Why Yong Fu probably has the best crab dishes you’ve ever tasted

Yong Fu is so new that the restaurant sign is still covered with red paper – the result of its owner not being able to be present for an opening ceremony because of Covid-19. But it’s been quietly attracting a lot of food lovers who are not averse to paying premium prices for a premium meal.

The premise offers a main dining room with four or five tables, and a whole floor dedicated to six private rooms of varying sizes. While we know Zhejiang cuisine for its sometimes overpowering flavours, Yong Fu’s biggest difference is in how balanced flavours are injected into quite basic dishes.

The boneless chicken feet in spicy sauce (HK$198) was a perfect example of that: crunchy yet tender feet infused with a very balanced marinade. Even a simple dish like roasted pine nuts with seaweed (HK$258) tasted unique.

No meal at Yong Fu is complete without the 18-cut raw crabs (HK$888), which is quite possibly the best raw crab dish I have ever tasted. Each crab was cut into precise matching sizes and paired with a marinade that was an impressive balance of sour, sweet and salty.

Two cephalopod dishes were also among the evening’s highlights: the giant cuttlefish with dried mustard cabbage and the squid ink rice (HK$598 each). The juicy cuttlefish was sliced in thick slices and had still fully absorbed the flavour of the dried mustard cabbage sauce.

Although the sautéed crab legs (HK$2,180) and sautéed chicken (HK$598) did not rise to similar heights, both were still delicious. The only disappointment was the salt and pepper fried black surfperch (HK$398), which could have been a bit crunchier. If you want to take a private room (minimum HK$2,000 per head), the restaurant is happy to come up with seasonal off-menu selections.