Dungeness Crab/Chili Crab restos

[Kallaghan]

Hello,

New member here. Haven’t been to Sing for several years but arriving month-end with a new GF who is seafood daft, esp Dungeness Crab and Lobster. I'm planning to take her to somewhere like The Boiler but she is wondering if these places scour out all the brown meat on the shell? Any tips welcome.

Me, I'll be happy to go back to Fatty's up at
Albert Street

K
Kallaghan

[MelissaK]

What do you mean by brown meat on the shell? Crab meat is all edible! Have a good meal

[Kallaghan]

She tells me that last time she got Dungeness crab (in the States) the shell was full of garnish.

Anyway, she'll soon find out. Any pointers to good, non-rip-off restos welcome.

K.

[malcontent]

She tells me that last time she got Dungeness crab (in the States) the shell was full of garnish.

Anyway, she'll soon find out. Any pointers to good, non-rip-off restos welcome.

K.

How do you know her?

[Lisafuller]

Hello,

New member here. Haven’t been to Sing for several years but arriving month-end with a new GF who is seafood daft, esp Dungeness Crab and Lobster. I'm planning to take her to somewhere like The Boiler but she is wondering if these places scour out all the brown meat on the shell? Any tips welcome.

Me, I'll be happy to go back to Fatty's up at
Albert Street

K
Kallaghan

I'm partial to no signboard seafood. Mellben seafood is also pretty great.

[Lisafuller]

What do you mean by brown meat on the shell? Crab meat is all edible! Have a good meal

Was confused by this too haha, if the meat is actually brown the crab is probably not fresh.

[Lisafuller]

She tells me that last time she got Dungeness crab (in the States) the shell was full of garnish.

Anyway, she'll soon find out. Any pointers to good, non-rip-off restos welcome.

K.

Was it a seafood boil of some sort? Here the crab is usually served in shell, so there's almost no chance of that happening.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Something clicked. I've been crabbing and cooking & eating crabs since I was old enough to drag a basket in an innertube with a dipnet and walking through the seagrasses catching them. (eventually as I got older then used a boat with trotlines about half a km long. Anyway, depending on where you grew up in crab territory different things have different local names or references. So, dwelling on this for a while I think I might have figured out what is being referenced here.

If you take a crab that is within, say, one week of molting (shedding its shell and becomes the real delicacy for the crab aficionado for a couple of hours before the new shell hardens - normally called a softcrab ), when you pull off the top shell there will be a soft shell inside the hardshell. If the crab is boiled or steamed (my style) whole then when you pulled off the shell the soft shell is there inside the hard top shell and is excellent eating. Having said that when you cook a crab you will notice the colour change of the topshell from green to a reddish-brownish colour. Well, the inner soft topshell also turns the same colour as it has the same colour characteristics as the shell it would have replaced. The is probably the brownish meat that our OP is referring to.

Steamed Mangrove Crabs (local chilicrab crab) and the way we eat them at home (cannot afford to to this here all that often as we can demolish about 2 dozen at one sitting (between me & Son & Daughter) When we do it, we usually go out to Senoko to the Wharves and buy direct from the middleman but still rather expensive as we don't eat anything else but crabs and maybe cubes of cheddar cheese, some Corn on the cob and beer! (not the kids though, back then. (Daughter was 15 or 16 in pic).

[Lisafuller]

Damn SMS! That's a ton of crab. Save some for the rest of us

[sundaymorningstaple]

Four or five didn't make it to the steamer though. The wife used to make the meanest Chilli Crab on the little red dot. Back then at least once a month we'd go to the market at Tekka and I'd go to the crab seller after my wife would get a price and then because of my long history with crabs and the Chesapeake Bay, I never get a "lite" crab. Crab seller didn't like it cause I'd always clean out every fat crab he had.

When back home we threw freshly molted crabs (unless still soft) back in the water regardless of their size as there is very little meat in a large recently molted crab. We just go back in 3 weeks and probably re-catch that same crab but now full of meat. It also keeps the Bay from being crabbed out (also there is a minimum size across the topshell and if you are caught by the 'Fisheries Dept" with a single undersized crab, you will have your boat, trailer, and vehicle impounded. We think highly of our crabs and oysters in the Bay. Oh, our crab is also the same species found all the way down the coast to FL and in the Gulf of Mexico. It's the Blue Channel crab and it's a related species of the blue swimmer crab they sell in the markets here but much better tasting.