How To Eat Chinese Lobster

Nov 27th, 2007 by admin

Chinese lobster is one of my all-time favourite dishes, but so hard to eat without making a mess, especially when you’re in public! It can come cooked in a variety of sauces (ginger and spring onion is a classic Cantonese style), but it’s invariably served chopped up in large pieces with the shell still attached. It can be served with noodles or rice underneath, or just on its own. Noodles are much better in my opinion, and easier to pick up and eat than soggy rice.

The lobster will arrive as a large shared dish. The claws are the prized pieces and usually reserved for the guest of honour or the oldest or youngest person at the table. But there are plenty of other great pieces with plenty of succulent flesh. How to reach the flesh is another matter. Restaurants will usually serve the lobster pieces already cracked, making it easier to get to the flesh.

You may need to use the lobster cracker yourself (it looks like a nut cracker). Forget the chopsticks if you have to do this. Hold the piece of lobster in one hand, and crack it with the other hand. The shell should come away much more easily. The restaurant may also provide a lobster pick, which you can use to prise out the smaller pieces of flesh. A combination of chopsticks, lobster pick, lobster cracker and fingers works well.

With the legs, you can crunch on them with your back teeth, as the shell should be soft enough, then suck out the flesh. But don’t sue me if you hurt your teeth! I’ve been known to sit for hours, methodically tearing the legs apart with my fingers. There is also a nice piece of flesh attached to the lobster tail. I’ve yet to find anything edible in the head, which seems to be purely for decoration.

Noodles are simply eaten with chopsticks from your bowl. They’ll be drenched in sauce from the lobster and therefore will be quite easy to pick up. There will be piles of lobster shells all over the table as everyone tucks in, so don’t worry about making a mess. Chinese lobster is a proper hands-on dish. Just rinse your fingers in the finger bowl afterwards, and don’t hold back or you’ll miss out on the good pieces!

Let me know if you have other tips or suggestions! I’d love to hear them.