crab at thanh long

To celebrate Joy’s birthday we had dinner at Thanh Long. Open since 1971, Thanh Long is famous for its whole cracked crab and garlic noodles. They have a full menu, but despite eating at Thanh Long many times, Brad has only ever ordered these dishes. Not ones to buck a trend, we focused on (you guessed it) crab and garlic noodles.

The large, whole cracked crab is offered three ways: drunken, garlic roasted and tamarind. We selected one of each and added an extra tamarind crab for good measure. Similarly, the garlic noodles come two ways: with tiger prawns and without. We tried both and added two more plates of regular garlic noodles to go with the abundant amount of crab.

Everyone has their own style of eating crab and their favorite sauce. There is no wrong way to enjoy the delicious food at Thanh Long but I will share my technique. Shell a section of crab (a few legs will do) to produce a nice mound of meat. Then, add noodles and tamarind sauce for a perfect dish. Repeat until you are out of food or full.

Crab season in Northern California traditional starts in mid-November. While this should be an ideal time to visit Thanh Long, they have great crab year-round and I’m not sure I can wait that long to return.

Thanh Long: 4101 Judah St, San Francisco, CA (415) 665-1146