Relax - Filipinos snap up crocodile meat

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Filipinos snap up crocodile meat

By Alastair McIndoe, Philippines correspondent , The Straits Times | Thu, Nov 26 2009

A restaurant in Manila is baiting customers to try the unfamiliar dish - if they don't like it, they don't have to pay.

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Manila - The Hai Kang Restaurant in Manila's upmarket Greenhills district has been serving crocodile meat, sauteed or in a broth, for a few months now.

As bait to get his regulars to try this unfamiliar meat here, owner Renato See tells them: 'Try it. If you don't like it, don't pay for it.' They all paid, he said.

Crocodile meat is growing in popularity in many parts of South-east Asia. The first venture in the Philippines to breed crocodiles for their meat as well as their skin started just seven months ago.

Restaurants and delicatessens are not exactly snapping it up, but more are beginning to bite, said Coral Farms operations manager Benedict Solco.

Crocodile meat is lean and high in protein, and its unobtrusive taste enables it to deeply absorb flavours from sauces and spices. The best cuts are said to be the strip loin just above the vertebrae and from the neck and and inside the tail.

A popular cliche is that the meat tastes like chewy chicken, although the texture is more complex than chewy and the flavour blander than chicken.

'We have crocodiles in the Philippines, but they have never been a food source. So people are a bit hesitant,' said Mr Solco. 'It's not like in Singapore or Thailand, which are more open to exotic meats, but we started only in February.'

Coral Farms has hatched around 3,000 crocodiles from a stock of 13,000 this year on an estate in Rizal province, a two-hour drive from Manila. The crocodiles are slaughtered at age four, when they have grown to about 2.7m.

While the Philippines is home to the world's most endangered crocodile species - Crocodylus mindorensis, or the Philippine crocodile - Coral Farms breeds the larger and more fearsome saltwater or estuarine crocodile found across South-east Asia.

'We're focusing on a few restaurants, hoping they will create some memorable dishes from crocodile meat,' said Mr Solco, adding that one delicatessen in Manila is working on a line of low-fat 'croc sausages'.

At Hai Kang Restaurant, a sizzling plate of crocodile meat sauteed with ginger and onion and served with satay sauce costs 700 pesos (S$21), about double the price of a main-course dish there.

'Our chef comes from Hong Kong and he experimented on marinating the meat before creating this dish,' said Mr See.

He believes that if crocodile meat finds a niche in the Philippines, it will be as an exotic meat for more adventurous diners.

To be sure, nobody expects it to replace lechon - a cholesterol bomb of spit-roasted suckling pig - as the nation's favourite dish.

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