When I visited the newly opened Crab Factory outlet near Mount Austin, Johor Bahru, I came with a bit of scepticism. Isn't the fancy fad on the wane already? But, after eating at Crab Factory, I changed my mind. Now, I feel that Louisiana seafood boil can be as mainstream as chili crab and salted egg crab - if, you do it as well as Crab Factory, that is.
The interior of Crab Factory is simply laid out - furnished with heavy sturdy tables and chairs, grey cement floor. The place is invitingly set up for casual, communal seafood feasting, Louisiana style. It's like a crab eating factory 😄 It's an informal, no frills jiak lah (eat lah) kind of place.
I was drawn to the crab tank at the far end, inside the restaurant.
My first surprise. I wasn't expecting live swimming crabs at local Louisiana seafood boil places. I always imagine that happy crabs taste better. It's relative - I assume swimming crabs are happier than stressed crabs stacked up in a dry fish tank or dead crabs 😄
Owner TY marketed children's fashion in Melbourne for 10 years before returning to her family's school uniform business in Petaling Jaya (near Kuala Lumpur).
A foodie and passionate home chef, TY fell in love with Louisiana style seafood boil during a month long road trip in west coast USA. Love soon became obsession.
TY was so inspired by the taste of Louisiana style boiled seafood, she decided to repurpose her family's uniform shop in SS2 Petaling Jaya. And thus, the first Crab Factory was born in 2014.
Crab Factory in JB serves 3 different sets of seafood boil catering to different party sizes.
We chose the CRAB LOVER SHIOK set which is enough for 2 (or 3 dainty eaters). Price was RM149.70++.
Staff Ema gave the seafood and sloshy sauce a good shake in the bag.
Ema pouring our seafood on the white waxed paper sheet stretched over our table, like making colourful art over white canvas.
Ema poured stringy cheese topping over our seafood. Oh... tell you more about this wonderful cheese later.
In the heap, there were two crabs, mussels, clams, octopus, prawns, broccoli and corn. The set came with shallot rice and fried mantou (small sweet buns).
I chose their Signature South Bang sauce which is a secret blend of cajun spices, garlic, lemon and herbs. We can choose the level of spiciness - ours was medium.
The highest spice level is called "Death Valley" 🔥 I would love to try that for my next visit 😄
I like this cajun inspired sauce - it has many layers of savouriness with an underlying spicy kick which linger briefly in the mouth.
Mixing in the cheese topping adds more layers of savouriness to the sauce. The good thing is, all these still doesn't make the sauce overly salty. It was just nice for me.
Oh... I love this crab. The meat is tender and so juicy, I can taste the brininess of the sea in it 😋
You have to try Crab Factory's cheese topping. It's a blend of savoury cheeses and it has the texture of squeaky cheese curd. It's the first time I tasted squeaky cheese in Malaysia and Singapore 😄
We also had a bag of scallops and octopus with salted egg sauce (price RM89++).
Along with scallops and octopus, there were corn and potatoes.
The salted egg sauce blended with herbs and spices is rather different from the familiar salted egg recipes of Chinese dishes. Give it a try. This rich creamy sauce is popular even among people who are not fans of salted eggs.
I like the flavour and texture of Crab Factory's soft spongy scallop and soft chewy octopus.
👉 I had a good time at Crab Factory. The ingredients were fresh. The crabs were even live. The sauces were delicious - I tried the signature spicy and salted egg sauce. The cooking skill is good as the seafood were done nicely with nice texture and all the natural flavours intact.
Disclosure: Please note that this was an invited tasting and I have never been to Louisiana (southern USA) before 😂
Restaurant name: Crab Factory
Address: G14, Block B (Little Paris), Jalan Jaya Putra 1/1, Bandar Jaya Putra, Johor Bahru (adjacent to Mount Austin)
GPS: 1°34'03.3"N 103°46'36.7"E | 1.567570, 103.776853
Tel: 07 3514 062
Hours: 12:00 noon to 10:00pm (Monday off)
No pork, no lard, no Halal cert
Date visited: 13 Oct 2017
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We went yesterday night & of the 2 crabs - 1 was spoilt! It was so smelly that my fried didn't need to even bite through. We highlited to the staff whom also can smell the 'rotten' crab.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't want any 'replacement' - and they didn't even give us a discount.
I did not see many 'live' crabs in the water tank as well.
Very disappointed as we decide to come here due to the this post.
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