Crab Harbour

The king crab meal is fabulous! That’s why they call themselves «Crab Harbor». Sashimi and sushi are quite good and fresh, above the average of GTA. The beef sukiyaki, Hotpot, is also great.
PS: the environment reminds me of the fascinating restaurants in Japan.
Totally, it is great and beyond my expectation, so I give a «Five Star»!

I was quite excited to visit Crab Harbour after hearing so much about it and seeing some awesome pictures from this restaurant. I finally decided to come here with my family earlier this month, on a very cold day mind you.
We noticed the restaurant was quite empty when we arrived at around 8pm, but didn’t really think much of it… it was a cold and icy night after all, so we assumed many stayed home.
After looking at the menu, we were set to order the Asahi meal, as that one had the most crab… until the restaurant told us that they only had the snow crab, egg custard, and the grilled crab paste available! For a restaurant that’s supposed to be known for crab, I found the lack of crab options to be a bit disappointing, but regardless we ordered the sukiyaki beef hotpot and added the grilled crab paste as a side.
The snow crab came first, and I must say for the disappointment we’ve had so far that night, the snow crab was actually quite meaty and delicious. The sauce that came with the snow crab is also quite refreshing. The grilled crab paste was uniquely presented and tasted very good as well. However, the egg custard wasn’t anything special, as well as the sashimi (but hey, I kinda expected that anyway).
Finally, the sliced beef… was decent. They were cut a little too thick, but the quality was there overall. The sukiyaki broth was also quite sweet, which I definitely like as that’s what the broth is supposed to be. The udon was the sanuki kind, so hey at least they didn’t cheap out on the noodles!
Service fluctuated wildly, depending on who was delivering the meal. One of the servers was excellent in taking down our order and explaining what was and wasn’t available, while another seemed to be paying more attention to the employees having dinner than our table, as that person kept ignoring our pleas for service.
Will I return? Well, apparently the reason why there were so few crab options was because of shipping costs and recent snowstorm in the Atlantic… so maybe a summer visit would generate better luck for me.

Oh my, I left this place in a lobster food coma. We came here for my dad’s birthday and ordered the 10lb lobster set course for 4 – 6 people (I think it would definitely be too much food for 4 people though). The food tasted pretty fresh and I thoroughly enjoyed it at first but then I got a little overwhelmed since each dish featured lobster/​snow crab prominently and there was a lot of repetition in flavours. Still, I would recommend this place to avid seafood lovers just for the experience. They also have other set courses for 2 – 8 people I believe, along with some a la carte items.

Had the king crab set for 5ppl and we ordered 1 dozen of oyster which were very small and 2.5 $ each
They add udon in the steamed egg which makes the bowl looks larger but I prefer to eat a smaller portion with pure egg
The appetizer is extremely small: several pieces of seaweeds with tiny raw wasabi octopus
The crab tempuras are huge but 80%of them are just wheat flour
Then we had the crab sushi roll plate– taste is good
The steamed king crab– only legs are eatable and they are delish
The crab hot pot is the weirdest dish we had– they just simply boil the crab and vegetables. Soy sauce is the only flavour we could go with, so we just dip the veggies with soy sauce.
Then the waitress poured rice and eggs in the pot, it turns out to be very good actually
The dessert is icecream with a thin slice of cake
The bill ends up to 300 $ for 5 ppl and its cash only

I’m confused about the reviews here. This restaurant may have some grandiose exterior, but once you get past the hostess, it’s nothing special. A restaurant that wants to charge minimum of $ 200 per group meal, better have the best selection of seafood and the best service available.
Typically in a Chinese seafood restaurant, one would see large tanks with lively seafood in them. In this restaurant I had to venture near the washroom to find two relatively small tanks with somewhat dead lobsters and crabs.
We ordered the $ 200, cash only, special which was to include Alaskan King crab. We were served with several courses all of which were done with a great level of service. However I was disappointed with pretty much every dish. There was absolutely no seasoning in any dish. Two of the dishes included a custard that was void of any flavour. All the seafood was basically steamed, yet with absolutely no sign of herbs or flavoring.
They may have a great presence with the exterior of the restaurant, but there are far better Chinese seafood restaurants in the immediate vicinity.
Sidenote-​this restaurant is not truly a Chinese restaurant, it is a mix mash of Chinese and Japanese. When you order a pre-​fix menu, you will get some courses that are sushi, which is not traditionally prepared.

Service was great! Food was okay. Considering we spent about $ 500, we didn’t really eat much. Great for meetings/​showing off but if you’re hungry; you better have a fat wallet or a few credit cards to get a full stomach. ;)

4 of us came here for lunch looking forward to the snow crab hotpot, we found out after we sat down that they were sold out of snow crab and won’t be replenished for another week (so half of the menu was not available, kind of ridiculous for a restaurant that mainly sells crab). We ordered 3 crab lunch set and 1 pork cutlet lunch set. The pork cutlet set was the first to arrive, as my sister started eating her meal — in fact she already finished the sashimi, the waiter came back after realizing that set was meant for the table behind us, he took her meal that she was already eating and gave it to the table behind us. We were shocked, we just came and took away her food without saying a word!
Our food slowly arrive after but 1 set was missing, after a while we decided to follow up with the waiter where is the last lunch set. He told us that we only asked for 3 lunch set in total (when there clearly was 4 people of us) and that he didn’t take the order wrong.
The bento box style lunch ended up being 2 hours long, of course they didn’t comp anything. One of the more senior waitress apologized for the waiter’s behaviour because she is frustrated with him as well.
For me to witness the food that we were already eating being taken away and brought to a different table is horrifying. Food is alright, for the price you can get better seafood with better service elsewhere.

pretty pricy… and I have to say that the lobster sashimi was really delicious, but everything else was just the same lobster crab taste in different mediums.
not being a huge fan of having that seafoody taste in everything I ate, I didn’t enjoy it at all.
but I have some friends that really like it so it’s probably worth checking out: p don’t know where else you’d be able to have such an overload of lobster

Wow what a great deal. Fresh delicious seafood for great prices.
Had the dinner 6 person 10lb lobster set meal with 2 crabs, fried rice with crab, chawanmushi, lobster sashimi, tako wasabi, lobster hot pot and edamame.
All that food for only $ 198!
The live lobster was brought to the table before cooking so you know it is fresh.
Thought every dish tasted good and was very impressed with the steamed crab and lobster sashimi.
Service was also very good and they accommodated all our requests.
Would readily come back again and will definitely try this place out for lunch as well

The cholesterol intake at Crab Harbour is definitely worth it. We ordered two sets of the summer dinner combo here.
DRINKS
White wine
APPETIZERS
Crab leg & Salad
Edamame
WHOLE SNOW CRAB
The display of the crab reminds me of the ones in Osaka, it’s pretty. It’s served cold with two side mini bowls of «crab fat» — soo delicious. It tastes even better when you dip this with the vinegar sauce.
LOBSTER SASHIMI
This is a ⁵⁄₅. It is refreshing and sweet. I think they chopped up the smaller lobster for the sashimi but the portions were huge — loved this! Will definitely order it again when I revisit.
STONE-​POT LOBSTER
I believe this was marinated with just salt — was super full by the time we ate this but delicious nonetheless.
SNOW CRAB & FRIED RICE
They cooked the fried rice with the crab fat, which was such an awesome combo. Smelt and tasted very good.
STEAMED LOBSTER PASTE CUSTARD SOUP
⁵⁄₅ stars. Highly recommending this — they steamed this custard with mushrooms, small portions of seafood (mussels, calamari, shrimp etc.) and a lot of lobster paste (so much cholesterol but so worthy: D).
LOBSTER SHABU SHABU
Lobster hot pot with clear soup. This dish is where they can improve on. The soup base was kind of plain. I guess after such a strong tasting meal, they wanted to end off with something more on the healthy side haha.
DESSERTS:
A selection of green tea /​red bean /​mango ice cream.

Everything can possibly goes wrong in this restaurant has gone wrong.
1. Food is below average. Crab is not fresh. If you try to imitate a Japanese restaurant, the least you need to do is use Japanese sticky rice instead of chinese jasmine rice.
2. Waitress is very inexperienced. Even there were only 3 tables with customers in the entire restaurant, still manage to give bad service. Poor attitude.
3. Tables with glass top is not clean, it’s greasy to the touch. Light fixtures have ducts all over, kind of gross to look at.
4. Poor choice of music and volumn way too high.
Unless you’re a big fan of the 80’s, I guarantee you will have urges to put on shouder pads and a pair of leg warmer if u know what I mean.

This is a great place for crabs and more. Very spacious, lots of varieties on the menu and there are special dinner sets that offer many courses at a good price.
For 1^st timers here and not sure what to order, I suggest picking a dinner set and try a bit of everything. Mind you though, the portions are huge, make sure you have an empty stomach so that you can enjoy all you eat.
The whole snow crab served cold with vinegar is so sweet, I just like it by itself. Chawanmushi well made, smooth and tasty, I just wish they put the ginkgo in as well. First time ever to taste crab leg tempura, not bad at all! Crab leg sushi with crab paste is something to try as well. There is also a grilled crab leg dish that smells really good and taste the same. However, you might want to skip the sashimi platter, it is not quite impressive. The sukiyaki is way too sweet for me but that’s sukiyaki, it’s not that a dish gone wrong. Dinner sets also comes with some cold dishes and serve ice cream as dessert.
Overall, it’s a satisfying dinner experience, especially with the price I paid.

Fantastic!
We were seated promptly upon entry — the restaurant was very spacious and beautifully decorated. We ordered 2 snow crabs for 10 dollars each (unbelievable price), 9 piece salmon and beef sashimi and the $ 38 course set meal for two. The sashimi was just AMAZING. I could really taste the quality in it — we talked to our server, and she mentioned that they had master chefs from Japan making their sushi. Although the selection is limited, the quality of what they have will truly blow your mind away. Our waiter was quite helpful, asking us if it was our first time at the restaurant and guiding us through the options. Overall a great experience, will be taking our friends to eat here :)

Have been here towise. Great place, price is pretty fair for what you get. Will come again!

The best crab meat you need to try in Toronto!
If they have separate rooms for groups that will be awesome.
It takes time to deliver 7 set meals at a time… so we feels like strange if we are not starting eating together. Sharing is OK with friends, but if with relatives or elder people, that’s not funny…
The manager is very helpful.

Visited Crab Harbour in early August, I was excited to see a restaurant severing Japanese style crab cuisine in Toronto. The restaurant is nicely decorated but services have a lot of room for improvement. Most servers were very new, but that’s understandable as the restaurant was just newly opened when I visited. There were about 9 courses in the set meal. The steamed crab egg custard was done perfectly and Shabu Shabu is a nice way to taste the sweetness of the crab meat. However, other courses started to give similar taste even they were prepared in different ways. It may be better if the meal is shared by 3 or more people, otherwise portion may be too big.

Bad service. The food wasn’t that great either. would not go again nor recommend it to friends

You should know what you’re getting… Crabs
You can see the sign from the street, a large crab… reminiscent of the ones on Dotonbori Street in Osaka, Japan, and with a name like Crab Harbour, there is little confusion as to what you would get at this establishment. You enter into a large foyer greeted by a large screen, showing notices/​banners or playing movies, in my case, Source Code. Colourful murals cover the private rooms, a panoramic view of Hwy7 in the dining area, funky lighting fixtures. We were promptly seated and notified that due to the soft opening, they only had the set meal items available. Out of lack of selection, we ordered the set meal consisting of 3 crabs done 3 ways with some extras. We were forewarned that the crabs may be overweight and that we would have to pay for the extra if they were. Sure enough, they were.
First course was a boiled-​then-​chilled crab with some sort of citrus dipping sauce. Points for having all the legs precut for easy consumption. The crab arrived with some Japanese pickles, seaweed and the crab guts neatly scooped into little cups. Crab was fresh and tasty, but after a few legs, I could tell I was already nearing my limit of crustacean consumption. Before we finished the crab, they were already bringing out other dishes: A large sashimi leg and shrimp and vegetable tempura.
Slowly the first crab course was disappearing, leg by leg. As the aforementioned dishes were devoured, the BBQ crab was brought out along with a crab chawanmushi. Another whole crab… Much of the same, but hot or warm, and no sauce. As I was forcing down crab legs, I kept my eyes on the screen. I couldn’t help but feel a parallel between the movie and my dining experience… eating crab again and again and again.
The next course was crab shabu shabu. A welcome sight as the crab pieces were accompanied by vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, and some noodles, not just crab. As the golden broth comes to a boil, the waitress teaches us how to cook the remaining crab legs to our liking. After the legs are done, the remaining crab parts and the rest of the ingredients are thrown into the pot. The broth was fairly good, chicken stock by my guess… Greatly improved after all the other things are thrown in. The meal also comes with a final serving of udon noodles or rice. Opted for noodles, but didn’t finish due to very full.
The meal finished with a scoop of ice cream (not crab flavoured unfortunately). Green tea, red bean or vanilla.
Service was fairly good, you can tell they try, but the wait staff is largely untrained. The two qualms I have are the pacing of the dishes and that the crabs were not accompanied with a variety of other items/​flavours. If you’ve been to the King Crab restaurant in Osaka, then you may be disappointed but will probably still go because it’s the closest thing we have to it. If you haven’t then it’s worth a try, especially if you’re a fan of crab.
ATMOSPHERE: Better for larger parties
SERVICE: Attentive and unexperienced
SOUND LEVEL: Low-​moderate
RECOMMENDED: Crab?
PRICES: ~$ 55/​person on set meal for 2. Total came to about $ 160

Set menu starts with 2 people. Perfect for dating since the shell are all cracked, no hard work, and also it took me 2 hours to finish the whole set menu.(not because I eat slow, that’s the pace how they serve.)
Delicious, just as good as the ones in Japan.
The chef is the oldest son of the owner of original Japanese Kani Douraku group.
Only problem is the there are way too many dishes for two to share. You get 3 crabs to share with two persons and that includes one boiled, one BBQed, and one shabushabu.
The first is great, 2^nd is alright and still considering good, but the latter is just boring and preferably to skip or invite the 3^rd person to share. My friend and I were both stuffed once we finished the 2^nd crab since there are other dishes in the set menu are served in addition to the crabs.

Excellent taste, great service and brand new decorations, worth the price! Love it!!! Will come again!