Steamed Lobsters with Lemon Butter Sauce

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Simply luxurious. Steamed lobsters served with a lemon butter sauce. Served outdoors for an evening meal under some trees lit up with fairy lights on a balmy night in Coron town proper. A trip to the market in the late afternoon yielded these baby (they really shouldn’t harvest them this small, nor should I buy them, which would encourage them to do it again) rock or reef lobsters. Apparently they had been caught with much larger relatives but all the big lobsters were purchased just minutes before by the chef of one of the local hotels, so we decided to get the smaller ones anyway… at the stunningly amazing price of PHP400 per kilo (these are sometimes PHP1,800-2000 per kilo live in Manila’s seaside market in Baclaran!). They only had 3/4 of a kilo so for PHP300 we got roughly 4 or 5 small lobsters.

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Back at the hotel, we steamed the lobsters for just a few minutes then split them open with a sharp knife. We melted some butter (not so easy to find in Coron, only ONE store actually carries real butter) and added some freshly squeezed lemon juice and this was the perfect sauce for the lobster. It was really more like an amuse bouche or a plate tickler as there wasn’t much for a party of 7, but that made it even more special. We had a wonderful lobster dinner the LAST time we were in Coron, here, and this is something that I look forward to having at least once on every trip to the area until it is inevitably run over by busloads of tourists in the years to come…

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32 Responses

  1. If I were from one of the Govt agencies…I would surely visit your site every day to find photographic evidence of people trespassing with endangered species no need to patrol the endless coastlines. Why can’t the Barangay capitans be held responsible ?

    Dont tell me it is so corrupt out there.

  2. While on vacation in Batanes last year, we purchased the same type of fresh lobsters in the Basco public market, but bigger ones, for P300 per kilo. And the vendor was gracious enough to steam them free for us and deliver them to our lodge. In the absence of butter and garlic, we had to make do with calamansi and soy sauce. And it still was a delicious treat! (Note: if one would like to bring home slightly-steamed lobsters, vendors will also arrange packing them in styro box sealed by masking tape; you only have to pay for the cost of packing materials).

  3. Oooh, lobster! But that’s the only thing I can say. It’s illegal to catch lobster from the Oslofjord. We did catch one when we had a couple of crab pots, we had to kiss it goodbye.
    Isn’t it illegal to catch lobster in the Philippines, too?.

  4. I hope I can buy those babies during our stay (flying there Thursday). We’re staying a bit far from Coron town. Moan! Groan!*:(

  5. I can remember when I was young how my mother’s friend used to gift us so much lobster from Sorsogon. Our freezer overflowed with lobster even after we’d have eaten a lot upon their arrival. Unfortunately, today, they no longer are in abundance there and I hear prices have zoomed away. I hope that in places where they still abound, people will not ‘over-harvest’ them lest they disappear for good.

  6. They look like French lobsters (or me most times), clawless. What do they call them? Are they members of the same team or the spotting just gender signifier?

  7. footloose, I know that the green one with black and white stripes is a blue spiny lobster, a friend has one for a pet in his salt water aquarium (but he says they’re aggressive with others so he needs to find a home for it). I don’t know what the other ones are… either way, they are good bbq’d smeared with some compound butter!

  8. in the absence of butter you can actually make your own with a fresh cow milk. Put the milk in a jar and ask a kid to shake until the milk fat form. you’ll probably not go back to the commercial butter once you try the real homemade butter :)

  9. lobster cooked in a house-special sauce is the best. Deepfried, then cooked with oyster sauce and scallions. A chinese seafood restaurant in OC, CA has it advertised for $7.99/lb.

  10. The first time I had lobsters, I wasn’t impressed. It tasted like shrimp, albeit a bigger one. Maybe it’s time for me to try it again.

  11. Marichu, the lobsters you tasted may have been overcooked, or not particularly fresh… good lobsters are superb, though they are similar to shrimp. Risa, you are right, no clawed lobsters here in Pacific tropical waters… Medwin, that sounds like a reasonable price for a restaurant served lobster. junb, hahaha, that sounds amazing but I wasn’t about to do that for 750 grams of lobster. j. and footloose, these are all spiny lobsters, but not sure why the markings vary on the shells. atbnore, no it is not illegal to catch and consume lobsters in the Philippines to my knowledge. Phil, I would LOVE to go to Batanes, just haven’t gotten our acts together for that adventure.

  12. There are two different species here — the green one on the left is Panulirus versicolor while the one on the right is… hmmm… I think Panulirus longipes…

  13. Junb, thanks for the tip re making butter out of fresh cow’s milk. Will try it shortly.

  14. Well what do you know, we just had steamed lobsters with lemon butter sauce last Sunday at the Dampa at Macapagal :-) The lobster from Seaside Market, which weighed 1.2kilos, cost 1500. The lobster was good, albeit slightly overcooked. For 300 or 400 a kilo, we could each have a whole lobster. Yum!

  15. Missed Coron… and the lobsters…Used to go there a lot in the early 90’s… It was seafood all week since you can only buy meat once a week-on sundays..

  16. hi marketman, you must’ve read my mind! i was craving for lobsters and i’ve been meaning to go to chinatown to buy some. thanks for this!

  17. Yup I wonder why here in the phils we dont have the clawed lobsters? I also cooked a couple of lobster last month.

    Just like other crustaceans, you just have to cook them properly to maintain tenderness of the meat. I love the basic lemon butter dip/sauce for the lobsters.

  18. I was just googling some tips for steaming LARGE Lobsters when I noticed this website (thanks).

    We live close to Boston, MA (U.S.A.) and we are about to feast upon two 4.5 lb Maine Lobsters that we purchased (live) today from James Hook & Co. at the Boston waterfront.

    The 4 lb (and up) lobsters were on sale for $5.99 U.S. per lb. (roughly 600 pesos per kilo).

    My wife is from General Santos and we lived in Cebu for 2 years before moving to the U.S.A.
    We used to purchase slipper lobster from the supermarket for about 550 pesos per kilo.

    For us, the only way to prepare lobster is to steam it in salted and sweetened (with a can of Sprite or 7up soda) with seaweed in the water also. When it’s ready we crack them open and dip each piece in clarified butter (with a tiny touch of lemon juice).

    Mabuhay and enjoy!!

  19. how much is the real price or a cost of lobsters for each kilo here in philippines?
    pls, let me know more about lobsters…tnx…
    i’ll just wait for your sharings!

  20. that was great…gonna go home soon after work…coz.,this morning. i buy 1 kilo of lobster..two big lobster was cool enough for our dinner with my friend who keeps asking about it,,the price is 60 riyals(P670)..not bad coz back home,,i can’t buy one ..so expensive but so delicious….so tonight.gonna do my kitchen rumbling…
    amm as far as i could remember. our neighbor who sells lobster give us ”reject” lobster..probably broken limb,,he he or legs perhaps..

  21. There are Clawed Lobsters in the Philippines, Back in the 1990’s i used to see fishermen carrying big Clawed lobsters in their baskets. I believe there is still existing Clawed lobsters in the wild specificaly in the souther luzon, Philippines.

    I have to confirm on my vacation this coming December 2011.

  22. My favorite seafood stores in Los Angeles (Santa Monica Seafood) and in New York (The Lobster House in Chelsea Market or Eataly) sells lobsters for around 1500 pesos per kilo, but my older son, Jeffrey, who is always on the lookout for a bargain, turned me on to a store in Chinatown in New York where it’s half that. We either steam it and douse it with butter and lemon juice or Jeffrey stir fries the lobsters with garlic, ginger and scallions and splashes it with soy sauce. Sometimes, I make lobster rolls…my cholesterol level is going up as I write this…

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