TimeOut

Pak Loh Chiu Chow: Flower Crab

 

Just down the street on Hysan Avenue is the famous Pak Loh Chiu Chow restaurant:

Getting here is easy, you can take the MTA and get off on Causeway Bay station.  When you come out to the street level, you get to see the lights and sounds of the busy shopping district .  

The Pak Loh Chiu Chow restaurant was opened in 1967 by C.H. Bui and now has 4 family owned restaurants (and 2 additional Southeast Asian style places)..

Once we had a chance to look over the menu, they served us pickled mustard greens:

and a cold fried tofu and black bean dish:

To start we had the Kung Fu tea.  This tea is intense and meant to be sippped.  I was warned to not drink too many as it was supposed to keep you up at night due to it's potent flavor.  I usually don't get tweaked on coffee or tea so I just drank a lot of it as it was very tasty!

There are two things that Pak Loh is famous for...the cold Flower Crab

The cold Flower Crab is gigantic!  There were only 5 of us dining that night but it was supposed to be so good that our host ordered two!  

After they presented the Flower Crab to the table, they take it back to have the chef crack the shells so it makes it easy to extract the delicious crab meat.  When our server returned she came out with this beautifully presented plate of Flower Crabs:

YUMMMY!

The shell is very hard, the density reminded me of the small local rock crabs we have out here.  The texture of the crab is closer to a Dungeness than a King crab.  Flavor-wise it was slightly sweet and had a unique taste to it.  Overall it was fantastic!

It's common to dip the Flower Crab into their house black vineagar.  They add a tiny bit of ginger to their version.  I usually don't like sauces but the vineagar that they served was really good, much more intense and complexity than your regular restaurant or bottled black vinegar.

The second signature dish of Pak Loh is the Shark's Fin soup.  I'm not a fan of Shark's Fin or soups in general but the broth was amazing.  Some like to add a little bit of the black vinegar but I thought it was perfect the way it is.

The special seafood was live eel.  I like eating eel at sushi restaurants but this one is way different than how I've ever had it.  The Pak Loh dish was served in a rich broth with shitake mushrooms

Wonderful!

Chiu Chow style chicken was really good:

Another Chiu Chow favorite, the oyster fried omelette:

A refreshing hot bowl of soup...

The dessert was tasty too, normally I don't care for Taro but Pak Loh fries them up with a sugar coating that's really good:

The battered Taro puffs were the best of the desserts.  Light and airy and filed with a smooth slightly sweet Taro paste

The calssic Taro and Ginko Nuts:

As we had a great time dining, we sat around chatting over more cups of the Kung Fu tea:

Some say this is a touristy place but I highly recommend the Flower Crab at Pak Loh Chiu Chow!

-MW 

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