Would you like it braised or grilled?

Asians eat almost everything. We push the envelope of strange eats. Fish head? Fantastic; the cheek is the best part of the fish. Fish eyes? Yup, love suckin' the juice out of 'em. Chicken feet? Yum, great for making soup.

Waku Ghin's Tasmanian abalone with fregola and tomato

Do we even find anything strange anymore? Yup, throwing a fresh abalone on a grill. Now that's strangely different. For the uninitiated, an abalone is a type of sea snail. A delicacy in some parts of the world. Most of the time, we braise (canned) abalone or sometimes, we use them to cook porridge. But throwing a fresh abalone on a grill is most uncommon if not, almost unheard of. We didn't think it would even taste good, until we tried it at Waku Ghin in Marina Bay Sands.

We were just blown away by the taste and texture.

Terence's take on Waku Ghin's dish

And so Terence tried to replicate it at home on our BBQ. Our guests have never heard of grilling (or BBQ-ing) a fresh abalone, and they were pleasantly surprised that it tough or overly chewy. (Terence cooked chicken stock instead of a tomato-based stock that was used in Waku Ghin's dish.) The abalone wasn't all that expensive either; we bought ours at S$10 a piece.

So game for grilled fresh abalone anyone?