Yummy yummy seafood!!

We're in Zhuhai, China - a peninsula located across from the island of Macau. We're making a pit stop to relax at my dad's beach facing apartment for a couple of days before heading out to Beijing for some Olympic events.

Last night, we went to seafood street. The fishermen set up their catches for the day there and you can buy all sorts of shellfish, shrimp, fish and seafood from the fishermen. The street was surprisingly clean and the vendors have an interesting set up. In very clean (to the eye) saltwater bins, they tuck in an air tube to bubble oxygen into the water. Each of the bins have 1-2 slotted plastic rectangular strainers holding the seafood, so the vendor just pulls the second container out of the water to strain out the items that you're looking at.

My dad was out of control - he bought 4lbs of shrimp (tiger prawns, thumbsplitter (or peacock praying mantis shrimp) and regular shrimp). We also got scallops, blue crab, rock cod, clams, knife clams and baby abalone.

After we bought all of our seafood, we walked to one of the nearby restaurants that line the street. They're all set up specifically for the seafood street. You put your seafood into a bin that they pull out for you as you sit down, and then tell them how you want them to prepare your food.

My favorities for the evening were the thumbsplitter shrimps (quickly fried in seasoned salt in the shells - they tasted like sweet crayfish or lobster), sauteed black bean garlic clams, and sauteed knife clams. YUM!!

The seafood cost us roughly 500 RMB and the cooking of the meal, with the addition of two plates of veggies and steamed/fried man tao (chinese sweet bread), cost us 300 RMB (Ren Men Bi). A really good seafood meal for 6 people for roughly $130 USD total. Not bad, huh?

I wish I brought my camera to take pictures. It was raining pretty hard and I forgot to bring my purse since my dad said I didn't need it. Darn it!! =)