The autumn of 2021 saw the publication of “the 100 best restaurants in the world”, by Restaurant Magazine and San Pellegrino.  A sub-set of these annual awards also lists the 50 Best Restaurants in Asia, and that’s where I discovered Ministry of Crab in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, ranked 29th.  I had already booked to go to Sri Lanka in December 2021, so I got my hotel to make us a reservation for lunch.  Ministry of Crab is hidden away in a pedestrianised courtyard behind Colombo’s World Trade Centre, along with a handful of other restaurants.  Ministry of Crab specialises in Sri Lankan mud crabs, which look quite similar to British brown crabs, but they also offer local prawns in a range of sizes.

We took our seats around 1pm, when the restaurant was still very quiet, but it soon filled up.  At one end of the large dining room is an open kitchen, and at the other end a bar.  Above each is a large sign indicating the sizes of crab they currently have available.  I found it disappointing that on our visit only two out of ten possible sizes were available; Small (700g) and OMG! (1.5 to 1.9Kg)

We had a refreshing and potent Arak based cocktail called “small island ice tea” whilst we read the menu, .

Mr A started with crab and avocado salad, which was merely dressed crab meat sitting in half an avocado!  5/10

For my starter I chose crab liver pate, largely out of curiosity because I didn’t know crabs have livers.

The liver pate had a very strong crab brown meat flavour, but that was tempered by a small jar of palm sugar treacle. The menu said it came with melba toast, but all I got were a few crisp-like things. 6/10

For my main course I had a relatively simple “small” crab, steamed and served with melted butter. The chefs had already cracked the claws and legs, but nonetheless I am not a fan of eating shellfish in this way. I find there is so much effort involved to get just a tiny reward of meat.  7/10

Mr A had a lot more fun with his garlic chilli crab, because he’s more used to eating with his hands, and his sauce was a lot tastier than mine.

The staff at Ministry of Crab appeared a little unorganised, and ‘service’ was quite slow.  TBH ‘service’ was limited to plates being plonked in front of us without any verbal interaction.  We enjoyed a bottle of French Riesling with our meal for LKR8000 (c£29) and our total bill came to LKR32,600 (c£120).  I have to say that I left hungry and very disappointed.  I cannot imagine how this restaurant was ranked 29th best in Asia. Ministry of Crab doesn’t even have its own toilet!  We had to go outside, walk the length of the courtyard and go into a ‘public’ toilet manned by staff who demanded payment.

I have to admit that my mood had also been affected by the 2 hour car journey from our hotel in Galle, when I was expecting it to be one hour. I’ve found that many Sri Lankan hotels and businesses underestimate distances and journey times. And Sri Lankan driving standards are appalling and very dangerous, so I found it impossible to relax on car journeys.

Overall 5/10