Qingpeng Steamed Seafood 青蓬海上捞 @ Shenzhen (2024)

Seafood is one of nature’s best offer for the dining table. All you need is fresh seafood, and then all you need is pressurised steam.

Qingpeng Steamed Seafood 青蓬海上捞 has become my regular restaurant for my seafood fix whenever I am back in Shenzhen. The formula is very simple – pick you seafood from live tanks; take fresh, live seafood and clean them; with minimal preparation (add garlic, vermicelli and herbs), present and steam them in special built-in pressure steamer at the table.

The seafood in the store is maintained with non-polluting seawater, and the store has always adhered to the rule that the live seafood kept in these live tanks in the store should not exceed 48 hours before they are sold.

A waitress was assigned to help us steam the different seafood. They were all well-trained about the timing for each kind of seafood and the food came out perfect. The seafood was naturally sweet and filled with umami, especially when these shellfish was all alive and kicking in their tanks.

My favourite was the marsh shrimps 基围虾. It was a misnomer that many thought it was a species of prawns, but they are actually marsh prawns (metapenaeus ensis) raised in Guangdong area inside traditional tidal shrimp pond (locally known as gei wai 基围 in Cantonese). That’s why these days, many seafood restaurants would serve the more expensive tiger prawns (and charge more). But the best are these marsh shrimps, which these days require special order and usually reserved for regulars like us.

And there’s the highlight of the restaurant – the king crab 帝王蟹 that is always sold at a heavy discounted price to attract the foot traffic to the restaurants.

I love eating the crab here, they always make sure everything has been properly processed to ease the trouble of getting to the meat. The back shell is steamed separately to keep all the kanimiso in the shell.

And we always order the steamed loofahs. If the loofahs are in season, the sweetness from this gourd would beat the freshest seafood.

And at the end, there’s the porridge to enjoy. All the juices of the seafood dripped into the porridge that was cooked with pressurised steam. Delicious.

Reservation recommended, especially if you want certain seafood; the popular items like some of the clams and marsh prawns are alway sold out before 9pm. Open till late at night.

青蓬海上捞蒸品海鲜城(香蜜湖店)
红荔西路8045号深国际大厦1、2楼
Tel : +86 (0)755 82572434

Visited Mar 2024