he picked crustacean which is an asian seafood restaurant (vietnamese) specializing in crab and garlic noodles. my co-workers and friends were raving about it. since paul and i have never dined there before, we decided to give it a shot. parking is expensive and difficult to find anywhere in downtown san francisco. we valet parked our car for $9 which is not that expensive. we go up an old, slooooooooow elevator to get to the dining area. and boy! was i disappointed! the place is ancient and in desperate need of an over haul! still, i thought to myself that i should not judge a book by its cover. given i saw a number of people so early in the evening, there must be something about the place that draws the crowd. we were seated at a corner of the restaurant which is what i prefer. paul and i already had an idea what we were going to get. for appetizers, we had the grilled calamari and the mussels. they were both good, garlic-y, buttery and sweet. but i don't think they're worth the price we paid for them. $10.95 for 5 pieces of mussels, $10.95 for 6 pieces of small squid.
for our entree` we had the roast crab and tiger prawns with garlic noodles. now, this is what this restaurant is famous for. paul and i were prepared to be blown away by these dishes. i was told the prawns were as big as the palm of the hand that you'd think they were miniature lobsters on your plate. behold!!! they were just the larger-than-average shrimp we buy at manila oriental in south san francisco! my shrimp stayed in the oven 30 minutes longer than it should. i can't even bring myself to call them prawns anymore since they were tiny! the shrimp was tough and dry.
the crab, well, pretty much all of the dungeness crabs i've met and ate have all been decent sizes and last night's was no exception. we read in one of the reviews that the crab served there are frozen crab. i went to the restaurant not believing what i read. after all, this is san francisco. we would NEVER be served frozen dungeness crab when our bay abounds with these delicious critters. but whoa! the crab is indeed frozen! paul asked me, 'how do you know it was frozen when they serve it to you cooked?' see, my husband has never gone crabbing on the san francisco bay (we'll take him crabbing in november). so he has not tasted the sweetness of ultra fresh crab meat caught fresh from the pacific ocean. we go crabbing almost every season and bring home buckets of dungeness crab. (ooops! bawal nga pala manghuli ng dungeness unless you're a commercial fisherman!) my mom cooks the crab as soon as we get home to maintain its freshness and since i love crab, i could not resist eating one or two before going to bed. I KNOW WHAT FRESH CRAB TASTES LIKE! what we had last night was not fresh crab!
on to the garlic noodles which i expected to be so good because the recipe is kept under lock and key in their famous "secret kitchen". bleh! paul said, and these were his very words, "lasang lucky me pancit canton!" ha! my husband is not difficult to please when it comes to food. he does not cook. for him to say that the noodles taste like something he can buy from a filipino grocery store for a buck means something. the noodles are plain 'pancit canton' noodles soaked in butter, garlic and sugar. that's it. no veggies, no meat, nothing. just the noodles, plain and simple.
see, all the dishes we tried tasted the same. ingredients: butter (lots of butter!), garlic, and sugar. doesn't matter if it's squid, or mussels, or crab, or shrimp, or noodles....the only ingredients are butter, garlic and sugar.
for dessert, we had fried banana with ice cream and mango cheesecake. i was not given enough ice cream for my fried banana and the mango cheesecake tasted like the sara lee cheesecake you can buy at the supermarket. the extra work they did was to top it with diced mangoes and strawberries. nothing fancy.
i guess, after you read all i said above, it will come as no surprise if i say i am not spending my hard earned money in that restaurant again. I AM NOT SPENDING MY HARD EARNED MONEY AT CRUSTACEAN AGAIN.
everything we ate, i could have cooked at home for a fraction of the cost. i guess, non-asians don't really know what good asian food tastes like. i think, it's the prices that drives people there. jack up the price and give these americans a taste of the 'exotic' and they will buzz about it. i told my co-workers the food was good so that we don't burst their bubble. they were RAVING about it! serious raving! they seem to really like the restaurant so i don't want to get on their nerves by saying that i did not like the food. these people have not been to dampa or mandaragat or seaside where they can really appreciate fresh, delicious seafood. makes me proud of the philippines even more!
paul and i left the restaurant feeling robbed but with a full stomach. (yes, it was highway robbery, plain and simple) nabusog kami because we had to eat the food we were paying so much money for. given we were not happy with the food, it was still abeautiful evening for both of us. it was our 2nd anniversary and i could not have asked for a better food critic partner than my husband.
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i just have to say this: don't eat at crustacean! you pay me, i'll cook it for you! =)
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