Chinese Style Alaskan King Crab

I recently went on a trip to SFO to visit family. The last time I was up there was in January so everyone was pretty excited that I was coming. My family decided to go out for a special dinner of Alaskan king crab at ABC Seafood Restaurant. The crab is only available a few weeks out of the year so my relatives get pretty excited whenever it is available.

Perhaps the most common way people think of eating Alaskan king crab is to steam it and just have at the legs. The Chinese style of eating it involves three ways of eating one crab. Nothing goes to waste and the entire crab is eaten when the meal is done.

The crab is presented live at your table. If you accept it they will take it away back in to the kitchen to be prepared for your dinner.

10 lb Alaskan king crab

Part 1

The legs are open faced and steamed over a bed of thin rice noodles. Garnishes include green onion and a vegetable that I honestly forget the name of (Who cares if it tastes good?). The noodles are a key ingredient to this dish. As the legs are steamed, the juices from the crab are soaked up by the noodles. This results in noodles that are just as tasty as the crab itself that you can slurp right up. 

Steamed crab legs

Part 2

The meat in the body is broken apart, battered, and deep fried. You can also choose the type of batter that the crab meat is fried in. For this particular dinner my uncle chose a batter that translates as "golden sand." Sounds cool right? The "golden sand" batter contains duck egg yolk and some other things. The taste is a slightly salty and yes, sandy kind of texture in your mouth similar to a red apple. I personally prefer the salt and pepper batter. My aunts and uncles though prefer the golden sand batter. Perhaps it is an acquired taste. 

Deep fried crab meat

Part 3

Now there are some juicy remains, leftover meat, and the head shell. All of this is used to bake a curry seafood rice. I'll say it again. Curry. Seafood. Rice. After the legs this is my most favorite part of the king crab dinner. Sadly I only had one bowl if it because there were so many of us. It is exactly as delicious as it sounds so I'll just let the photo do the talking.

Baked curry seafood rice in Alaska king crab shell

And of course, no dinner is complete without a dessert. We got to have some egg yolk buns and black sesame dumplings (YUM!).

Dessert

ABC Seafood Restaurant

973 E Hillsdale Blvd

Foster City, CA 94404

(650) 328-2288