The quest for crab

The quest for crab is unending. For the true aficionado, every day brings with it the prospect of a hot tip recommending another source or a different style of the firm but succulent sweet shell-encrusted meat that your tongue never stops seeking.

For a crustacean craver like myself, you’d think that Colomboian life would be like wandering the garden of Eden. With its endless coastline, constantly active fishing fleet and reputation for producing the finest crabs in South/Southeast Asia, you’d imagine that most Sri Lankans spend their lives in crab-induced ecstasy. But sadly, nay, tragically this is far from the case.

While Sri Lanka’s lagoons yield some of the fleshiest crabs on earth much, if not all, the best are exported. Loaded alive or flash frozen into airplanes and whisked off to the kitchens of our wealthier neighbours – Singapore, Dubai and Malaysia. The ones left behind for local consumption are runts – those that fall below the flesh and weight criterion demanded by Southeast Asian kitchens.

However, more than simply the size of the crab (because we all know it’s not only size that matters), the crab preparations you encounter at many local hotel and restaurants can be distinctly mediocre – baked crab which is 90% potato and cheese, chilli crab smothered in a sauce that is no more than ketchup, Thai crab in a generic yellow curry sauce.

Even the more promising specialised street level eateries don’t consistently produce the subtle sauces and flavours that can lift a 10 legged bottom feeder into a feast worthy of the gods themselves.

Given this scarcity of quality crab therefore even in this land of supposed-crabby, plenty a crab craver must, like any other junkie, spend his/her days waiting for leads on suppliers, quantities and prices. Following these leads to the darkest recesses of Colombo for a fix is a regular necessity. Here’s what we found:

Ministry of Crab

This is the big one… the most ambitious and bombastic new feature on Colombo’s restaurant landscape – the Ministry of Crab (MOC).

Dharshan Munidasa, the food brain behind the operation, has garnered a loyal following through his consistently excellent Nihonbashi Japanese restaurants. MOC, however, is a much more prominent undertaking. In partnership with two of Sri Lanka’s best known faces – cricketers Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene – it claims to be the best place in the world to sample the renowned Sri Lankan crab.

Occupying prime space in the landmark Dutch Hospital complex, the restaurant specialises in serving enormous crustaceans that would otherwise be whisked away to more prosperous consumers in Singapore and Malaysia.

However, the beasts come with a formidable price-tag, and at Rs. 2,500 for the smallest offerings, this isn’t exactly the Rs. 250 crab lunch at Mayuri hotel. So with all the fanfare, the prices, the celebrity endorsements, the question Colombars are asking is – does it live up to the hype? The answer, in a word – yes.

The Crab Company

It was with some delight that I heard tales of the Crab Company – the man behind the king of ‘90s Colombo restaurant Don Stanleys, now delivering export quality crab to your door. Every junkies dream – the stuff you want delivered, by someone reliable.

So is this it? The city’s crabby-grail? Well, not quite. There’s a small but crucial little problem – the price. My three kilos set me back Rs. 8,500. Now that fed five people comfortably, so we are looking at about Rs. 1,800 a person, which isn’t extortionate by any means but it’s also not cheap.

I’d struggle to use this for my weekly fix, however, particularly as there’s a 2-3 kilo minimum order which means you have to get some friends together or cough up 6,000-8,000 bucks. For those who take their crabby pleasure alone, this is an expensive score.

Yarl Eat House

Yarl Eat House is quite literally a hole in the wall, neither restaurant, nor kadai, nor hawkers stand, just before the Wellawatte public toilet near the top of Station Road. Here they serve a good Jaffna crab curry every day of the week at a very reasonable price.

You are eating off a banana leaf in a hygienically challenged concrete cave however over the years I’ve taken easily over a 100 people to sample its goods and never had any complaints. The eat-house’s absolute lack of pretension ultimately adds to its appeal though the core premise will always be the tasty and well priced crabs.

168 Sea Food Palace

We ordered 800 grams of crab at Rs. 360 per 100 grams and – of course – also ordered some hot butter cuttlefish. Our greens were a lightly flavoured sweet potato leaf tossed with garlic. The food arrived quickly and the crab looked promising – a handsome specimen with large claws and lots of meat.

At first sight I had high hopes for this local chilli crab contender. However, the Singaporean ignoring the gleaming crustacean went straight for the thick red sauce and the verdict: poor to mediocre.

A pity, because a chilli crab is defined by its sauce and this standard sweet gloop that seemed to have been poured over the crab at the last moment wasn’t going to cut it. The dish wasn’t infused with a rich crab flavour, it didn’t incorporate the crucial crab roe and the largest transgression – it lacked chilli – a fairly crucial ingredient.