Soft-Shell Crabs @ Riva
St. Kilda Marina
42b Marine Pde, Elwood
Melbourne, VIC
03 9537 2224
To understand my fascination with different sorts of food you have to go back to my childhood across the ditch in New Zealand. The culinary ignorance of that childhood.
Despite the fact that we lived in the shadow of Mt. Egmont (now Taranaki) which has become a world-class symbol of world-class cheese, we grew up thinking that cheese was something bland with the texture of soft soap that came wrapped in tinfoil and in a cardboard box called Chesdale.
I didn’t know that cabbage was actually green and not grey until I left home – that’s how long my dear mum boiled it. Any sign that any green vegetable had ever contained any vitamins or minerals was long gone by the time the limp sludge hit our plates.
A ‘salad’ was always the same: lettuce shredded like grass clippings and smeared with a white ‘dressing’ that I later found out was a mixture of vinegar and Highlander condensed milk. A Kiwi version of mayonnaise.
Another salad dish was a plate of sliced raw onion and tomatoes swimming in a pool of vinegar.
Then things changed for the Hungry Hinch palate. I first tasted a raw egg when dipping paper thin slivers of delicious marinated beef into it at the Teriyaki Room in King’s Cross.
Later, around the world there was fish eye soup at a banquet in Beijing. One of our hosts argued it was really fish brain soup but I thought the dead giveaway was when a fish eye floated to the surface. There were ‘prairie oysters’ in Montreal. Didn’t know that was a euphemism for bull’s balls until I’d eaten them. And snails, reeking of garlic.
Didn’t like everything. Still won’t eat (again) tripe, sweetbreads or wobbly, greyish brains.
But there was one dish I wasn’t sure of when first confronted with it but would now swim right across Chesapeake Bay to get some. Actually, it was in Washington not far from Chesapeake Bay that I first tried soft-shell crabs.
Like sex, I’ll never forget the first time. The usual novice questions: What do you do with the legs? You eat them. What do you do with the head? You eat it. What do you do with the shell? You eat it. And I did. And have enjoyed it again and again since. Also a bit like sex I guess.
Okay. Back to the subject. This seafood delicacy can be eaten in its entirety because the crustaceans are caught and usually cooked just after the growing crab moults and sheds its hard shell.
In the United States (from Chesapeake Bay and Louisiana) the species used is the Blue Crab –callinectes sapidus. As they begin to moult they are at their most vulnerable, obviously, and fishermen put them aside to take to market as soft-shells. After four days their new shell starts to grow. These are called ‘papershells’ and are more crunchy to eat which doesn’t deter people in Szechuan and Hunan restaurants but not as palatable for some diners.
In the cold waters of the US the moulting is highly seasonal and fresh soft-shell crabs are usually only available from early May through July.
But in Asia they use mangrove crabs. They grown in tropical muddy flats and are available all year round. The same applies with blue crabs in the warm Gulf of Mexico. Most of the soft-shell crabs being served in Australia are snap frozen and come from places like Thailand. But not many restaurants serve them.
Which brings me to Riva. It was already one of my favourite seafood places in Melbourne with top class scallops, prawns, calamari and a changing variety of main fish courses. Now, soft-shell crabs are a fixture on the menu.
They cook them with hints of various Oriental spices alongside succulent scallops. I have a great system. Mrs. Nosebag won’t eat them. Possibly because I made an ill-timed gag about ‘just pretend they’re the legs of a fried huntsman spider hanging out of your mouth’. So, as soon as the plates arrive I swap all my scallops (bar one) for all her crabs. And I gorge on a mini-mountain of crustaceans on a bed of tasty watercress with tangy/sweet Thai-inspired dressing. It is one of my favourite dishes and at Riva they cook them perfectly.
Another reason for writing this review is that it gives me a chance to air one of my worst puns. A friend opened a restaurant featuring lobsters and asked me to name the place. I suggested The Flat Jap. Why? Because he served crustaceans. You don’t get it? ‘crushed a…..’ Forget it.
