It’s fun to get crabby

[rooster59]

It’s fun to get crabby

By Khetsirin Pholdhampalit 
The Nation Weekend 

 

Chaolay Seafood restaurant offers a wide selection of seafood dishes and delicacies – all are also halal-certified.

 

Wholesale distributor Viya Crab brings its famed products to a new Bangkok restaurant

 

WHEN IT comes to seafood, particularly crabmeat, Viya Crab Co in Chaiya district of Surat Thani has a well-earned reputation for finding only the best. 

 

As a leading manufacturer and distributor of seafood products, the firm exports some 300 tons of crabmeat annually and four years ago expanded its reach to the dining retail business with the opening of a standalone restaurant Chaolay Seafood on Bangkok’s Nawamin Road. 

 

Chaolay Seafood restaurant offers a wide selection of seafood dishes and delicacies – all are also halal-certified.

 

Catering to people living and working in downtown Bangkok, the second outlet of Chaolay Seafood just opened on the sixth floor of MBK Mall with an extensive list of seafood dishes mostly cooked in Southern style. The dishes are also halal-certified, meaning they adhere to Islamic dietary rules – no pork or pork by-products and no alcohol. The entire production, including storage and the utensils and equipment used, are processed according to halal requirements.

 

The new branch can accommodate about 60 diners and boasts floor to ceiling windows to allow the light to pour in. Deliberately low key, the better to appreciate the food, the dining area is equipped with wooden tables and chairs, plus marble tables with brown sofas. The shelves are decorated with household kitchen utensils such as mortars and pestles, enamelware and pots. Blue crabs swim in the glass tanks.

 

 

“Surat Thani, my hometown, is one of the best sources of blue crabs with sweet and delicate flesh though the price is higher than other sources. The wholesale price for the chunks of crabmeat taken from the paddle-legs can cost Bt3,000 per kilo,” says Mareeya Laojaroen, a daughter of Viya Crab Co’s founder.

 

“My mother started the business by distributing fresh crabs from Surat Thani to Yaowarat – Bangkok’s Chinatown – until she could manage to open a plant in her hometown of Chaiya district. We have supplied seafood, mainly crabmeat, to leading local restaurants and other countries including the US, Singapore and Hong Kong. We also set up a crab bank to promote sustainable fisheries in the community,” she says.

 

 

The best-selling product of the company is the ready-to-eat pasteurised canned crab under the brand Siam Crab. The restaurant is a good channel to promote its products to retail customers through a dish amusingly called Crab Condo (Bt1,350).

 

A 454-gram jumbo-sized can of crabmeat is steamed and served on a plate, allowing diners to slowly remove the can to reveal the layers of crabmeat. Diners can opt to eat some portions, then ask the staff to cook the rest as they prefer, in hot sour soup or stir-fried with curry powder, yellow chillies or black pepper without extra charge. The canned crabmeat is also available to take home.

 

 Cooked Rice with Crabmeat 

 

A single dish of Cooked Rice with Crabmeat (Bt159) looks simple but tastes heavenly. The jasmine rice is simply cooked with crabmeat, crab roe, chopped chilli, red onion, garlic and spring onion and seasoned with freshly squeezed lemon juice and fish sauce. 

 

“This is the easy-to-make dish we always eat at home when we have leftover crab. The dishes we offer are mostly our family’s recipes,” says Mareeya, a graduate in food sciences from Kasetsart University.

 

Fried Banana Prawns with Turmeric 

 

Fried Banana Prawns with Turmeric (Bt400) offers large-sized sea prawns cooked with fresh turmeric and garlic. The fresh turmeric will be pounded and marinated after the dish is ordered to give off an aromatic and flavourful taste. 

 

“Poultry and other meats are processed according to halal requirements. Soup is made from vegetable stock and the pork fat usually added to tod mun goong (deep-fried shrimp cakes) is substituted with chicken breast,” she adds.

 

Deep-fried Whole Sea Bass with Sweet, Sour and Spicy Sauce

 

A whole sea bass weighing around 900 grams to one kilo (Bt480) is deep-fried and seasoned with sauce and gives off a combination of sweet, sour and spicy tastes. The sauce is made fresh upon ordering with pounded chilli, garlic and onion, chopped tomato and pineapple then seasoned with fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.

 

Batter-fried Bai Liang Leaves with Spicy Dressing 

 

While the young, edible leaves of bai liang –grown mainly in the South – are usually used for stir-frying with egg, here the older leaves are batter-fried until crunchy and seasoned with a spicy dressing made from chopped shrimp, pound roasted peanut, red onion, Chinese celery, chilli, lime juice and fish sauce. It costs Bt220.

 

Hot Sour Soup with Sea Bass and Young Coconut Shoots

 

No Southern meal is complete without hot sour soup. The curry paste is made fresh daily by blending chilli, garlic, fresh turmeric then seasoning with tamarind juice, shrimp paste, fish sauce and sugar. A hot pot with sea bass and young coconut shoots (Bt220) is ideal for those who like their food fiery.

 

Rice Dumplings and Nipa Palm in Coconut Milk

 

Two desserts are on offer: warm rice dumplings and nipa palm in coconut milk (Bt55) and chilled nipa palm in syrup (also Bt55). Both are perfect to end the meal.

 

“The coconuts used in the restaurants are from my grandfather’s plantation in Chaiya. Each outlet has its own grating machine to make sure that we get very fresh coconut milk. Nipa palm from Surat Thani is used as the main ingredient for desserts because it’s considered my hometown’s native mangrove palm,” says Mareeya.

 

Nipa Palm in Syrup

 

FRESH FROM THE SEA

 

Chaolay Seafood on the sixth floor of MBK Mall is open daily from 10am to 9pm.

 

Call (098) 880 9065 or search for “@chaolayseafoodhalal” on Facebook.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/tasty/30365067

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-03-02

[Henrik Andersen]

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The best-selling product of the company is the ready-to-eat pasteurised canned crab under the brand Siam Crab. 

Gordon Ramsay will be angry if you serve this crab for him 

Sea food has to be fresh not in a can 

[AlexRich]

Nothing new here. Farangs have been travelling to Thailand and coming home with crabs for decades.

[colinneil]

18 minutes ago, AlexRich said:

Nothing new here. Farangs have been travelling to Thailand and coming home with crabs for decades.

You speaking from personal experience?

[Suradit69]

1 hour ago, AlexRich said:

Nothing new here. Farangs have been travelling to Thailand and coming home with crabs for decades.

Maybe the heading for this thread will inspire someone to use the posting name : Crabby in Krabi. Surely it would be apt for someone.

 

 

 

[AhFarangJa]

Who gives a rat's a**** if the crabs are Halal........

[Genmai]

6 hours ago, rooster59 said:

 

 

The best-selling product of the company is the ready-to-eat pasteurised canned crab under the brand Siam Crab. The restaurant is a good channel to promote its products to retail customers through a dish amusingly called Crab Condo (Bt1,350).

 

A 454-gram jumbo-sized can of crabmeat is steamed and served on a plate, allowing diners to slowly remove the can to reveal the layers of crabmeat.

$42 for the privilege of sliding canned crab onto a sad plate of lettuce.

"Best-selling product"

Is this supposed to be a joke?

[AlexRich]

1 hour ago, colinneil said:

You speaking from personal experience?

No Colin, from one of your posts!

 

[OneMoreFarang]

Crab meat out of a can in a restaurant not far from the sea - what a great idea...

[Odysseus123]

Goodness me...

 

My Thai wife has just ejaculated some choice Thai explatives..

 

I know,I know..you all got hung up on the word "ejaculated" did you not?

[scorecard]

31 minutes ago, AhFarangJa said:

Who gives a rat's a**** if the crabs are Halal........

Have some respect.

[watcharacters]

32 minutes ago, Genmai said:

$42 for the privilege of sliding canned crab onto a sad plate of lettuce.

"Best-selling product"

Is this supposed to be a joke?

 

 

If it's truly free of shells that may be a reasonable price,  IMHO.       The shell on a crab takes up most of its weight.

 

 

 

[AhFarangJa]

36 minutes ago, scorecard said:

Have some respect.

Sorry, I have absolutely zero respect for those neanderthal leanings.

[OneMoreFarang]

2 hours ago, watcharacters said:

If it's truly free of shells that may be a reasonable price,  IMHO.       The shell on a crab takes up most of its weight.

You can buy crab meat, without the shells, at the Klong Toey fresh market for a couple of 100B per kg. Sorry, I forgot the price, my gf goes shopping. But I was surprised that the fresh crab meat is so cheap hear.

I like crabs. But I hate all that work. So for me it's crab meat (from the fresh market) or bloody expensive king crabs in a restaurant.

[overherebc]

4 hours ago, AhFarangJa said:

Who gives a rat's a**** if the crabs are Halal........

That's what I was thinking. How do you hang a crab by it's back legs and cut it's throat???

Looking on the shelf it appears I have a tin of Halal porridge oats??????

[overherebc]

4 hours ago, scorecard said:

Have some respect.

Is that respect one way or two ways?

Just askin'

[Nyezhov]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

You can buy crab meat, without the shells, at the Klong Toey fresh market for a couple of 100B per kg. Sorry, I forgot the price, my gf goes shopping. But I was surprised that the fresh crab meat is so cheap hear.

I like crabs. But I hate all that work. So for me it's crab meat (from the fresh market) or bloody expensive king crabs in a restaurant.

Did I ever tell you about the time I traded a case of Chicom 9mm ball and a quarter of chronic for an F-150 load of King Crab? What an ugly disgusting party that was!

[OneMoreFarang]

9 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Did I ever tell you about the time I traded a case of Chicom 9mm ball and a quarter of chronic for an F-150 load of King Crab? What an ugly disgusting party that was!

That sounds like the beginning of an interesting story ????

 

[overherebc]

13 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Did I ever tell you about the time I traded a case of Chicom 9mm ball and a quarter of chronic for an F-150 load of King Crab? What an ugly disgusting party that was!

Was the crab collected using the 9mm? Sounds a bit messy.

????????

Smokey as well.

 

[Nyezhov]

6 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

That sounds like the beginning of an interesting story ????

 

Crabs crawling everywhere, tossing them into an oil drum of boiling salt water, hammers and hunks of wood, rubber gloves, burping.....

[overherebc]

26 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

Crabs crawling everywhere, tossing them into an oil drum of boiling salt water, hammers and hunks of wood, rubber gloves, burping.....

Forget your King Crab. Try one of these. ????????

Edit

North Sea crab UK.

Or a wee Lobste?

[OneMoreFarang]

 

[Lucius verus]

You don't want to go into the kitchen or store rooms in one of these Thai ,Chinese ,Viet restaurants.

Street food cooked in front of you the way to go.

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, Lucius verus said:

You don't want to go into the kitchen or store rooms in one of these Thai ,Chinese ,Viet restaurants.

Street food cooked in front of you the way to go.

How many of them have you visited?

I don't know how those kitchens look like, there are many of them. But if it would be so bad then I would think there should be more reports about people getting sick or dying.