Ministry of Crab Bangkok — Restaurant in Khlong Toei Nuea Subdistrict

It was just a couple minutes walk from the hotel we stayed, and luckily we could get a reservation just in time for the first dinner in Bangkok for this time.

The huge wooden front door opened smoothly to welcome us into the beautiful interior of this restaurant. The interior of this restaurant has a calming but somewhat festive atmosphere, which made us being very comfortable as if we’re at home.

We were seated at the table by the window. In the table setting, neatly folded napkin cloth charmingly sat on the plate again welcoming us.

The table wait staff was very friendly, attentive and courteous, kindly explained details of each menu along with their system, so we could make our best choices for orders. While enjoying our first beer from Thailand, the crab liver patty as appetizers served. Ummm Yum! It’s a great delicacy! A drop of spicy honey on the patty was an excellent advice by the waitress. Next, garlic chili River Prawns. 6 pieces as one order wasn’t enough for us(because they were so delicious 😋), but we knew we must reserve the space of our stomach for our main, the Pepper Jumbo Crab 🦀 Oh wow! Our main dish was served in the most perfect timing. They were all truly paying attention to their guests!👍 The meat of this big crab was so silky creamy and sweet, with the hot black pepper accentuating the flavor of crab meat made such an eclectic dish that filled not only our stomach but also hearts!

We were explained that all the larger sized crabs bigger than L size (there’s more than 5 levels of larger sizes over the L size on the menu!) are from Sri Lanka 🇱🇰, and only the Sri Lanka’s mud crabs have this silky creamy texture and sweetness of the crab meat, which we didn’t know and were delighted to discover.

Those crabs are the part of mud crabs living in the mud below the low tides and/or mangrove forests near shore. There must be some different kinds of mud crab species around the world, but this Sri Lankan mud crab seems to be one of the largest and the most tasteful, if not the best. Or maybe it was the chef of this restaurant who knows exactly how to cook these crabs to bring the best taste out of it.

We throughly enjoyed this night out dinner at The Ministry of Crab Bangkok🥰 even though the price was pretty high considering we are in Thailand, but it was absolutely worth it.

As always, we may have been awfully quiet while we were eating crabs on that night, partly because it was really slippery to grab and hold every piece with the pepper sauce on it in order to extract the crab meat from the shells, but also it was because we surely and carefully enjoyed tasting every bite of the crab meat! So, even though we may have looked from outside as if we were on the verge of Cold War, it was in fact we were quite happily busy fully enjoying every single piece of crab meat all over our tastebuds on our insides 😋❤️😍

I also would definitely want to mention that the waitress of our table was so kind to help extracting almost all the crab meat out of the very last one piece of shell for my husband 😄🙏💜 Thus my husband was more than happy to just keep tasting until the very last one string...

Crustacean Heaven at Ministry of Crab

Dining at Ministry of Crab is less of a meal and more of an event, an experience that begins the moment you set eyes on the enormous tanks housing the real stars of the show: the crabs and prawns. And when I say big, I mean very big. These aren’t your average seafood portions; they’re the kind of seafood that makes you wonder if you should have brought along a teammate to help conquer your plate.

The crabs are the crown jewel, huge, meaty, and cooked to perfection. What impressed me most was how simply they were prepared, letting the natural sweetness of the crab shine through. The seasoning and sauces didn’t overpower; instead, they elevated every bite. Alongside them, the prawns arrived in equally impressive size, practically daring me to compare them with lobsters. Each one was juicy, tender, and packed with flavor, reminding me why simplicity and freshness are unbeatable in seafood.

Now, let’s talk about that butter sauce. Imagine golden, velvety richness poured over the seafood, soaking into every corner of the plate. It’s decadent yet balanced, and before long, I found myself doing the inevitable, dipping bread into it over and over again. Honestly, it was addictive. I joked that I could probably eat a whole basket of bread with just the sauce and be perfectly content.

The atmosphere adds to the charm. The vibe is classy yet lively, with an open kitchen that gives you a glimpse of the action. The staff were attentive and clearly proud of the food they serve, always ready with suggestions and quick to laugh along when I admitted that I was dangerously close to licking the plate clean.

Of course, Ministry of Crab isn’t the cheapest dining option, but it’s not meant to be. This is a place where you go to treat yourself, celebrate, or simply indulge in world-class seafood. And when the seafood is this fresh and this big, you feel like you’re getting exactly what you pay for, a memorable experience worth every bite.

By the end of the night, I was full, happy, and plotting my next visit. Very big crabs, very big prawns, and a butter sauce that should honestly be bottled and sold as “happiness in liquid form.” Ministry of Crab is not just a restaurant; it’s a seafood lover’s paradise, a place where indulgence is not only allowed but encouraged.

Highly recommended for anyone who believes bigger is better when it comes to seafood, and who understands that sometimes the simplest pleasures, like bread dipped in butter sauce, are the ones that stay with you long after the meal is done.

Five stars. And a special sixth one just for the...

This was our first big meal in Bangkok and sadly, did not quite live up to our expectations after hearing so much about MOC.

The booking system is easy enough and we managed to book online a month or so before we arrived. The staff were friendly enough and allocated us a table upstairs for our large group, which actually worked out well.

The staff served us almost immediately, but we got quite confused around which crabs were available and which were not as the options presented to us kept changing. One moment there was a 1kg and a 1.5kg, but that suddenly changed to 2x1.1kg then back to 1.5kg. This doesn't seem like that big a deal, but the price difference between a 1kg and 1.5kg crab is around 2,500 THB (over $100 AUD)! In the end, we thought we ordered 4 crabs but somehow ended up with an extra crab. We decided not to flag it, which was our fault, but we were towards the end of the meal and knew the staff were already slammed.

Regarding the food - it was definitely different and a lot of the dishes were very good. The MOC Version Chilli Crab is a spicy variant when compared to Singaporean Chilli Crab, and the Original Recipe Pepper Crab is a must try if you normally go for Black Pepper Crab in Malaysia/Singapore. The garlic bread was good, and the prawn bisque was unexpectedly good but also unexpectedly spicy (no problem for us).

Overall, the food was good but the meal was incredibly pricey. Our group of 8 adults and 7 kids ended up with 5 crabs on the bill up to 1.5kg in size and half a dozen prawns along with a number of other dishes from the menu, and the bill was 45,000 THB, or around 500 AUD per family. Was the food good? Yes. Was the meal worth the money we paid? Definitely not, but we are glad we gave it a...