Temple Spice Crabs

This place is you local/​touristed dai pai dong (outside style eating). It’s not the cleanest and the waiters can be rude but that’s all part of its Hong Kong charm and I can say I have been here more times then I can count because the food is actually really good. I usually get my staple sweet and sour chicken or pork and then a variety of different dishes depending on how many people I am with. Tonight I just took a new friend from Chile who is here for a short stay, studying abroad for a few months. My extremely basic Cantonese usually gets a few smiles out of the servers and tonight was no different. They even had a good grumble about taking our photo although this was all done with good humour.
If you don’t mind a little dirt for some good food then I would recommend this place. It’s right by the night market so after stuffing your face you can walk it off and have a little bargain as you go.

I went there to try the sweet and sour pork. I already knew the place was a bit dirty and the service not nice so I wasn’t disappointed about that. My dish was good for street food, no bones no skin, crispy and well cooked.

The worst experience ever! First they didn’t arrive to bring extra chairs so we had to steal chairs from other tables. Then a waitress threw the menus at our table. Then she abruptly took the menus from us without letting us know. It took them 30 minutes for our food to arrive and they served our water at the very end of the meal! They treated us a lot worse than the other customers there; they treated the other foreigners far better then us. Whatever food we ate made me feel sick, too.
Never again am I going to that place ever.

Ummmmm this place is dirty… I’ve only been here once but we won’t be coming back. They sat us in a room where bugs were all over the place. I hate giving bad reviews but hot damn! Couldn’t they at least wipe the table before we sit??? The service was horrible, I may just not be used to it but I don’t think slamming the food on the table or finding hairs in our food is something we want to experience again.
We ordered the large prawns, I was expecting much more flavor but it wasn’t that tasty. The noodles were probably the only thing I would eat again even tho my girlfriend found 3 curly hairs lingering with the noodles.
It is located in a great area, lots of people and close to the night market but I’m sure there are much better restaurants to experience

This is a restaurant to have seafood, but for other food, like fried rice, fried chicken. Personally, I would not recommend this.
This is this, I want to grab a quick bite, but I surely not expect this kind of cooking. As per picture that I’ve uploaded, the chicken seems dry and unappealing. I mean, I could have done a slightly better job at this.
The stairs is steep and the platform is too short. The atmosphere is very noisy too so unless you like a bit of crowd or else this is not your scene at all.
All in all, this is mainly for tourists, so if you are a tourist, you better be ready to get slightly ripped off.

This is one of my «must-​visits» while in Hong Kong. I come here at least twice per vacation there for their salt-​and-​peppered giant squillia (a type of prawn) and conch in spicy wine sauce, items which I cannot get back home. Usually I come by myself and order those two dishes plus a large beer, with the bill coming to around HK$ 260 (as I recall during my visit earlier this year). It seems especially busy late night, like after 10pm.
On the other hand, when friends and coworker tell me this place is not clean, then I can’t disagree. Hence I cannot give it s higher rating.

Standard canto food! Pretty good overall, the waitresses are helpful with orders but don’t expect it to be western dinning experience.
Food, we have oyster pancake, garlic prawn, black pepper and mushroom, and vege. As a local, I’ve had a better meal but this is good enough to show my Aussie friends.
Cleaning is okay, don’t expect it to be perfect.

We ate here today and not only did the dishes bear absolutely no resemblance to the pictures pasted on the wall or the menu but we were over charged AND short changed on top of that. We ordered clams which ultimately was mostly sauce with a few clams (about half or less the amount pictured on the menu). We also order boiled abalone which was we find out to be about ¼ the size of what they picture on the menu and two less than what they have pictured. Both were extremely salty. This is a tourist trap! When done, we added up the bill before paying and it came out to $ 472. When I brought the bill up to this large figured lady with numerous pouches around her waist with money overflowing from them performed her mathematical magic (as most places do, without a calculator) and told me the bill was $ 482. She might have had one too many Blue Girl beers at that point (drinking on the job is never a good thing). I thought, alright, that’s a little over a $ 1 US Dollar and we don’t tip here anyways, so you can have it. I gave her a $ 500 bill and was given $ 12 back in change — short changed $ 6. Give an inch, take a foot. Cheated out of $ 16 HKD, a little over $ 2 USD in total. I know, it’s not a lot, but the pure principle of it bothers me. I rarely ever write reviews. I doubt this was an isolated incident and with some many tables and some many customers through the day/​night, it adds up. If there was a proper authority to report this or investigate this, I’d be interested in the findings. I am almost positive they prey on tourists.
I would not recommend this place and would never eat here again, except maybe to call them out on their shady ways to collect extra money. What goes around come around Temple Street Spicy Crabs. If you choose to eat here, just remember to tally up the bill yourself first to make sure you’re not cheated these extra few dollars. If they feel they should be given a tip, they should better their dish portions, improve the quality of the food, and leave a tip jar out or something instead of «stealing» their way to a tip that they really don’t deserve anyways.

Excellent seasoning on the Squilla! Garlicky flavors with a hint of spice is a great way to start off the night. Plenty of room here to watch the crowd roll by the night market and most importantly enjoy the great food. Not really into the razor clams but it’s pretty decent considering the excellent sauce that goes with it. Roasted garlic is the feature ingredient here… if your into garlic seasoning this is the place to be. The seafood is fresh and is on display in front of the restaurant. Choose your flavor and they’ll grill it up family style.

Jumbo spicy garlic squilla (mantis prawns) for 120hkd. It’s a deal… Hang out and people watch the night market shoppers at an open air table with a beer? Puts this place over the top. Wait staff spoke English and were very helpful… I’d recommend this place to friends.

This restaurant is located at the very beginning of the temple street night market near Jordan road. There are usually waitresses with menus in the walkway trying to coax you inside.
We’d walk by this place about 40 times and since I’m allergic to shellfish I was reluctant to go. It also seems like a giant tourist trap, and I didn’t want to take any part in that.
I finally gave in to my husband’s request for spicy crab after his seafood withdrawal on a Wednesday night. There was no line, and they seem to have expanded over the years because they use a large dining room across the path for customers as well.
My husband cannot stop raving about the spicy crab at this place. I was openly jealous about how delicious his crab looked smothered in spicy garlic sauce. He said is was fresh, succulent, and spiced just right. When I’m out of town, I think he secretly goes there to get his seafood fill. I ordered a pork dish with rice. This dish was ok, but next time I’ll order something smothered in spicy garlic sauce.
The name of this place is just right. Go try some spicy crab.
** Make sure you get your waiter’s attention or you could have a long wait to order.