Crab delights in North Norfolk - Cookie's Crab Shop

The windswept North Norfolk coast is a popular spot for bird-watchers and Islington residents in search of a weekend away. From the Victorian resort town of Hunstanton in the West to Cromer in the East, the coast is a fascinating and hard-to-find place. The sea and land seem to merge in a series of shallows, dunes, flat lands and lagoons – a haven for a vast range of seabirds including the rare bittern. The coast road is a mile or two back from the sea for most of the time, and towns with names like Wells-Next-The-Sea are very well named. The sea is indeed next…after a while. The visitor centre at Cley Marshes affords an excellent place to find out more, as well as being an impressive example of sustainable and low-impact development.

Cookie’s Crab Shop is on the coast road in the small village of Salthouse (what more seasidy name could there be?). And it’s a good half mile from the sea. It could well be called Cookies-Next-The-Sea though – this is the last bastion of civilisation before the dunes and reedbeds. Cookie’s has been in business since 1956, when Peter Cooke (father of current proprietor Suzanne and her husband Robert Mcknespiey) set up in this tiny cottage by the road and facing the North Sea. From just supplying crabs, the enterprise has spread out into the garden and now features clusters of tables in a summerhouse, a gazebo and in the open air as well as inside the shop.

This is a down-home as it can possible get – and much the better for it. Suzanne and Robert look after cooking and picking the crabs and prawns, making pates and soups and source their other supplies locally. You order at the counter and take a seat to await the arrival of the goodies. And what goodies they are! I started with a warming prawn bisque (this being a chilly October lunchtime), which featured lots of prawns as well as a hint of spice. Just the ticket. My sister’s prawn and garlic pate may have been the most garlicy thing we’ve ever tasted. In a good way.

But the real treat is the arrival of the Royal salads. This is Cookies flagship dish, and mine featured crab as the main ingredient. The delicious dressed crab even came with a smiley face (as you can see in the picture). Not only crab, but also…(deep breath) hot smoked salmon, smoked mackerel in three different guises including pepper and chilli, crayfish tails, anchovy fillets (yum), cockles, pickled herring with delicious sauce, prawns… and beetroot, potato salad, tomatoes, cucmber, bread, mayonnaise, lemon and lime wedges. What a fantastic spread, a real cornucopia of the best of what’s around in the British autumn. The cost? A ridiculous £6.30. The best value ever. No wonder Stephen Fry wrote in the Independent recently that this coast, and Cookie’s in particular, is his favourite place in the British Isles.

Cookie’s is a real king amongst seafood shacks. Get over there at once. Cookie’s Crab Shop, http://www.cookies.shopkeepers.co.uk/, 01263 740352 (and it’s worth calling to reserve a table).

Singapore Swing II - bargain Japanese in Orchard Road

One of the great Singapore features are food courts and hawker centres. These places can easily feature 30 - 40 different outlets or stalls, each specialising in a particular cuisine, food type or even dish. There will also be a dessert stand, a fruits stand (in Singlish the plural of fruit is fruits - obvious really), a drinks place with juices, and lots more. These are sometimes found in neigbourhood settings - in Singapore everyone basically eats out all the time and why not, when you can get a great meal for $Sing 4 (about £1.60). However, they also crop up in upmarket places - including the bustling Orchard Road, mecca for shopping (the other national sport for Singaporeans apart from eating).

The Food Republic centre in the Wisma Atria, Orchard Road, is one of our favourite places to catch a bite after some exhuasting electronics shopping and book browsing in the excellent and well-stocked branch of Borders at Wheelock Place. There are dozens of places there, with a good emphasis on Malay food and lots of choice...but somehow we always end up at the Koh Grill & Sushi Bar. This is a Japanese eatery, with a counter to sit at or tables for larger parties. Behind the counter are a small army of chefs preparing sushi, rice, frying, broiling and generally preparing some excellent and bargain Japanese food.

We started with a selection of sashimi (sliced raw fish) including some unusual items - raw prawns (really raw, translucent and not at all pink), and sliced clam. Yummy, and not at all easy to find. You can of course get more regular items like salmon, squid, umagi (eel) etc. We followed up with wonderful bento box meals - mine featured grilled salmon, tempura prawns in delicate light better, tempura veggies, rice and tofu with pickles. These set meals are fanstastic value, arouen $Sing 14 - about five English pounds. There are lots of different options too, including sukiyaki, teriyaki chicken and salmon, plenty of help in working out what's what and a range of sakis and cold Japanese beers to wash it all down.

This is not, of course, a place for a relaxing and intimate dinner. It's a bustling place with people coming and going, action all the time and a great spot for food on the way home or indeed on the way out. A great way to get some fine Japanese good at bargain prices right in the heart of the shopping area - and therefore a really good example of a top Seafoodshack! Koh Grill & Sushi Bar, Wisma Atria, #4-21 (Food Republic), tel 65-6836 0609. No website, just drop in and eat.

Singapore swing I - Chilli crab at Jumbo Seafood

We were passing through Singapore last week running some workshops in team coaching and change management. I've visited the Lion City quite a number of times in recent years, and the food is always a highlight - you can get just about anything, particularly Asian food, at great prices and in surroundings anywhere from palatial to pavement. Our hosts Debbie and Dave were good enough to welcome us off the plane from London and take us straight for a great Singapore food tradition - chilli crab.

This dish has become something of a national symbol over Lee Kuan Yew era. Mr Lee, the first leader of independent Singapore from 1959 until he stepped down in 1990, is still alive and takes on the role of Minister Mentor. He took to eating chilli crab on Singapore's national day, 9 August, at one of the seafood restaurants on East Coast Road. One of the leaders amongst the many seafood places along this stretch, which links downtown to the airport, is Jumbo Seafood.

Founded in 1987, Jumbo has become the leading up-market seafood restaurant group in Singapore. They now have seven outlets, including the one on the Kallang river near the Indoor Stadium we visited. Having ordered a jug of cold cold Tiger beer (another Singapore tradition - it's more convenient to have a jug a several cold glassses!), out hosts ordered the food. We nibbled on peanuts and chilli & ginger sauce and waited for the first food to arrive. This was deep fried fresh baby squid, marinated with oyster sauce, sprinkled with sesame seeds and served over crispy noodles. These 'crunchy squidlets' as we called them were really delicious - much tastier than they sound, about the size of a thumbnail, and very tasty - an ideal starter!

More dishes arrived - sliced beef fillet with pepper, kailan (green vegetable) with garlic, prawns in cereal (lovely shell-off prawns covered in a dry flaky mixture of cereal - to go with yummy sweet sauce). The sun went down, evening fell, we sat by the river in the heat as the skyline of downtown lit up about a mile away, just the other side of the Formula 1 pits area (the Grand Prix has been in town two days earlier).

And the the piece de resistance....the chilli crab. This comprises, basically, an enormous crab! In this case a King crab from Sri Lanka. Cooked. Cracked (with still with work to do). And smothered in the most delicious sweet, hot, sticky chilli sauce with egg stirred into it. Mmmmmm. This is served, as is traditional, with steamed buns, delicious white and soft, with which to mop up the sauce. (I only wish these were more absorbent - they are delicious but hardly serve the purpose!) Crackers are provided, the crab is split into large pieces and everyone pitches in. Prizing the delicious crab meat out of the shell while getting your fingers (and possibly much else) covered in chilli sauce is really what it's all about. It's worth taking care by the way - on a previous occasion I spilt some sauce on a nice cotton shirt and the stain proved totally permanent.

Jumbo Seafood is at East Coast Road, Indoor Stadium, Riverside Point (near the excellent Brewerkz brew pub), the Riverwalk and other locations. More information at http://www.jumboseafood.com.sg/.