Healing Butter Crab Journey

Drive to Nansha to visit a butter crab farming base and enjoy tasting their farm-raised butter crabs.

Restaurant Name: Zheng Bingcai Butter Crab · Seaview Crab Farm (Longxue Island Branch)
Address: Longxue Avenue North, Longxue Island, Wuyong Farming Base
☎️: 13247620302

With the opening of the Nanzhong Expressway, it only takes about 50 minutes to drive from Zhongshan to the farming base, making it quite convenient. After leaving the expressway, you’ll pass through a narrow road flanked by ponds, just wide enough for one car, and soon arrive at the farming base.

Next to the private rooms, there’s a rope net area where guests can take photos. The photo quality here is exceptionally high, especially during sunset when the golden hues of the sky create stunning visuals that will fill up your phone’s memory.

Butter crab is a unique delicacy of southern China. The warm climate, suitable water temperature, and abundant aquatic resources in the brackish water regions provide the ideal conditions for butter crab to thrive.

Since this is the source farming base, guests can enjoy higher-quality butter crabs at more affordable prices compared to restaurants.

This time, I tried the plumpest butter crabs of April, weighing five taels, prepared with basil, cilantro, and oil-baked to create a creamy texture. The aroma was captivating as the dish was served, and the crab roe was rich and flavorful. Although the roe wasn’t fully liquefied, it was still incredibly delicious.

The staff provided specialized crab-eating tools to help us savor each part slowly. They mentioned that a single butter crab can offer 13 different textures and flavors.

After enjoying the five-tael butter crab, we moved on to the rarer three-tael "top-grade" butter crab. This crab had a 95% oil liquefaction rate, with the crab roe fully transformed into butter, permeating every part, even the joints. It’s said that only one in 1,000 crabs can reach the "top-grade" level, highlighting its rarity. Such a rare and exquisite ingredient is best prepared by steaming, but steaming butter crab requires careful attention to detail; otherwise, even the finest butter crab can be ruined.

However, before visiting, ask yourself if you truly love eating crabs. Butter crabs are so precious that if you’re like me—impatient and not meticulous—it might feel like a waste.

The owner is from Chaoshan, and besides butter crabs, the restaurant also offers some Chaoshan dishes and snacks as accompaniments. Of course, these are just side dishes, so don’t expect too much.

While many friends have traveled to Taihu or Yangcheng Lake to taste hairy crabs, why not try the uniquely southern butter crabs at this farming base? It’s a different kind of culinary experience.