Crab Factory at SS2 Petaling Jaya: Restaurant Review

The Big Easy is roaring into PJ’s SS2, courtesy of Crab Factory, opened this month by a merry band of Malaysians who once swung through southern Louisiana on a summertime road trip spiced up by Creole & Cajun cooking & swore to bring home their tastiest recollections of the bayou.

It’s a small, engagingly furnished eatery, complete with communal tables to let family & friends gather elbow-to-elbow for fun feasts evocative of The Deep South’s seafood boils & enlivened by a soundtrack that’s suitably heavy on Louis Armstrong & Harry Connick Jr.

Fresh Shellfish

Fresh shellfish forms the foundation for recipes that T.Y. Ooi, this Factory’s creative chef (that’s the title on her business card), proclaims were tried & tested through many months of kitchen R&D (plus plenty of hearty eating by the restaurant’s founders).

Crabs

We forwent the crabs in favor of the crawfish, the more popular component of true-blue seafood boils. RM78 buys a minimum order of 500 grams that’ll feed two or three people, especially with soft, lovely potatoes (RM6) or corn (RM4) thrown into the bag.

Other Seafoods Available

Customers can also choose prawns, mussels or baby octopus; the food isn’t cheap but it’s not unprecedentedly priced either, not in this year of escalating costs.

Preparation of the Seafood

Prepared in lemon pepper, garlic butter or ‘signature whole shebang’ sauce; the final one’s marked by major heat, more spicy than savory. Even the medium setting packs firepower that’s more ferocious than expected.

Gumbo

Gumbo is served as a snack here, featuring shrimp, sausage meat & okra swimming in soupy, soul-food stock over rice. RM12.90; probably functions more as a light lunch than a substantial dinner.

Fried Chicken Wings

Southern fried chicken wings, hot & juicy (RM12.90 before taxes).

Beer

A small selection of craft beers is available too.

Final Thoughts

Crab Factory’s opening menu sticks to the more easily prepared fundamentals, so the food’s served pretty fast; perhaps po’ boys, jambalaya & bananas foster might come later, but it’s fine for this place to focus on quality over quantity for now.

Service is friendly & obliging; the people seem nice here. At long last, the South rises again, but who knew it’d be in SS2?