The famous local crab out in Kanazawa, Japan is called “Kano kani” named after the local area it’s caught in.

But let’s be straight here, Kano-kani is just a rebranded Snow Crab or Opilio Crab. It’s also commonly known as Zuwai-kani, Echizen-kani, and Matsuba-kani. They’re all the same basically.

I usually like Kegani or horsehair crab for its sweet meat and savory crab butter, but snow crab is just as good when fresh.

As a lover of all crabs, I was super excited to come to Kanazawa to try the snow crab. We went to the different super markets, fisherman markets and noticed a majority of them were ¥5000 or higher.

The ones downtown were even more expensive clocking in the ¥11,000+ range, which I thought was a little bit overpriced.

Of course, when you get to the supermarkets, especially towards the evening when they start discounting items, you noticed that there are some for ¥2000 and then get another half off!

I was all over this and wanted to try it so, my thoughts?

I like crab butter or kani miso, and I think basically the longer the crab stays unsold, the more the meat and the crab butter deteriorates. By the end, you’re getting a very cheap crab and although you do get a couple bites full of great crab, a lot of the wonderful crab butter is actually dissolved and gone.

I read an article by a Japanese person, basically saying that everybody thinks that crabs are not in season during summer. However, they actually are and can be very tasty.

The reason why summer crab gets a bad reputation is that there’s less demand in the summer, so the crab usually stays in the store for three days, or so, then gets heavily discounted.

Tourists like me, will buy that discounted crab, and realize that half of it has melted away, and say it doesn’t taste good.

Compound this situation over tens of years and summer crab gets a bad rap.

I guess in the end, you get what you pay for so it’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is and bust up for one of the good 7000yen crabs or something and report back.

I have yet to find a good heavily discounted crab with good crab butter.

 

This article is still a work in progress so let me know if you’ve had similar experiences or love crab as much as I do!

Being in Kanazawa, the snow crab was the famous seafood of the town, but oysters were also huge. I need to get a hold of tries some of these Noto oysters.

If you stay at the Hyatt Centric/Hyatt House in Kanazawa you’ll notice there is a small row of night time food stalls called “yatai” at the end of the street.

One of them offered oysters so I decided to give it a try.

This place had a cap for the grill and the staff told me to:

1. Place the coasters on the flat side and grill for one minute with a cover on,
2. Flip it over and to grill for another 4-5 minutes with the cover on.

I tried it, and to be honest, it worked perfectly. When I flipped it over, I could hear the oyster pop open around the four minute mark.

The cover also blocked the explosive banging of the shells as they crackled and through shrapnel everywhere. It protected my kids from having oyster shell in the eye, I think I will have to make one of these covers for my bbq back home.

My next question for oyster took me to the Noto peninsula, specifically the Noto Shokusai Food Market Ichiba. Here you can, purchase pressure, oysters, shrimp, and other seafood at the merchant stalls, and then take them to the back restaurant to grill. All you have to pay as a table sitting fee.

Armed with my new knowledge from the other oyster store, I feel confident coming to this restaurant. However, I was disheartened to find out this place did not have a cover for the grill, and my oysters were already open. So the question was, how would I flip them over without losing all of the wonderful oyster juice and what would be the timing?

In the end, I would have to fend for myself, and here’s my result.

I didn’t want to get food poisoning so I started on the flat side first and grilled for one minute, allowing some precious juice to drip.

I then took the tones, proceeded to flip them over quickly, and let them grill with the shell on for 6-7 minutes.

My results were mixed. Two oysters came out perfectly well to overcook. I’m sure there were a number of reasons for it but I didn’t want to keep opening the lids to see how they were done.

However, even been the over cooked ones had plenty of flavor and it was a great meal.

I’m sure you always your pros out there have some great advice for me so let me know a better way to do it in the comments below!