about my culture is how we welcome guests. Last week, my uncle, who's an American citizen and has been for years, came to Manila to visit. When I moved to California on my own, he and his wife were such a big help - they picked me up from the airport, drove me to my new university, took me to Target, lent me money while I was waiting for the fund transfers from home to come through, helped me get an American bank account and debit card even though I didn't have a social security number, and other little things that made my move so much smoother. We Filipinos don't forget personal debts like that.
Last night my parents and I took him out, the way you're supposed to. In typical Filipino fashion, taking him out translated into food, some drinks, music, and a lot more food.
We went to this place called Seaside, near the Mall of Asia (the sixth largest mall in the world).
The unique thing about Seaside is that you don't just sit at a restaurant, pick out the food you want from a menu, and wait to be served. At Seaside you can actually go around the market, pick out the exact things you want, and have it cooked in just the way you want it. It doesn't hurt that everything they sell is really, really good.
The market was actually pretty clean compared to the usual 'dirty market'. The floor wasn't wet, men didn't go around carrying squealing pigs on their shoulders, and there weren't street urchins running around looking for an easy pocket to pick.
Everything in the market was fresh. So fresh they were still alive. The crabs were climbing over each other
We came hungry, which was a really good thing considering the mass quantities of food we had. We got
halaan (I think it's clams, or mussels - I'm not sure what it is in English),
lato (seaweed), and crabs. Everything tasted incredible. Just the soup which the clams came in was so good I started to get full on it even before everything else came out.
I'm not a big fan of seaweed (except the Japanese kind which comes in flattened green strips, which I love eating on its own), but this one was actually pretty good. You could really taste the sea in it. It reminded me of the oysters I had in Melbourne.
The crabs... oh, god, the crabs. They were absolutely incredible.
We bought some more crabs to take home which we kept in a little bag by the floor, right by my feet. During dinner we realized the people at the tables behind us had gotten really loud.
And by loud I mean shrieking like bloody banshees.
At first we shrugged it off. We had crabs in oyster sauce to distract us, after all. But then they got
really loud. The kind of loud that actually has a bit of panic infused in it. So we looked around. Several people were kneeling on their seats to get their feet of the floor, and parents were swooping all small children out of the way.
One of the waiters was running around the tables and occasionally ducking underneath, and finally he resurfaced with a huge, gray crab in his hand.
I'm sure you knew that was coming. I, however, was totally freaked out.
Apparently one of the monster crabs had gotten itself free from its bonds, taken the little leap of freedom, and scuttled away...
inches away from my feet! I knew we'd bought crabs, but I didn't know we'd bought them
alive. We bought four of those and kept them
right next to me. Four. Huge. Crabs! Climbing over each other and moving right beside me while I happily and obliviously feasted on their crab kin!
Needless to say we had all the extra crabs cooked.
And boy was it good.
