Pages

Friday, January 28, 2011

Food Trip Friday 055: Deep-fried soft shell crabs



After nearly three weeks, the PELUKA sisterhood met today for a day of coffee, food, and more coffee! Tee-hee-hee. This time we have a new PELUKA member with us and already had her first taste of PELUKA sisters day out.

Photo Credit: PinayMum.
We started our day with coffee at Gloria Jeans coffee shop in Boeungkengkang. Day outs like this with my friends make me feel so thankful for the great bonds we have all established. Now that we have a new "member", we all can't wait to hang out with her as soon as she and her family moves to the Penh later this year. Over coffee, we talked animatedly, giggled like teenagers while at the same time debating where to go for lunch.

In the end, we went to Champs-Élysées Restaurant along Trasak Paem St. (St. 63). PinayWife, Mumsified, PinayMum, and My Furry Place have dined at Champs-Élysées many times already and can attest to the yummy-ness of the Chinese food that is the specialty there. So I had this “surprise me” kind of mood that day and left it up to them the task of ordering our lunch.

The food came one by one… they were all so delish... but for me, this is clearly the winner:

Deep-fried soft-shell crabs, a delicacy in Cambodia. 
This is  a very tasty Chinese specialty that is popular around the world.  It is so crispy served with fried garlic bits and the usual soy-garlic-chilli dipping to complete the deal. You can literally eat everything – as in you can eat them all of the crabs – and it is very difficult to stay away from. You will want to reach out for more. Soft-shell crabs, by the way, are blue crabs in their molting (shedding) stage, when crabs shed their shells to become the much sought-after and highly-prized restaurant favourite. In the Bisaya-Hiligaynon language, we call soft-shell crabs, or any other soft-shelled crustaceans like shrimps, as luno.

Who would ever thought... that a restaurant with a French name serves one of the best Khmer and Chinese  dishes I've ever had... where else but only in Phnom Penh! Definitely worth coming back to with my husband.

9 comments:

Mel_Cole said...

Oh mah golly! That's so yummy! I remember in my childhood, we used to go to shell picking by the sea, then we like to hunt for small crabs and I remember eating soft shelled crabs, those are sweet and juicy. How much more if it came from a restaurant.

dropin by with my FTF sis.

Unknown said...

oh gawd! i must be dreaming of soft-shelled crabs! the bird garnish is cute.:p

darly said...

hmmm sarap. must be expensive

Have a great weekend, my entry is up too.

♥ Willa @ Postage Journal♥ said...

Sarap naman ng pinagpiyestahan nyo at may bago na naman pala kayong recruit na member, lol!

mommy Orkid Belle said...

That looks really interesting! I bet it was good. I don't think I had that before, but I remembered when my husband and I were in Pinas and we went to a mall's food court and they had this whole fried crabs that you can eat the whole thing, shell and all. It was small that everything was just edible. Thanks for sharing!

I bet you guys had a great time. That is so nice you get to hang out with friends. :)

Adin B

shydub said...

These are yummy foodies. following and visting through TBE

Family & Life Online
efashiontalk.com
Food & Drink Fusion

Jenn said...

That is so interesting! Wish I could see some like that, too.


my Food Trip Friday post

cheerful said...

its also my fave sa champs, thanks to jo for introducing it to us! hehehe! :) but still i wanted to bring home that carrot bird. :)

Gizelle said...

ruined my diet! lol. Will be back to check on your new post...but i surely love this one!