The annual scourge of bootleg hairy crabs, one of China's most notorious counterfeit items, will ensure that you have a less than merry Autumn hairy crab season. more ›

We now bring you this week's uselessly ambiguous latest unsettling food safety warning: While you may think purchasing clean-looking seafood is preferable to the nasty stuff, Shanghai Daily reports that crabby "industry insiders" say "extremely clean" crabs have probably been bleached or whitened with chemicals harmful to humans (and to crabs.) With hairy crab season upon us, next time you're out browsing the catch, we hope you can distinguish between the suspiciously clean crabs and just the normally clean ones... more ›

We told you about this awesome vending machine for live hairy crabs in Nanjing a while ago, but now we've got more pictures up close. The crabs are priced very reasonably, from RMB10 to RMB50 depending on size and gender. And, if you're so lucky to get a dead crab, they'll give you 3 live crabs as compensation -- sounds like a good deal to us! [From ChinaDaily via ChinaTravelGuide] more ›

On Sunday, we enjoyed our first hairy crab of the season for the ridiculously eye-popping price of RMB15 at the Lisboa Yum Yum Pot Restaurant at Infiniti Plaza (138 Huaihai Zhong Lu), and it tasted not too bad. Under the terms of the promotion (see picture on the right), each diner is limited to one crab to be consumed at the restaurant (ie., you can't get it at that price as a takeaway), and if you want more, you'll have to pay more at RMB28 which is still a very good price. At first we wondered how the hell the restaurant could make a profit at that kind of price but all questions disappeared by the time we left the restaurant, stomachs content. If this was a marketing gimmick, it worked on us alright. more ›

Welcome to the inaugural episode of Chinese Soundbites, a podcast series brought to you by ChinesePod and Shanghaiist. Every week we'll be bringing you topics and words pulled straight from the headlines, in Mandarin Chinese. more ›