Tai2 jaap hai

Hairy crabs (Chinese mitten crabs) are in season and although the best place to eat them is near Shanghai (where they come from), Hong Kong is not a bad place to try them. A lot of restaurants will sell them in various styles. I've tried two places in the last 24 hour period. The first place was Fu Sing at 353 Lockhart Road. At HKD280 each they're not cheap, but delicious (ho sik4). We enjoyed them steamed. The second place was a Shanghaiese restaurant in Kowloon at the Olympic City 2 mall. The price there was HKD80 for a crab, but these were much smaller and less tasty.

Be careful with crab, they are considered 'cold' in Chinese culture so eating too much can be bad, don't eat crab with other cold dishes like melon. Also they are very high in cholesterol. Hairy crabs are adaptable and can thrive in polluted waters. They absorb substantial amounts of heavy metals like mercury and cadmium.To make things worse, they are also regularly pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics and are fed a lot of waste food.

In Cantonese the crabs are called 大閘蟹 or Tai2 jaap hai (lit: big binding crab). Note the use of the second tone in Tai. So say it with doubt.

The word for delicious, introduced above, is ho sik4. Ho means good and sik4 means eat. The transliteration for eat has the 'k' final. This final in Cantonese is a hard 'k' sound. It's not actually pronounced like a 'k' but implies a stop. So say it like the English word sick but stop short of aspirating the 'k'.