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Dining on the Rim of the Pacific Plate
| Article
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14550 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1988 |
2,981 Words |
| Author
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Alma Lach
Alma Lach is a free-lance food writer living in Chicago. |
On the islands that comprise the Pacific rim, gourmet delights abound for culinary explorers: a repast of diverse and special Chinese dishes. As a result of the communist takeover of the Chinese mainland, many Chinese chefs fled their homes and brought with them to hotels and restaurants along the rim traditional delicacies that have since been adapted to the regional taste preferences of their patrons.
To sample this burgeoning Pacific cuisine for ourselves, we set out for Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo. We would return by way of Honolulu and San Francisco. Intentionally, we by-passed familiar tourist spots and concentrated on local gourmet restaurants.
Philippines
Although a city currently troubled by political unrest, Manila nevertheless holds a number of culinary surprises. At the Sea Food Market, for instance, which owns its own seafood farms along the coast, the customer selects live fish or other seafare with its accompaniments for his meal. Once he has made his choice he is asked by a young man in a pink business suit whether the selections should be cooked in the French, German, Japanese, Italian, or Chinese style. The uncooked seafood is then taken to a glassed-in kitchen where a row of cleaver-chopping chefs prepare it according to his instructions. The one flaw in this personal meal-design system is that the customer himself must be familiar with planning and cooking a gourmet meal.
Consider the mighty coconut crab of the Philippines as the intended delicacy. This rare creature, almost one foot tall when walking, can move backward and forward with equal speed, crack coconuts with its claws, and disguise itself by rolling up to resemble a large round coconut. The owner of the Sea Food Market, Romeo Go, agreed to take the twenty-four hours necessary to prepare such a crab for us. But unfortunately we were confined to the hotel all the next day due to an attempted military coup and never tasted the crab that had been especially prepared and so anticipated.
The Emerald Garden, another Manila institution, is a dual restaurant that serves dim sum, in one section and regular Chinese food in the other. In the Chinese restaurant, for a special treat, we tried French fried stone crab--body, claws, and all! Other delicacies offered are shark's fin soup served in bamboo cups and fresh roast pigeon wrapped in crisp lettuce leaves and served with duck
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