Lobster King Coron, Palawan- Reliving a childhood food memory

I love lobsters. When I was a young girl, I remember being served one cooked in butter in one of our vacations in Ilocos. Its meat had this fresh, sweet taste that complemented the creaminess of the butter well. That was my first memory of eating lobster since then I have tried to re-capture the same gustatory experience in every lobster I tried.

Many years have passed but I still have yet to re-capture that lobster experience until I went to Lobster King in Coron, Palawan. I have eaten lobsters in the past but some had a bland taste while some had a not so pleasant aftertaste whichever way it was cooked. So it was a delight that I had tried some good lobsters in Coron.

Lobster King is a non-aircon shack on the side of a busy street in Coron. The tricycle driver brought us there after we picked up some souvenirs. Inside Lobster King, there were some foreign tourists as well as local ones with their kids feasting on lobsters.

The waitress led us to an aquarium to let us choose what lobster we wanted to have and how many. I initially picked two small ones then changed my mind. I thought that with small ones, you can hardly get anything from the shell so I chose two medium sized ones around 300 grams each instead.

I told her to steam it in butter, garlic and some lemon. When it arrived, it looked appetizing. Sliced in half you can see it had enough meat on them with some orange lobster egg bits on the side. It tasted fresh and had that sweet taste too, almost the same flavor I remembered when I was a kid. To enhance the flavor, I dipped it in some melted butter. Of course, I used my fingers to extract off the meat out its orange shell. And together with some warm rice, this chunk of lobster meat dipped in butter was a delight. This really was the lobster king.

Another delight for me too was the lato, the seaweed with small grapelike fruits hanging on it. It tasted like part of the ocean. I can imagine eating this with my sweet lobster in an oceanfront hut. That would have been heaven. But eating these in a stall near a busy street with tourists and meandering waitresses around will do besides I’m with family so it was still a treat.

So there it is, my other favorite lobster experience after the first time I’ve tried it. It was one of my favorite parts of my Coron trip even if it rained. Speaking of rain, I think I would like to visit this town again in good weather. I want to do more snorkeling in the summer when the waters are clearer. But more than that of course, I would like to visit their Lobster King again and sample their fresh and sweet lobster 😊