Chuan Garden Has Ma La Xiao Long Xia

This wasn't the reason why we came here. But when I noticed a diner at a distant table grabbing what appeared to be a crawfish with her hands, it reminded me that I saw some live crawfish in a little goldfish tank out front when we were coming in. Whoa - were they doing that ma xiao stuff that they do on Ghost Street in Beijing? They were indeed, with 500g of it going for S$24.80 (US$19.90), brought in seasonally from Australia, apparently. We immediately placed an order.

Now, I haven't had any ma xiao in maybe ten years (and even then, that was after a lot of alcohol, so I really don't remember much of it). But of course I have been having plenty of Vietnamese-Cajun lately; they are indeed kinda similar, if you think about it. And while the Vietnamese-Cajun version is richer thanks to all of the butter that they use, this one was still fun to eat in its own right. It's just too bad that only about half of the ones on the plate here had any proper head fat to suck out.