Ministry of Crab, the famous Colombo’s restaurant, has started an international expansion and opened a branch in Shanghai in 2019. I visited it twice.
The visit(s)
Ministry of Crab set shop in the ground floor of Barbarossa, a Middle-Eastern themed lounge/restaurant located inside People’s Park. Getting to the restaurant may be a small adventure. Tip: enter the park from the entrance near the Shanghai History Museum to maximize your chances to find it quickly.
The restaurant is finely appointed and seating is comfortable. The menu, called “Amendments” to their “Constitution” showcases crabs and prawns imported from Sri Lanka (shipped live twice a week).
In my first visit my main dish was one of their large prawns (the largest available at the time of my visit, around 400 grams). You can choose the sauce: pepper (my choice), chili, curry, garlic chili.
I also had their clams.
And a prawn skewer (the prawns came already de-shelled, which was nice).
In my second visit I went for one of their famous crabs. I opted for the “large” one (around 900 grams). They have bigger ones. They showed me the crab that was really not happy about the situation and tried to escape…
I was provided (and I used) the branded apron.
The crab came in its garlic chili sauce and was already cut in six parts. There was a substantial amount of meat, I think two people could have shared it. The sauce, that is a special creation of one of the founders of the restaurant, was really delicious.
Appropriately, I had a reserve of “cube” bread that was very useful to scoop up the sauce.
My second dish was the pot with prawns and curry. The great thing about this dish was that the prawns were already cleaned from the shell. The curry was perhaps too sweet, but still a great dish.
The check(s)
The first check was 563 RMB (80 USD). The big prawn accounted for around 50 USD.
The second check was 994 RMB (140 USD), the large crab was around 90 USD. I believe that this second menu could have been split by two (not excessively hungry) diners.
The seafood was expensive, but it was also really good. I think the checks were proportioned to the quality and it makes a great experiences for a seafood lover.
Where in Shanghai:
Inside People’s Park, 1/F, 231 Nanjing Xi Lu.
In Chinese: 南京西路231号1楼.
Website: https://www.ministryofcrab.com/