KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21 — I once stood in front of the Excelsior Hotel in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, many years ago, waiting to go to the night market down the road. SuddenIy in the shadow of the hotel I saw hawkers with their carts waiting for the police to go off before they started business, just like in the movies!

I also took a ride in a boat with an outboard motor, driven by a Tanka woman. Images of both the boat and Causeway Bay came to mind when I had dinner at Causeway Bay Spicy Crab in Desa Sri Hartamas recently. There is a restaurant with the same name in Hong Kong, and the style of the crabs reflects those cooked by the people who live in boats in typhoon shelters there.

We know that Hong Kong food is about bringing out the subtle, natural flavours of the fresh ingredients. Not so with the typhoon shelter crabs at the Causeway Bay restaurants. Spicy, salty and garlicky best define it.

The crabs (Lat Chee Hai) are deepfried, then buried under a heap of finely chopped fried garlic and chilli, strongly flavoured with salt. It’s what the boat people like, and the main chef at Causeway Bay is a Tanka.

We had to sweep away the garlic and chilli to reveal what lay beneath — the sweet and fresh crabs that didn’t need much embellishment, except perhaps a little sauce. KL folks are used to eating them sweet and sour, with a creamy butter sauce, sambal or with salted egg yolk, which is also very much Hong Kong style. A pity about the garlic though, now that its price has tripled.

Maybe it would have been better to try the Singapore Style Crab Curry (wonder what it is!) instead. What’s really good here are the Steamed Prawns with Ginger and Spring Onion. They are the big-head udang galah marinated in Hua Diao wine and steamed with egg white and lots of fine ginger. It’s old-fashioned cooking that I like, and the prawns somehow taste smoother and sweeter with the lightly cooked egg white clinging to them.

What grabs me too are the cubes of Golden Crispy Beancurd. The soft beancurd have been tossed in a seven-flavour powder, then deepfried. You can taste some chilli and peppery hotness, salt and a lovely sar keong (cekur) aroma. A chilli dip is served with this, but the beancurd tastes so good on its own.

What I didn’t mind with garlic was the Steamed Razor Clam. Interestingly these large clams come from Scotland. Each clam here is lathered with garlic paste and ginger, heaped with glass noodles and possibly superior stock and steamed. The clam is delicious, with a bite-through texture and not rubbery like some razor clams are. You slurp the “soup” which flavours the glass noodles as well.

Fresh Clams in Salted Soup tastes like the milky, sour and salty soup you find in fishhead noodles, so what’s not to like. I liked it even better when I found angled loofah (sing kua) lending its sweetness to it, as well as celery, baby corn, ginger and vermicelli.  It was spoilt somewhat by the canned button mushrooms in it. We have in the market a large variety of fresh mushrooms grown here; I didn’t understand why the chef favours the canned ones.

I found the same mushrooms in the Baby Cabbage in Superior Stock, which was bland and starchy. The hard pieces of roasted flat sole in it did nothing for it.

The canned mushrooms also appeared in the Sauteed Duck’s Tongues with Chinese Chives. I much prefer duck’s tongues to be braised Teochew style. You can ask for the mushrooms to be omitted, as my friends who went on another night did.

The Honey Garlic Fried Pork Ribs would have been much better if they hadn’t been left too long in the oil.

I would like to try the congee on my next trip there — you can have the Crab Congee, with frog or with minced pork and oysters. The Fried Flat Rice Noodles with Beef also sounds promising.

The Sea Coconut with Ginseng was exceptional here — I particularly liked the taste of ginseng and dried longan with it. And the Kwai Leng Ko came in the shape of a tortoise!

The crabs, which are from Indonesia and Sabah are RM68 for 600g and RM80 for 800g. The clams in salted soup are RM26, Duck’s Tongues RM24, Gold Crispy Benacurd RM18, Honey Fried Pork Ribs RM28, all medium portions.

Causeway Bay Spicy Crab is at 26 & 26-1, Jalan 30/70A, Desa Sri Hartamas, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Tel 03-6205 2280.