Crab Factory SS2 Original Louisiana Boil
5 min readCrab Factory SS2 Original Louisiana Boil
When my younger brother was working in Los Angeles, he kept feeding me pictures of this special restaurant serving seafood in plastic bags. The restaurant is so popular, you have to queue for a place. This seafood concept is similar to many restaurants from Louisiana and one of the most popular seafood there is crawfish. They called it yabbies in Australia and most of the hotels in Malaysia named it as “mini lobster”. The word lobster is more appealing as yabbies or crawfish is not a common word in Malaysia.
It is obvious flying to Los Angeles or Louisiana is not in my plans right now but interesting I found a similar restaurant in our own backyard, SS2. The restaurant is called Crab Factory: Original Louisiana Boil and it is located at 21, Jalan SS2/64, Petaling Jaya. Thus, the restaurant is strategically located at the opposite of McDonalds and it is next to Guardian SS2. You won’t miss this restaurant except you are a special one.
Believe it or not, this is a very small world. I met up with the co-founder of Crab Factory, TY Ooi who created the restaurant inspired by Louisiana cuisine after dining at the same place as recommended by my younger brother. After visiting the restaurant countless times, TY decided to bring the same concept back to Malaysia.
(Comparison with the Louisiana food from Los Angeles on the left and Crab Factory SS2 on the right. It is almost identical!)
Still in addiction to Louisiana food, TY decided to turn her addiction to a business. Hence, she creates her own recipe and her own menu (after countless of research and tasting) based on her memories of the Louisiana food she fell in love with. Next, TY starts to source for the fresh seafood for her business. Crawfish is everywhere in Louisiana but it is as rare as a gem in Malaysia. Transporting them live to Malaysia will cost a bomb and it will be too pricey for the local market. For that solution, she looks for other similar option, yabbies.
(Live yabbies in the water tank, it is as fresh as you can get.)
Yabbies is a distance cousin to crawfish and it is easily available in Australia. It makes sense to get yabbies instead of crawfish in terms of transportation and cost. Yabbies is common but live yabbies is a hard to find in Malaysia. If you are health conscious, you should order yabbies as they are almost zero calories! Yabbies tastes similar to prawns and lobsters.
(Meat Crabs with Deathvalley sauce in the bag)
Getting the seafood sorted out and out of the way, it is no coincident to name the restaurant “Crab Factory” as she is a born crab lover too. Like the addiction to Louisiana food, TY never ran out of interest in eating crabs.
The range of seafood is quite interesting, they includes meat crabs, prawns, Canadian scallops, New Zealand mussels, baby octopus and Japanese snail. The seasonal will be yabbies and fresh water prawns.
(Prawns in garlic butter sauce in the bag.)
Do not startled to see waiters or waiters serve the seafood in plastic bags. To create your own bags, you have to choose your seafood and then sauced it up with three flavours; lemon pepper, garlic butter and the signature whole shebangs. Next, choose your heat (spiciness). It is free except you want to go gung-ho for XXX and the Deathvalley ultimate spiciness. The bags are still incomplete without choosing the bag buddies with choices of chicken sausages, potatoes, corns, button mushrooms, king mushrooms or enoki mushrooms.
(Seasonal fresh water prawns on top and yabbies bottom)
In minutes, you will get your customised bag and served on the table. You can’t find any plates or any cutlery in Crab Factory. Everything is served in plastic bags and your hands are the cutlery available. You need to get really dirty with your hands and getting filthy is a fun thing to do here.
(If you are a mussel lover, you should try these New Zealand mussels. This is as good as those Port Lincoln mussels!)
The best part is you still can enjoy the freshness of the seafood even infused with the sauces.
(Don’t be shy in getting filthy with your hands. Buddy from BERNAMA loves getting his hands dirty)
The sides are equally good and food like fried chicken wings, Cajun garlic fries, Cajun garlic wedges, baguette and “Gumbo”. I love their idea of introducing Creole and Cajun in their food to create the Louisiana taste for the locals.
(Fried Chicken Wings, gone in minutes)
The fried chicken wings are definitely tasty. There is no rice, noodles, pasta or “man tau” here, you have to live with baguette.
(“Gumbo” or in short of soup of unexpected adventure)
“Gumbo”, their creation is a soup made of chicken broth, lady’s finger, capsicum, onion, spicy sausage, prawn and based rice. This is nothing you tasted before. You either love it or hate it.
(Fried baby squid)
The seasonal house deep fried baby squid is another recommended dish. This is way tastier and addictive than the usual calamari rings.
(Look at the messy table!)
I have never been so much fun playing with food with my hands. My grandma always said it is tastier to eat with your hands.
(What an achievement of creating this mess. Playing with food has never been so palatable)
To be honest, I can’t find fault with Crab Factory. Overall, the service is good and the food is scrumptious and delectable. You will fall in love with the freshness and quality of the seafood. Although they started their business a few weeks ago, the restaurant is packed during lunches and dinners. Like TY, many of their customers fell in love with their Louisiana Creole and Cajun flavours.
Now, you don’t need to fly to Louisiana or Los Angeles for those boiling seafood, Crab Factory offers similar experience with great taste. Although Crab Factory is not Halal certified but they are Muslim friendly restaurant. If you adore seafood, you should call them to book your tables now.
Crab Factory SS2 Opening Hours:
Mon: 3:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Wed – Thu: 3:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Fri – Sun: 11:00 am – 11:00 pm
Crab Factory SS2 Address, Contact and Tel:
21, Jalan SS2/64, (opposite McDonalds SS2 and beside Guardian Pharmacy)
Petaling Jaya
Tel: 03-7865-5850
Website: http://www.crabfactory.com.my
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/my.crabfactory
Crab Factory SS2 Original Louisiana Boil #crab #seafood #louisiana http://t.co/fJ6z6FvYLL
i love jumbo GUMBO . when i m back i will go to crab factory. eat crab n japanese snails
Visited your outlet recently and found that all the hypes generated by the media about your place is grossly over rated. For a start, all the sauces we ordered were very salty. Even the crispy squids were salty. The baguette was not even warm when it arrived. Secondly, it was impossible for anyone to order any warm water which is normally something drunk by the elderly. Thirdly, it is most difficult to understand what your waiters are saying when you try to order anything. Also, when you try to book a table for 6 pm, you are told that there isn’t one available but you can come early. This I cannot understand. Eventually, after much repeat, I finally understood that I should come at about 5 pm plus but must finish my meal by about 6.30pm. What a great inconvenience for a meal which is not that spectacular, besides being pricey!