I have to admit that before my trip to Patagonia I didn’t know the waters of the southern Pacific were home to king crab, much like you find off the coast of Alaska. While walking around the streets of Ushuaia, we found a number of restaurants that specialized in the cooking and serving of these large crustaceans. These places seemed busy and very popular with tourists, especially the Japanese groups, so my wife and I decided to splurge and share one of these monsters for our last dinner in southern Argentina.
The beasts are sold by the kilogram (sorry, can’t remember the price, but it wasn’t cheap). The crab is cooked and served to you intact on a large platter, as you can see below. Spiky and rose-colored, the meal is quite photogenic.
The tender white flesh is found in the legs and, served with lemon juice, was delicious (if you happen to like shellfish)! And it was quite tasty washed down by local cerveza.
I later discovered that these big crabs are also known as the southern king crab and are relative far-ranging, from Peru in the north, down the Chilean coast, to Cape Horn in the south. The crab is fairly deep lived, ranging from 150 meters (490 ft), to 600 m (2,000 ft) in depth.
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