Prawns

After going to Jingting’s birthday last night, where I ate a lot (think the food is not bad, maybe I’ll consider catering afterall, I think most of you, actually I know for a fact that ALL of you will be more than relieved), I had to join my dad for supper as he guilt-trip me into going.

I ate crocodile palm. Yes, it can actually be eaten. I have no idea who was the genius who actually came up with the idea of cooking it and then charge exorbitant prices for it, anyway I took a small mouthful and truly appreciated the truth of the phrase ‘tastes just like chicken’.

We also had steamboat and my dad ordered prawns. And I saw to my horror that they were still alive, waving their legs feebly in the air in a bid to stay alive. Which brings back memories of the Marina bbq steamboat which caused me to have rice-water stools and also of Prawnie, the prawn which refused to die. That time, Liang sympathized with my sympathies for Prawnie and indulged in my unfounded insistence that live prawns would emit a most horrible sound when cooked alive, so he very patiently carried out my various plots to kill Prawnie without boiling him. This time my dad just claimed that the prawns were dead and quickly removed them from my line of sight, he then indicated to the waitress and they both synchronized their movements such that whenever one of them lifted the cover a few centimeters the other would throw one of the prawns in. And just like that, in a matter of seconds, all the prawns were in. Well the prawns did not emit any sound but I did see a couple of them jump up from the soup and hit the cover with a dull thud only to fall back into their fiery grave. The kindly waitress claimed that the prawns do not have nerves so they did not suffer in their death.

I was highly traumatized, but the prawns look so good that I couldn’t resist asking my dad if I could try one.

It was indeed quite delicious.