Mitten Crab @ Imbi Palace KL

It's the time of the year again when one indulge in Mitten Crabs (hairy crabs) from the YangChen Lake in Suzhou. The Chinese spend quite some money just to taste a small crab from this lake which are a considered a delicacy among the asians. Most of the Yangchen crabs are exported to Shanghai and Hong Kong, and high-profit foreign markets. No doubt many would have thought that the mitten crabs is a Shanghainese delicacy.

The funny thing is Asians considered these crabs a delicacy but in Britain, the Chinese mitten crab is seen as a dangerous alien that could cause lasting harm to the environment. According to the zoologists Mitten crabs are ravenous omnivores and they fear they could both eat and out-compete vulnerable freshwater species.Thus, they actually encourage people to eat these crabs!

It's October month, so we were feasting on the male crabs. I've finally learnt how to disect my crabs after eating it numerous times. I took a video how it was done years ago and you can check it out here. According to the old sayings, mitten crabs are cooling so don't drink tea, cold water or eat persimmons after taking crabs, or you will get stomachache. Instead, we all had a small cup of 20 year-old Shaoxing Huadiao wine added with a piece of dried sour plum. It tastes very good!

We were having a dinner in Imbi Palace because I brought back a bag of fresh Ipoh beansprouts and also a salted chicken for a friend. And since we are such regulars at this restaurant, they allowed us to bring our own food there! Haha...

Ipoh juicy beansprouts

Just look at how fat and juicy the beansprouts were. It was very good and the whole plate was snapped up within minutes. However, I would have preferred if the restaurant could prepare it the Ipoh way - blanched and then added with oil and soy sauce instead of stir-frying because it looses its crispiness.

Does anyone know the name of this shellfish?

Ok, sucking doesn't help. It's difficult to eat this species of shellfish. One has to use a toothpick to dig them out. It tasted just like clams with a chewy and springy texture. It took me quite a lot of effort just to eat a few of them!



That night we were not drinking wine as the crowd is more to a whisky and cognac drinker and thus I chose to drink the JW Blue Label than the Hennessy XO. I am a whisky person and I find it how initially I didn't quite like the Blue Label but then after a while, it tasted quite good! Definitely a good blended whisky.

If you noticed, I'm begining to indulge less in food less often now as compared to a year ago. I realised I'm been so busy that I hardly even get to meet up with my usual suspects for dinner. Oh well, it's never to late to learn to live life in moderation.

Say hello to the new Miss Mod. Mod for MODERATE...