Yan Seafood Market is located in Chinatown across Kekaulike Market. It's clean, bright and full of tanks with live seafood. They offer live Dungeness crab, Samoan crab, lobsters, snails, fish, clams, etc. I pass by here all the time but never looked inside. It wasn't till one day Mink was craving Dungeness crab and we couldn't find it anywhere. We looked at Costco (they had but they were already cleaned and all the good stuff was discarded), Richard's Meat Market and a few stalls in Chinatown. Fortunately I remembered this place and we walked there. Sure enough, they had tanks of live Dungeness crab.
Customer service was friendly but a little slow. We were the only customers inside when we arrived but couldn't decide on how many to buy. In a blink of an eye, the place was packed and it took awhile to make our purchase. When we were finally helped again, we purchased two live Dungeness crabs. She gave us two huge ones! Cleaning was offered but my dad said it'll taste better to keep them alive till we're about to eat them. We politely declined the cleaning and paid. Bring cash! I was going to pay by credit card but they said cash. They probably don't want to pay processing fees.
The crabs were still moving around on the way home and up till the moment we cleaned them. Seeing the crab cleaning in real life vs YouTube is totally different! It was a quick steam and we had our dinner ready. Don't worry, we also picked up take out from Thai Issan to accompany the crab. Mink made some homemade Thai seafood sauce. It was the perfect compliment to the plump and sweet crab meat. Yes, she made something in the kitchen! Thank social media or YouTube! Great discovery in Chinatown and we'll be back the next time we're in the mood for fresh seafood. read more