Tonight we had Hairy Crab at the Dragon-i restaurant in 1-Utama!

For a long time already Aric wanted to taste this Shanghai/Hongkong specialty and when we noticed that the Dragon-i restaurant had a Shanghai Hairy Crab promotion, we decided to have a big splurge. Because even as a promotion those critters are expensive.

Here they are, flown in directly from China. You can see why they are called hairy. Their size is quite small, each crab is on average ~180 grams

The menu started with dumplings, filled with crab meat. A Shanghai delicacy, the dumpling has some soup(!) inside, you must eat them very carefully, otherwise the (hot!) soup will spill on your clothes and /or burn your mouth..:-)

Next was a soup of chicken with fish maw. In general I don’t like this fish bladder (too fishy taste), but this was very nice, no fish taste at all.

Then it was time for the main dish. Four crabs were presented on our table with the accompanying tools. Would we like to dissect them ourselves, asked the waitress, or should she do it for us. We are both experienced crab eaters, but this time we thought it better to let her do it. And that was a good decision.

It’s a pity that I was too shy to take a picture while she, with surgical precision, dismembered the crabs, unshielded them, removed unedible parts, and finally arranged the rest in the form of a crab again. Amazing and already worth the money…:-)

The signature feature of these crabs is the roe inside. That’s why you will see them on the menu only in certain times of the year. Sinfully delicious.

The next two dishes were fried rice with, yes, crab meat and broccoli in a sauce of, sure,  crab as well.

We could not finish the rice, so we asked to put what was left over, in a doggie bag. In Europe I would not dare to do it, but here in Asia is it very common,even in posh restaurants. The final dish was a desert with dumplings filled with sesame in a ginger soup.

For sure not a very healthy dinner, but extremely enjoyable!