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Thanh Long (Seafood cuisine)  $$$$

 9
JaT Rating

4101 Judah Street, San Francisco, 94122  (Directions)


415.665.1146


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Vietnamese restaurant serving their world famous roast crab since 1971


Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 992
Reviewed: 4/13/2008
Rating: 9
My photo gallery 		Terry's wife was hosting dinner with coworkers and sister. I was lucky enough to be invited and met them up at Thanh Long in Sunset District. Thanh Long is a Vietnamese restaurant which has gotten fame from their 2 signature dishes; Roasted Crab and Garlic Noodles. For a restaurant this famous I'm kinda ashamed to no idea what to expect. I relied on Terry's wife to do most of the ordering.

We started off with 2 appetizers;

Salt & Pepper Calamari (image 6, $10.50) - I'm still on a Calamari diet but from the pieces I had, it was wonderful. It's like they just cut the squid, salted/seasoned/breaded, flashed fried, and brought immediately to your table. I'd say it's probably the best I've had.

Dungeness Crab Puffs (image 5, $10.50) - complete ripoff and crab meat was nowhere to be found. It was mostly herb cheese (aka fancy herbs + cream cheese). You can blame me as I suggested this order. This dinner was almost a month ago and I cringe just thinking of this waste of money.

For main courses, majority of the group ordered Roasted Crab, shared garlic noodles, and lone wolf me ordered the Drunken Crab. The crab is served in its shelled so if you're squeamish about picking meat from a shell, don't even attempt to order the crabs. Don't bother wearing your fine clothes as with every crack of the crab, bits of shell will fly all over the place and if you're lucky, it will land in your hair.

garlic noodles (image 7, $9.50) - if you love garlic, you'll love this dish. It's complete garlic overload...think 1 clove per noodle, thick noodles chewy style. Must order.

Drunken crab (image 8, $30?) - oh gawd, the crab was huge. So much crab meat in the legs and body. Sauce was heavy on wine with lots of black pepper. I buy crabs from 99 Ranch and they are nowhere near the size at Thanh Long. yeah, they're expensive at $30 but it was so frickin' good and just think, the roast crab is even better.

Roast Crab (image 9, $30?) - Eating crab this good will leave you with serious withdrawals. I won't even attempt to describe their secret ingredients but it involves lots of garlic/butter and tons of love. The crab meat was sweet and drenched in an artery clogging sauce. I couldn't stop eating and helped myself to leftover half crab.

Complete blowout wallet and stomach wise. I blew $70 on my share and wanted to take a nap under the table. I had a fun time cracking crab and enjoyed the tasty food, the visit to Thanh Long was an overwhelming success.
 
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