New Hubei-style restaurant in Little India wants to bring China’s crawfish craze to Singapore

There’s a new specialty restaurant that prides itself on serving up the freshest crawfish and hairy crabs, Hubei-style. Xia Mi Hao Liao in Little India offers live crawfish flown in weekly from China, served in five different ways.
The restaurant’s founders aren’t from Hubei, though – they are Singaporean.
“We happened to have some friends from China who introduced us to the concept,” said Donovan Look, who opened the eatery with a few other local partners. Xia Mi Hao Liao, a pun on “What’s good to eat?” in Hokkien, is the first restaurant venture for the 27-year-old, who has a background in food science and nutrition.
Appreciating fresh crawfish is a Chinese trend he hopes will take off in Singapore.
During visits to China, he found that “from March or April onwards, all the way until October, people eat crawfish. They say, ‘In summer, we have crayfish; in winter, we have barbecue.’ In Singapore, since it’s summer all year round, I thought this was a doable idea.”  
Over the last 10 months, Look and his partners made six trips to different cities in Hubei. “They really have a crawfish-eating trend there, especially for dinner or supper,” he said. The trend “originated and became famous in Hubei, and now, people in almost every province in China eat crawfish”.
Xia Mi Hao Liao’s other specialty is hairy crab, also sourced from China. “We hope to be a specialty crustacean restaurant,” Look said.
Crawfish and hairy crabs are served five different ways: Simply steamed, spicy, Bi Feng Tang style, with minced garlic; or their signature oil-stewed 10-spiced, featuring a sauce blend of 10 spices including Chinese cinnamon, star anise, Wurfbainiavera, bay leaf and licorice root.
The oil-stewed 10-spice flavour is a Hubei specialty that “every Hubei chef can cook”, Look shared. The difference is in variations of the dish: “Some are more numbing; some are spicier. We try to find a balance – not so spicy and not so numbing so you can actually taste the fragrance of the spices.”
One thing Look noticed was that Chinese restaurants typically serve crawfish cooked in mala or heavy sauces. “We concluded that the seafood is frozen, so they have to do something spicy with a numbing sensation to cover up the taste,” he continued.
“We serve steamed seafood because it’s fresh enough. I don’t think there are many restaurants in Singapore that serve crawfish steamed.”
Served in a bamboo steamer, the naked crustaceans are sweet and tasty paired simply with a dip of soy sauce, vinegar, ginger and wasabi.
Although there is a season for crawfish, “Actually, they have it all year round, just that in summer, it’s peak season, so there is the most supply”, Look said, adding that the restaurant’s crawfish are lake-farmed in Hubei. The crustaceans are also generally larger during the season.
Off-season, “We still have crawfish, just maybe not as big. That’s why in our restaurant, we don’t serve them per piece – we go by weight.” Crawfish are priced at S$48 for a 500g portion or S$90 for 1kg.
Hairy crabs, of course, are only available between September and December. Off-season, “We will have crabs from different parts of Southeast Asia, like mud crabs, along with some prawn dishes.”
Although it does require some work, shelling the crawfish and taking your time to pick the hairy crabs clean is all part of the fun. And above all, it’s a social experience, best shared with friends and a cold beer or two.
Xia Mi Hao Liao is at 20 Upper Weld Rd. From now until Sep 30, the restaurant is offering unlimited 50 per cent off for Salt & Pepper or Spicy Crawfish Tail (usual price S$32), valid with a minimum order of one big portion of live crawfish, for dine-in only.