Lucky Tao: King Crab Galore

It's king crab season! We came to Lucky Tao after I read Lindsay's post on eating here. I'm glad we picked this restaurant because I heard unsatisfactory experiences at other restaurants where the price was lower but the crab meat was described as 'mushy'.

We had a great experience and were completely full because only four of us shared a 12 pound king crab! Usually a standard round table at Chinese restaurants seats 10 people and they would all share one crab. We had it made 3 ways: steamed, fried, and made into fried rice.

There was an overwhelming amount of garlic steamed with the crab and each piece was juicy and hot. At first I wondered why they didn't give any soy sauce but soon I found out that it wasn't necessary because the crab itself was plenty flavourable. There were two plates of steamed crab legs.

Fried king crab is much better than fried normal crab. The crab is deep fried then mixed in with garlic and spices in the wok. It tasted great hot out of the kitchen.

The last way to eat the crab was fried rice served on its shell. Although a bit oily, I found it quite delicious. There is a thin layer of 'skin' (not sure what it's called) inside the king crab shell that is slightly chewy. This piece of skin was pulled out of the shell, chopped into square pieces and incorporated into the fried rice. I've never been to a restaurant who did that before because the skin is usually left alone since it is extra work to remove it.

Overall, I was surprised by how much I liked this dinner. Lucky Tao is not a fancy Chinese restaurant but their food is solid and dim sum is very reasonably priced. The only problem is limited parking space.