Four Fine Fish

A few exotic creatures that find their way to the dining table.

- Sim Ee Waun

Asia is the largest consumer of seafood in the world. Not only is seafood integral to the cuisines of these parts, culinary cultures here have elevated the cooking of seafood into art forms over hundreds of years of culinary evolution. Weaved into all this has always been a fascination for the exotic—from slurping up still-squirming octopus in Korea to braising sea slugs in China. And while fish may be the most mainstream of seafood, in Asia, there is that desire still for the largest, most elusive, most unusual, most beautiful and most odd. Here, we explore four unusual fish that find their way to dining tables in Asia, celebrated for various reasons.

EMPURAU

The name 'empurau' has a certain ring to it. It captures a sense of the reverence connoisseurs have for this handsome fish. That it is also reputed to put up a fearsome fight when caught adds to the romance of the hunt, and makes the prize all the more valuable when finally in hand.

A native to the fast-flowing, upstream rivers of Sarawak in East Malaysia, the shimmering, gold-hued empurau is rarely seen on the menus of Singapore. But when it does feature, it fetches a formidable price tag of almost $1,000 per kilogram. Not just a status symbol in a feast, empurau is appreciated for its firm, sweetly flavoured flesh which comes from its diet of wild local figs or buah kabong, which drop from overhanging branches into the river. A confluence of this diet and the environment it lives in gives the fish a "unique fruit fragrance, smooth, delicate flesh and a firm texture", says executive chef Li Kwok Kwong of Cantonese fine dining restaurant Feng Shui Inn at Resorts World Sentosa.