Chili kung Chili

Although I've been to Singapore a few times, it was only during my last trip that I got to taste one of Singapore's gastronomic pride, chili crabs! I've been hankering for this dish for so long but there just wasn't an opportunity to get a taste of it till recently. After I've begged, cajoled, cried and pleaded for him to buy it from a hawker's place. He's allergic to crustaceans you see but he likes them nevertheless. He figured that if he can't eat them, I should symphatize and stay away also. Eh pano, sa gusto ko talaga. :D

He gave in, either because he got tired of my whining or sadyang mahal nya talaga ako. :D We ordered one crab (huge size!) from this hawker place quite near to his apartment and took it home. I had a funny moment with the waitress slash cashier of the place. He wanted me to be the one to order so I did. The thing is, I am accent-challenged. Even though she was already speaking in English I still couldn't make out what she was saying. I finally caught on that she was asking me where I wanted to eat the crab. I told her that I wanted to take it home. Too late when I learned that I should have said takeaway. But at least she got it that I wanted it wrapped and ready for us to devour at home.

In a matter of a few minutes, she handed me a quite heavy plastic bag with a square box inside. It smelled heavenly. We hurried home and good thing his sister had lots of rice prepared for all of us.

We opened the box and this is what greeted us. Well, not exactly this as I was not able to take a picture of the crab but this looks exactly like what we had. I found it somewhere in Da Internet.

chili crab heaven

I ladled the sauce over my rice and put a sliver of crab meat on top. And the first thing I learned upon taking the first taste is that when they say chili, they really do mean chili. The thing was hot! Spicy, spicy hot. But very very good. All of us (him, his sister and his sister's friend) were in frenzy over the savory hot goodness of the sauce and the crab. Oooh, the crab was so fat. It had so much more meat than the usual crab I get here in the Philippines. Especially the claw part. So so good. Needless to say, we all ate like kargadors that night. Thinking about it now makes my mouth water. I can't wait till I can eat chili crab again or maybe I should try pepper crab next time.