Long Beach: Chilli crab and geoduck

Chilli crab and black pepper crab are must do’s in Singapore. They’re like the pyramids in Egypt or Macchu Picchu in Peru. Only you can eat them. Long Beach (http://www.longbeachseafood.com.sg/outlets.php , it doesn’t really matter which outlet) does pretty good renditions of both of them, especially the curry crab. Just don an apron, and use your hands to get stuck in.

But don’t forget some of the less well-known options. Prawns stir fried with salted egg and curry leaves are rich and incredibly moreish. My favourite however, was geoduck, sashimi style. A bit pricey, but well worth it. So you might be asking, what actually is a geoduck? To put it simply, it’s like a giant white clam. It’s flesh, however, is smooth, silky and sublimely sweet, and when dipped in the peppery heat of wasabi-infused soy sauce, alas you have a formidable partnership.

Sambal Stingray and more...

East Coast Lagoon Food Village (1220 East Coast Parkway) is symbolises what is great about Singaporean Hawker dining: alfresco (by the beach), reasonably priced, full of seafood and most importantly, highly delicious.

It’s a shame that I can’t remember which stall I ate at, but it’s hard to go wrong with sambal stingray. Spicy, zingy sambal sauce; tender, almost creamy stingray wing; a winning combination in my eyes. Barbequed crayfish with garlic butter is another safe bet; the sweet flesh of the strange looking ocean dweller marries perfectly with the smokey, earthy garlic butter which I’d highly recommend you ask them to smother it with.

Izakaya Style

Pub food in Japan is at least a notch if not two notches above your average Western pub grub (except for gastropubs, but they don’t count as pubs in my eyes). Singapore, like Vancouver, is pretty big on Japanese food, hence the plethora of izakayas. One of my favourites is Shunjuu Izakaya (http://www.shunjuu.com ) in Robertson Quay.

It’s a combo that’s hard to beat: refreshing, crisp Japanese beers, alfresco dining and inventive skewers char-grilled to perfection. Highlights included melt in your mouth ox tongue, surprisingly flavoursome chicken with basil, tender iberico pork neck and wagyu beef steak. Vegetarians don’t despair; the veggie options were delicious too – particularly the stuffed mushrooms.

Japanese-Peruvian Sushi

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m not normally a ‘fusion’ man. But note the word normally. There are occasions when fusion food is incredible. And Japanese-Peruvian fusion is one of them.

Upon trying some of Edo Sushi Bar’s (http://www.edosushibar.com/, we went to the Miraflores branch, Berlin 601) creations, instead of analysing the food, the very first thing I thought was “damn, I’m gonna need to get this outside of Peru, somehow...”. After pondering that business venture the food thoughts kicked back in again.

My favourite was probably their Edo Maki, a prawn tempura maki roll topped with baby octopus sautéed in butter. Sushi doesn’t normally come with anything dairy related – but this Peruvian touch adds a rich element which, well, is best described as godly. The roll next to it, another winner, ‘Tartare Maki’, a panko-crusted prawn and avocado maki roll topped with a tuna and salmon tartar, laden with with eel and spicy sauces with crispy wonton strips to finish.

The maki roll with conchas (scallops) was also sublime...sweet, creamy, ridiculously fresh...

In the pic below, the roll at the top depicts their acevichado, an avocado and scallop maki, wrapped in tuna slices and topped with their classic ‘ceviche sauce’. Another example of Japanese-Peruvian fusion working its magic.

In short, another place you must eat at.

The Sea

Our last lunch Peru had to be a good one. Actually, it had to be knockout one, so having counted our remaining soles we decided had enough to go to one of Lima’s best cebicherias, La Mar (Avenida La Mar 770, Miraflores, Lima). It wasn’t hard to decide what to get, especially when we could choose their ‘degustacion ceviche’, which takes away that need to decide, allowing you to taste 5 of their ceviche portfolio. 

The clasico was, well, classically good (almost as good as the one at Punto Azul).  But the standout was undoubtedly their nikei ceviche de atun. Fresh tuna pieces marinated in a lime-soy-sesame oil dressing, whose balance of sour-salty-nutty flavours was right on the money. Stunningly good.

For mains, I went for the saltado pacifico, a dish with clear Chinese, Italian and Peruvian influences. Fresh sea bass, juicy prawns and sublimely sweet scallops, stir fried in a tangerine and chilli sauce, lathered generously on top of paper-thin ravioli stuffed with a creamy pumpkin filling. What really made this dish standout was the heat of the wok which imparted an addictive smokey aroma in the sauce. Genius.

Aji de Gallina

This dish is Peruvian comfort food at its very best. It’s basically a Peruvian chicken curry, only with some pretty luxurious ingredients.

Moist, juicy chicken breast is shredded and enveloped in a sauce comprising milk, evaporated milk, parmesan cheese, bread, pecans and aji Amarillo (yellow chilli), served with rice, hard boiled egg and olives. The flavours range from sweet to earthy, spicy to creamy, yet as a dish it somehow tastes so simple, as if it were somehow made of the simplest ingredients around. Inka Grill (www.cuscorestaurants.com on the Plaza de Armas)  in Cusco does a pretty good rendition of it.

More Cusconian quality

Cicciolina (www.cicciolinacuzco.com) is widely regarded as one of Cusco’s top restaurants. And rightly so. Let me cut straight to the chase – I went for their special of the day, a fresh tuna steak, chargrilled to perfection on the outside and deliciously rare in the middle, accompanied by a slightly sweet and spicy sauce no doubt infused with some form of aji. Not pictured is a classic ossabucco, also more than worthy of a try.

And for dessert, we had another dish to fuel our lucuma addiction. This time the stars of the dessert show were an intensely rich lucuma cream partnered by a dark chocolate mousse topped with sea salt.  Again, simply sublime, and needs no further description.