Fresh Seafood, Preserved Eggs

Our current seafood restaurant in our hometown (Surabaya): Layar Seafood.

They have tanks and ice trays filled with live seafood right as you are walking in. Lobsters, crabs, fishes, clams, frogs. You name it. When you order, you just tell them how big a fish/crab/lobster you want. We've been going there every time I've been home (which is only once a year).

This time, we started with some frog legs :)
The frog legs here are nothing like what I've had in North America. Much more tender and flavorful here! Not like chicken at all. This particular one is made with some nice sweet soy-based sauce.

Then we went to their signature dish, "Kepiting Telur Asin" - which means "Salted Egg Crab"
As the name suggests, the sauce on the crab is made from Salted Duck Eggs (aka. Telur Asin). The salting is a method of preserving the eggs by soaking them in either brine or salted charcoal.
I thought loading the fresh crab with preserved eggs was somewhat ironic - but it is soo delicious so who cares!
A yummy savoriness filled my mouth with each sauce-laden bite of crab.

We also got some boiled crab with garlic broth
Good, and the freshness of the crab definitely stands out here. But flavor wise is a lot more subtle than the salted egg one, so we definitely liked the other one better, especially since we ate it first. This one tasted rather bland after eating the other. Should've started with this first.

I also have trouble finding good watercrest (Kangkung) dish in the US, so I ordered some here:
Sauteed watercrest/kangkung and shrimp in slightly spicy sauce.

A great meal throughout! Their ingredients are fresh and we can't seem to go wrong with any of the offerings here. Hopefully it will stay open next year as I plan to come back again and again. The Crab with "Telur Asin" is their unique dish and it would be such a shame if I can never eat it again!!

Layar Seafood
Jl. Raya Bukit Mas 109 Surabaya
Phone: 031 5683716

Sharksfin galore

One of the special delicacies of Chinese cuisine that my family likes to get occasionally is the sharks fin soup. We normally go to a place called Thai Village, located inside the Galaxy Mall in Surabaya (don't know why it's called Thai Village, it's all Chinese food actually).

The sharks fin soup is expensive, so this time around we ordered a Medium sized soup w/crab to share among the three of us, and then got other dishes.Let's look at the sharks fin more closely :P They are the slices you see behind the bean sprouts. When one of my cousins was younger he thought that they were rice noodles!
The sharks fin is chewy, but does not have a fishy taste. The soup is rich and thick, and this particular one is also topped with crab meat. You eat it with lots of bean sprouts and, if you like it, cilantros. I think Thai Village still serves the best one in town, although a lot of people have gone over to other places like XO.

We also ordered some duck web, since the other dish we wanted was not available that night (I can't remember what it is).
It wasn't bad, but nothing special I thought. I like chicken feet better.

We also ordered one of my favorites, garlic stir fry noodles with crab. Just look at this!
That crab is just inviting me to crack it and eat it!

One of the best parts of this dish is that it is LOADED with garlic. This is what you will find at the bottom of the wok:
Roasted garlic everywhere :) Naturally the crab and the noodle both are completely garlic-flavored, which is just perfect for me.


Thai Village
in Galaxy Mall, Surabaya