Soft Shell Crab at Maa Kalijai Restaurant | Satpada | Chilika near Puri | Odisha

The soft shell crab is quite unique and said to be the native of Chilika Lake in Odisha and not available anywhere else. As the name suggests, soft shell crabs do not have a hard shell akin to a regular crab. Instead it's flesh is covered in a soft membrane which is edible. So eating a soft shell crab isn't as strenuous as a regular crab as you don't have risk breaking your teeth or use a pair of pincers to crack through the hard shell to get to the flesh.

We tried the soft shell crab at a seaside shack at Satpara, on the bank of Chilika lake, some 50 odd kilometers from Puri. The shack, named Maa Kalijai Restaurant was very close to the end point of Puri Satpara road near OTDC Panthaniwas.

The crab masala they served us was good, tasted very well, no complaints on that. However what we didn't like was the price. They charged us Rs.600/- per plate and the plate had only one small sized crab. This is simply exorbitant. Also the portion on prawn masala they served, which had six pieces of tiger prawns in it, was pegged at Rs.500/- which was also very high. For two plates of crab and one plate of prawn we had to shell out Rs.1700/- which would buy two of us a decent meal at any fancy restaurant.

I suspect the sweet talking owner of Maa Kalijai restaurant simply duped us. There weren't other tourists around and we didn't check with other restaurants. I think he took the opportunity to make some quick buck. Even considering the exclusivity of this crab specie, six hundred bucks should at least have bought us two crabs. That would have been a sane thing.

Anyway one learns from mistakes and through this video I would urge every tourist visiting Satpara and planning to try out soft shell crab, to check with more than one restaurant and understand clearly what they are getting for their money.

#Chilika #Satpara #Softshellcrab