This is the golden season, the time for feasting and thanksgiving. Here in Japan, we celebrate the rice harvest, persimmons and pumpkins, mikan mandarins and matsutake mushrooms. Over in Shanghai, though, the autumn delicacy par excellence is freshwater crab.
Those gray-green little monsters — their English name, mitten crabs, makes them sound far too cute — are not hard to find at specialist restaurants on this side of the East China Sea. One venue that's become a particular favorite of ours is Kankyo Shuten in Kanda-Jinbocho.
It's a branch of Shinsekai Saikan, one of Tokyo's most venerable Shanghainese restaurants, and stands just a short block away. But in both its style and the focus of its food, the offspring (it opened nine years ago) is significantly different from the parent operation.