Temple Spice Crab

I have never really been one for seafood, for myriad reason. Foremost is our general treatment of the oceans, meaning it is at once a toilet and a pantry. The few fish species that I do enjoy eating (fresh blue fin tuna, salmon & swordfish) carry such a heavy price tag (in terms of both price and cost) that I feel more and more guilty with every bite. There is a reason why it is so hard to find decent Toro (the fatty under belly of the Blue Fin) these days; the mature tuna that yield the best cuts don't exist anymore.
Wild seafood is the one product that people have no qualms about eating into extinction. In Canada I could not hunt a moose and then serve it in a commercial kitchen (and with good reason) yet there is nothing stopping me from serving mass quantities of our dwindling salmon stock. With the exceptions of trout, carp and catfish, farmed fish is an environmental nightmare.
Another reason I eat little seafood is that often it is expensive, of poor quality and generally not overly fresh.
Anyway, enough ranting about fish. When I do eat seafood outside a sushi bar it is only because it has been out of its native waters for hours, not stored in a tank for days, or flown on ice half way around the globe. The only lobster I have eaten and liked was in Mexico and we bought it from the fisherman almost immediately after it was caught, and we ate it shortly thereafter.

The crab served up at Temple Spice Crab (in the Temple Street Night Market) was wonderfully fresh and sweet. The platter (carrying one lone crab) arrived smothered in wok fried garlic and chili peppers. The crab is market price, so we ended up paying 120 HK$ (or just under 20$CDN).


We also paired the crab with Spicy Eggplant with Pork. The eggplant is a fave from home, both Abby and I make this regularly, and first started eating it at New Ho King on Spadina St in Toronto. The eggplant wasn't as good as either our homemade version, or that from New Ho King. Not so strangely, it tasted a little fishy.