Filipino GIANT LOBSTER & MASSIVE FRIED FISH Feast! Local FISH MARKET TOUR in Dubai

Hey guys, Mike Chen here in Dubai and today I'm at the Waterfront Fish Market. This is a fairly new fish market situated right in front of the waters and when you walk in, everything is so tidy, it's clean and pretty much anything you want to eat out of the ocean, they're gonna have it there. Today I'm hanging out with my friends at Paludo Seafood, they're gonna take me to the fish market, show me around, get some delicious seafood, cook it and well, I'm just gonna eat. I think it's gonna be a fun day. And we have Ronald, RJ and Chef Simon with us. So we're gonna go pick out some seafood now and then they're gonna cook it. This is a giant seafood market. Is this a range anyway or is there like a shellfish section, a regular fish section, it's just mixed? It's just mixed. So fish come in, when, every day? Every single day. What is a well-known seafood item here in the UAE? Is that a fish? Lobster. And the gulf lobster, it's different, right? It's spiny? Yeah, it's spiny. With no clumps. No claws. Yeah, no claws. Yeah. Oh. Wow. That's a giant fish. I'll put some stuffing over that and we'll grill it. Some stuffed squid. Oh wow, okay. We just got the first fish, which is the specialty here. Now we're going to get some, what are we going, lobster? Lobster and salmon. Okay. Yeah, so basically people just come here and then they just shop here. This is like a giant supermarket basically, a seafood supermarket. They check out over there and then they go to, the market will clean the fish for you and then they'll take it to your restaurant. The customer will wait there after cleaning, they bring it to our restaurant. And then they bring it to the restaurant and then you guys cook it whatever way. Whatever way they want, fried, with the sauce. Yeah, so basically you're getting as fresh as you can get. This is the freshest that we can get. Yeah, that's great. The price of the seafood here is very good. You will save a lot of money. Do they do anything where they're like, oh, if you're not local, we're going to charge you more? No, no, no. None? It's the same price for everybody. If you are good in bargaining, you'll get a good deal here. Get a good price? Yeah. What do we got here? Whoa. That is a giant lobster. Oh my gosh. That's the meat. That's good? Yeah, it's very good. That's a giant prawn. So you bring the seafood here. Go to the station and choose what type of cooking you will do in here. Do you have a menu of the types of cooking or how do they choose? So you have all the different types of cooking in this menu and then just tell them what you want. That's exciting. All right, I'm going to go grab a seat. They're going to take care of the cooking. I'm just going to eat whatever comes to the table. There's two kitchens here. This one's for grilling. The other one is for pretty much everything else. So we're going to blanch these first. So we got some ginormous tiger prawns here. And we got a lobster from the Gulf region here. This local lobster. Look at this. This thing is a sea monster. And then it's going to another kitchen where it's going to get cooked. Oh my goodness. What? This is just the craziest fish I've ever seen in my life. Wow. Head to toe covered in sweet and sour sauce. The whole fish is deep fried. And this is the local hamor fish. Very, very popular around this area. I just never seen something this big before. The second dish just came out. This is the stir fried lobster with the tiger prawns. And this is all in lemon herb sauce. And also corn mussels. Crab as well. Oh my goodness. Senegal. Very nice. Really popular Filipino soup with the salmon fish that we got. I've had many, many seafood feasts before. I'm still just speechless with this amount of seafood sitting in front of me. This is the hamor fish. And it's 7 kilos. So about 15 pounds monster fish. Look at the mouth. I don't know whether I'm about to eat this thing or this thing is about to eat me. If I see this thing swimming towards me, I am fleeing the opposite direction. And this is covered again. Sweet and sour sauce, deep fried. Wow. Perfectly crispy on the outside. Look at this fish glisten though. Right beneath the crunchy skin. The meat is flaky. It's breaking off. I still can't get over how giant this fish is. Look at the teeth on this sucker. Oh, this is delicious. The skin, ever so crispy. Fried perfectly. And inside, the meat is so flaky and succulent. Not a lot of bones on this fish either. And the flavor is so mild. Which pairs perfectly with that sweet and sour sauce. I can definitely see why this fish is a local favorite. My favorite is always going for the fish cheeks. Right here. That is the most tender part of the fish. Get some of that meat out. You can see the juice flowing in the meat. That's the best part of the fish. And every single bite, no matter what piece of fish you break off, it's always going to have that great crispy outer skin. The sweet and sour sauce, I love sweet and sour for fish. And the style of this fish is kind of like the squirrel fish in Chinese cooking. Which is also deep fried in sweet and sour sauce. And the great thing about this sauce is that it flavors the outside skin perfectly. But at no time does it ever cover up the great mild flavor of the fish itself. And also what I love about deep fried fish, if you feel like a little change in texture, just go to the fin or tail. Break a little piece off. Fish chip. Do not waste that. I mean, you can get fish chips from any store in a plastic bag. It's not going to taste anywhere close to how good that is. Alright, next up. Oh my goodness. This is just, this is what I'm saying. This place is so overwhelming. Giant gulf lobster. Corn, tiger prawns, mussels. And before I eat this, I really, I need a bowl of sinigang. Probably my favorite soup in the Philippines. And this is made with just the freshest salmon you can find. Sinigang is a really popular Filipino sour soup. And this thing, chunks of fresh salmon, river spinach, some eggplant, okra in here as well, chilies, onions, that is so good. I miss this soup when I don't have it. It's sour, and so amazingly hearty. The sourness is made from tamarind. That itself is such a great flavor. With the tender, fresh salmon in here, you get that great fish flavor inside the broth. Texture is fantastic with a bit of sweetness from the tomatoes. And that nice crunch from the river spinach. I should have ate this soup first because sour soups have this characteristic where if you eat it before a meal, it actually makes you hungrier. So I don't know if it's this or that delicious looking spicy lobster sitting in front of me. I'm just getting hungrier and hungrier as I eat. This is one of the best soups in the world. It's such a hearty soup. You just feel so warm and satisfied after eating that. Alright, let's get into this. And fresh as they come. In a lemon herb sauce. First of all, let's just do this prawn. It's about, I'd say, pound and a half, two pounds. I always like to break off the head. Right there. As meaty as the prawn is and as delicious as that meat is, this is the best part. Oh, this one has some roe in here. I'm just gonna dig deep because that's where all that good stuff is. Best part of the prawn. Right here. A bit of that sweet prawn meat with just a great umami flavor of the head and the innards. I mean, this thing, it's just like eating a prawn sundae. It's just filled with natural sweetness. And of course, that natural umami that comes from deep inside the head of the prawn. It's a travesty if you come here and get this and don't eat what's inside the noggin. Oh, that lemon herb sauce is delicious. This is Dubai, of course. Land of herbs and spices and they do not disappoint by adding so much of that in here. There's some cumin in there, some smokiness from the paprika. This is just ridiculous. Most of the weight of the prawn comes from the body right here. This is a heavy, heavy, heavy prawn. Remove the shells. Oh my gosh. Look at this. This is one of the most beautifully meaty things you could ever hope to eat. I'm gonna just dunk as much as I can into that sauce. I basically had to unhinge my jaw before this thing would fit in my mouth. So much natural sweetness that's in these tiger prawns. Mix it with that lemon herb sauce. Just highlights its natural sweetness. It's more buttery. The citrus from the lemon balances out the flavor with a sip of synagogue. Personally, I feel like all seafood is just better when you chase it with the soup. There's also blue crab in here. There's mussels. And we haven't got to this lobster here. Oh my gosh. Look at this giant lobster. Holy moly. And these lobsters don't have claws but they have giant, meaty antennas. I'm gonna move straight to the tail. And there's lobster rolling here as well. Oh my gosh. Look at that giant piece of tail. Let's go ahead and dip some of that back into the lemon herb sauce. That's just so incredibly sweet. And the lobster is the sweetest of them all. Sweet with a slight bit of brininess which makes it taste even sweeter. That's the freshest, best bite of seafood I've had in a while. I've been concentrating so much on the fish and the giant Poseidon feast-esque plate in front of me. There's other seafood here. Fresh scallops baked with cheese, herbs, scallions. I think scallops with cheese may be something that most people may never have tried. Trust me, try it. Couple things I love when it comes to seafood. Lobster with cheese, scallops with cheese. I know a lot of people are like, don't ruin the natural sweetness, natural taste of the seafood. Savory, melty cheese. It just makes the sweet seafood better. It really does. There's also calamari. Oh, I freaking love this. So amazingly good. Outside, extremely crispy. Inside, extremely tender. A lot of times I go to places, I see fried calamari on the menu. It's a hard pass for me. Because a lot of times, the outside comes out really soggy. The inside is kind of rubbery. Not this. I highly recommend getting this when you come here. That is such a nice crunch. And this thing's been sitting on my table for about 15 minutes. Still retains that beautiful crunch. And that great sweet tenderness inside. Look at this. Stuffed giant squid. Oh wow. As I'm cutting this, I can smell the char from the grill. And let's see what's inside. Tomatoes, onions, some peppers. Oh. That's awesome. So it's way more complicated than what I just saw when I first cut this open. Inside, besides the gentle tender squid. So when you get past the tender squid on the outside, inside is stuffed with crunchy onions. Kick of the ginger. Sweet lump juice from the tomatoes. Fragrant from the scallions. All that combined with that deliciously clean flavor of the squid. And just the flavor profile of that, I've never experienced before. This is an utter delight. I think overall, today's experience, this is so cool. First of all, I said this about Dubai a lot. There's so many beautiful locations. And this restaurant is looking over the waters where the boats are literally coming in. When you're getting your seafood, I mean, as fresh as you can get them from the seafood market out back. You pick out whatever seafood you want. You bring the seafood back here. You cook it in whatever style you want. There's farm to table. This is definitely ocean to table. And you get it made in such delicious flavors. While, if you want to be sitting outside, looking at the ocean. This is a great place. If you have a family, a group of friends come here, this place will make you happy. For sure. I mean, it made me really happy. This must be what Poseidon eats every single day. You know, if Poseidon decided to eat his friends. Also, a big shout out to everybody who works here. Everybody's so courteous. Incredibly nice. So helpful. Helping me pick out the seafood. Pick out the flavors. That's one of the best seafood feeds I've had in a long, long time. Everything's so incredible. I definitely recommend. If you're in Dubai, come try this place out. Of course, I'll put information for this place down in the description box below for you guys. Thank you all so much for watching. Until we eat again, see you later.