Still, this time of year, people in Hong Kong can’t get enough of hairy crabs. They’re stacked high in storefronts (tied up in a manner that conjures up the odd and slightly unsettling phrase “crustacean bondage”) and proudly displayed on menus. Taxis zip around town with giant plastic crabs on top.
They’re so omnipresent that it sometimes seems like someone’s whispering “hairy crab” in your ear as you walk through the city’s crowded streets. And so, in my ongoing quest to figure out Hong Kong through its stomach, I recently met two friends at the Times Square shopping mall in Causeway Bay to try some. (There are certain things you need to get used to in Hong Kong, and eating in shopping in malls is one of them. In the U.S. or Europe, you normally wouldn’t eat at a mall at gunpoint; in Hong Kong, it’s practically unavoidable.)
We made our way to the 13th floor and the Wu Kong Shanghai Restaurant. English was a bit problematic, but it was clear that hairy crab was spoken here – the menu included a hairy crab set menu for HK$398 (a little more than $50). By Hong Kong standards, that’s a bit pricey for Chinese food, but this was as much an experience as it was a meal.
The first course on the official menu was hairy crab and shark’s fin soup. I would rather have passed on the shark’s fin. (As a former surfer, I long ago made a unilateral agreement with the global shark population: “you don’t eat me, and I won’t eat you.”) But there was no alternative. It was kind of stew-like, very wintery and very good, although I’m not so sure about the shark’s fin, which struck me as kind of gelatinous.
In preparation for the second course – an entire steamed hairy crab — we were provided scissors, a nutcracker, a spoon and a stick. I didn’t know whether I was eating dinner or preparing for a very rustic form of surgery. Soon afterward, the crabs were plopped down on the table. The waitress motioned at them and my friend Judy said “yes.” On cue, the waitress came to our rescue: expertly scooping off the top, cutting out all the nasty bits, and putting the roe in the little scoop like part of the crab shell that she had pulled off.
Some say the true glory of hairy crab is in the roe, not the meat, and even choose to eat the crab “tycoon style” (http://jommakan.blogspot.com/2006/11/hello-hairy.html): consume just the roe and toss everything else away. Judy’s friend, Alice, said we were supposed to pour vinegar into the shell with the roe, so we did. From there, we did battle with the rest of the crab, which was quite tasty, but it was also a lot of work for not much meat. (Helpful trick: cut off each end of the leg with the scissors, and push the meat out with the stick.)
After bringing us some weird, ginger tea, we tasted the final course, which could best be described as stew of hairy crab served three ways — in pastry, in a huge piece of cucumber, and over sticky rice with steamed broccoli. To round out our hairy crab experience we ordered some hairy crab xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings.
After all the fanfare, I struggled to come to grips with the fact that I thought hairy crab was just OK, even though I was happy to have had the experience. I’ve heard it described as sweeter and more delicate than ordinary crab; it tasted like any other crab to me. Perhaps my palate just isn’t sophisticated enough to pick up on whatever it is that makes hairy crab so special. But perhaps eating hairy crab is more about symbolism than taste, conferring a sort of status on the people who can afford to eat such a meal.
