Osaka Crab Extravaganza

fx

Wed, 16 Mar 2016 18:51:12 GMT

Gracias, me encanta que le ha interesado a alguien mis articulos!

ma. elena torres valdez

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 01:32:44 GMT

de veras que estoy muy agradecida con personas como tu, que tienen la oportunidad de viajar a traves del mundo y se toman la molestia de compartirlo con todos aquellos que no podemos hacerlo, y soy de mexico y tengo un peque�o restaurant de comida japonesa. me gusto mucho tus articulos. nuevamente gracias.

david wong

Wed, 5 May 2010 23:09:22 GMT

I want to know where and the name of this restaurant with the big crab, I saw this in tokyo too.

Mia

Mon, 7 Sep 2009 17:34:36 GMT

I just went to one of these in Kyoto! The great thing about Osaka is that the main shopping street has a few places that sell grilled crab legs on the go out on the street. I asked how many you get for the listed price of 500 yen, and the guy said two pieces. I must have looked disappointed though because when I bought them, they gave me three. :) Probably helps to be a girl.

Never heard of kanimiso before. Funny that it has such a simple name in Japanese. Is the kanji the same as miso (as in soup)?

P.S. I"m new to your blog and LOVE it! I"m going to try your pumpkin gnocchis this week if I can find those pumpkins. It is Japan after all!

fx

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:06:14 GMT

Keith, this was in a street geared towards high-end food for the locals, I don"t think many people could afford 5 dinners in this street in one night!

Keith

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:09:46 GMT

Hmm... Last time I was in Osaka I didn"t remember the crab being that expensive.
Btw, is this in dotonburi? If you haven"t gone there, it is definitely the place to go in Osaka for food, especially okonomiyaki and takoyaki. The entire street is all restaurants. When we were ther we ended up having like 5 dinners haha

fx

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:55:46 GMT

Yes this really is a memorable experience. Hope you can try it one day!

Gareth

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:13:07 GMT

Another fantastic article, but then all your articles are fantastic. The crab certainly looks delicious but the whole thing must have been a great experience. Fantastic !!

fx

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:44:15 GMT

Thanks for your insight Sets!

fx

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:20:17 GMT

Thanks Melit, ah Rembrandt, what a nice compliment to hear! I need more flashes and softboxes to rembrandtize a picture though, these were shot just with the camera and no attachment!

Melit

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 04:52:57 GMT

     I"m going around the world without leaving home, but
just reading your articles.You are an excellent story teller
with fine sense of humor.
     Sometimes your photos looks like paintings...like
Rembrandts" use of light.
     I love crabs,too.I"m green with envy!!!!

fx

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:37:27 GMT

Michael, glad your mom liked it! The hepatopancreas" taste compared to the crab flesh is like foie gras compared to duck flesh.

Michael

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:53:20 GMT

My mother stopped by when I was looking at this article, and her being a huge crab fan, I had to talk her down with the price of going to a Japanese crab restaurant! Great pictures as always, but can I ask what the crab brains taste like in respect to the rest of the crab? No place that I live (Being in in the lovely area of Western New York) is brave enough to try serving it.

fx

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:45:27 GMT

Nate, the bamboo scoop is used to scoop the crab meat out of its shell.

Nate

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:50:25 GMT

Great writing, just as tantalizing as your pictures.

What is the little bamboo scoop for, the one next to your chopsticks?

sets

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:57:23 GMT

Unfortunately I"ve never studied human physiology. The harnessing of enzymes in seafood culture is an intriguing subject, indeed. I would imagine you could ask anyone in the crab industry and they would come up with a list of practices intended to avoid the damaging effects of autolysis. (And its reverse, too)
Uhm, crab allergy, maybe? Although I"d suspect that to be a reaction to the products rather than the enzymes itself. I"m not sure.

fx

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:31:49 GMT

So a pound of fondue has as much cholesterol as a pound of crab? Really nutritious animals!

anm

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:12:11 GMT

Hi Francois

Trust me your cardiologist wont be pleased as crabs are high in cholestrol ,any shell fish ........

fx

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:58:25 GMT

Donna this sounds like an exciting food adventure, I"d love to try these bloated dumplings!

Donna Young

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:04:02 GMT

I was so crazy to have crab after reading this article, that I went on a serious crab dinner mission. I ended up in Queens, NY in an Asian neighborhood where I had the most wonderful Shanghai crab soup dumplings. (The soup and some pork & crabmeat are tucked INSIDE the dumpling.) You nip the dumpling and sip out the soup (which is steaming hot!) and then you eat the rest of the dumpling with soy sauce and ginger. FAB! Then I had a mound of sauteed bluefin crabs in a ginger garlic sauce. It was crabalicious! It wasn"t quite the same as the Japanese crabs but yummy none-the-less! Cheers, FX!

fx

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:46:45 GMT

Yes

fx

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:41:31 GMT

Sets, this thing with the enzymes is really intriguing, do these enzymes have an effect on the human eater?

fx

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:40:30 GMT

Don, I promise to visit a fugu place next time I"m in Japan!

donsiranni

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:44:18 GMT

Francois,I to love Japenese food,sushimi,all the seaweed stuff,but,for high cost it"s tough to top fugu-in an upscale(safe)eatery(I wasn"t paying).The puffers are netted from small pits in the marble floor next to the tables. It would make an exceptional photo,as the tissue thin white flesh slices show delicate red(poison blood) concentric lines,almost a perfect flower petal appearance surrounded by the espacially toxic offal, deep fried. Don

sets

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:14:38 GMT

Oh I totally agree with macha. That"s invertabrate biology geekery and irrelevant to culinary culture. To add: these creatures have powerful enzymes that mashes "just whatever is inside" the moment they die (or even as you dissect them alive), that"s how crabs in the culinary sense only contain these yellowish mash of whatever.

macha

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:13:09 GMT

Hepatopancreas? I don"t think they"d bother picking out the miniscule brain and other bits. Kanimiso is most likely "just whatever is inside" mashed up nicely.

fx

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 01:12:43 GMT

Leon, I never hesitate to eat sushi whenever I cannot avoid it, so I didn"t get that sushi but they served crab roe in various other guises in Kaiseki dinners!

Leon

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 23:14:29 GMT

Haha, I went to Osaka just last year in December, and I went to one of those crab restaurents last year too. Did you eat a sushi which had the green roe of he crab on top? It"s very strong in taste, but is fantastic.

fx

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:51:04 GMT

There was no alcohol in the meal and, at the end of the day, one eats only a minute amount of crab flesh. They don"t mention the calories but it seems to me really, really seriously light. I can prove it: no sumotori were to be seen in the restaurant.

fx

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:46:12 GMT

Aha, yes, that might work. But I"m not joking, this is really what happened...

michael

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 01:58:04 GMT

"THE WAITRESS CARESSED MY NIKON, LOOKED IMPRESSED AND COMPLIMENTED ME ON IT"S SIZE!" - so that"s what you call it in Switzerland!

sets

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:29:21 GMT

Re:is it even conceivable that such a meal (pretty much nothing besides the crab itself) would contain more than, say, 500 Kcal?

Why not? Did they state that on the menu?
You did have sake in your "crab brain" didn"t you?
But then again, crabs could vary in caloric content according to their lifecycle, that the same shell size could yield completely different figures. Considering the recent surge of awareness in calorie intake, the food industry may well benefit by opting the lowest figures...

fx

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:01:07 GMT

Thanks Cris, this sign is so successful that most tourists see at least one of their branches while in Osaka, my friend Zed actually had told me about it. Too bad I didn"t have a video camera, you"d have seen the legs move too!

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:59:14 GMT

Thanks, I had way more pics but they were quite soft because of my length long minimum focusing distance unfortunately!

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:58:35 GMT

It took me a few tries to get that one right, light on the steam, background, bokeh. Glad you like it!

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:56:54 GMT

Sets, is it even conceivable that such a meal (pretty much nothing besides the crab itself) would contain more than, say, 500 Kcal?

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:54:28 GMT

Glad you liked it!

thepinkpeppercorn

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 21:23:08 GMT

Fabulous photos, and such a delicious meal!! mmm!

sets

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:30:56 GMT

I actually measured the lipid contents of crab brain and did caloric estimates. Crab brains are extremely rich in fat and protein so you might want to adjust the healthiness and yen-calorie ratio ;)

Laura D.

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:26:01 GMT

I absolutely love the shot of the chunk of crab being held in chopsticks. The steam is what makes that picture--wispy and insubstantial, yet vital to our understanding of the deliciousness of the crab.

P.S. The giant mechanical crab outside scares me.

chef4cook

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:29:19 GMT

Wonderful pics!

Cris

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:17:43 GMT

I think you have a magnetism for freakie places, it"s really amazing this building with the spider crab on, it seems a piece of art by Venturi o Claus Oldenburg.In Spain we adore this kind of crab but I can imagine how can be the experience to eat it in Japan,in such a sophisticated neighbouhood.Next time you travel to the West Country for cheese, you should try The Crab House Caf� for rustic and cheapy version (see my blog).Fanstastic photos.

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:12:17 GMT

Thanks you Diana, unfortunately Japan is not a place of architecture. The Japanese are great builders, but they used wood and fires, atom bombs and modernizations have left precious few original buildings. If you want old buildings go to Nara and Kyoto to see temples. Of course they have modern architecture, very impressive train stations like that of Kyoto or the Shinjuku and Chibuya districts in Tokyo. People are very nice and food is really incredibly fascinating in every aspect. Good luck!

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:06:20 GMT

Scott, I find the way the Japanese use fish guts/offal/internal organs absolutely fascinating. It sounds so disgusting a concept to a European, on the face of it, and yet it is a winner, great flavors. And who are we to judge them, with our tripe soups, liver p�t�s and fried brains?

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:04:32 GMT

Zeppole, to my deep regret I must inform you that there was not enough flesh in this crab to feed me, let alone a trusty side kick!

Zeppole

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:40:29 GMT

You are my culinary hero! May I be your trusty side kick...evil minion...ewerer... anything?

As always the photographs, food and desriptions are amazing!

scott

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:10:22 GMT

Nice,thanks. I"m in New England and lobster and crab �tomalley� are more common than the rest of the US. In fact we did a lobster sashimi this season. Last time I was in Osaka I asked the office �expert� for a challenging dinner. We ended up in one of those tiny restaurants down three alleys that only exist in Japan. I"m a big fan of uni but �trio� of squid innards and certain parts of horse were once only events for me.

Diana Blinda

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 08:41:24 GMT

hello Francois Xavier,

i am happy to have discovered your blog and since then, I enjoy reading it.

Now i am writing to ask how did you organized your trip to Japan, and what is your favourite place there, which you reccommend for the first time visit in Japan.

me personally i like to visit cities with great architecture, relaxed people, good food, and good weather. Until now my favourites are Singapore, Barcelona and Helsinki.

Please receive my best wishes for a great year 2009 !

Diana

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:52:46 GMT

Stephan, in fact they have several locations of this restaurant all over town so if indeed this one would close, just look up and follow the giant crab!

fx

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:51:38 GMT

Thanks, I had to back up in the corner of the room to get that picture!