Big, Fat, Hairy Deal

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The rare Chinese mitten crab is the best Shanghai surprise of all. We take a crack at it.

By Amy Rosen

There are too few food moments in life that you remember forever: those fried zucchini blossoms in Provence, that pizza bianca in Florence, the barbecued goat face in Marrakech (albeit for altogether different reasons). And now this: my first taste of hairy crab. Of the six people at my table at the gleaming Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong’s Lung King Heen restaurant, three launched into spontaneous food orgasms (myself included), while the others recoiled in horror and refused to even touch their furry-mittened critters. (No problem; I polished them off as well.) Little wonder. Slick with naturally occurring neon-orange oil and roe, this seafood treat, as fatty as foie gras, has as many fanatics as it has detractors. My ears still get hot just thinking about it, even though crabmeat is believed by the Chinese to have a “cooling” (yin) effect on the body.

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