Sunday, May 04, 2014

Dancing Crab at the Grandstand in Singapore

Dancing Crab Combo #2

Man, this Vietnamese-Cajun thing is really spreading in Singapore, especially if the Tung Lok folks launched their own place too (200 Turf Club Road #01-20/21, 6466-3303). At least, it had many of the hallmark features of being Vietnamese-Cajun: not just with the plastic bags, but also the limes and salt/pepper mixture that they greeted you with. Strangely though, they only provided enough limes, salt, and pepper for one person, despite the fact that we were a party of seven. I suppose that limes *are* more expensive here.

Still, I knew that we were doomed once they poured these out onto the table; immediately I got a whiff of tomatoes in the sauce. Tomatoes? Really?? One dip of my finger into the sauce confirmed it. This wasn't Vietnamese-Cajun nor even proper Cajun (despite the "Louisiana Seafood" tagline plastered all over their marketing materials). This tomato sauce, while spicy, was basically an arrabbiata. No wonder why The Sunday Times said that they wanted to bring the sauce home to pour on pasta!

To be fair, it wasn't that bad as long as I thought of it as arrabbiata shellfish mix rather than Cajun. But I was so taken aback by it that the only thing I really cared for today was the fish and chips instead, and that was largely fueled by the fact that they used a delicious cod in there (yes, the seafood otherwise here was pretty fresh). But if I want Vietnamese-Cajun in Singapore again, I'll head to Full of Crab or Crab in Da Bag; hopefully the former has since toned up its mixture to be much spicier than when I last had it.

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