Lagoon Crab Breakdown and a Colombo Chef's Table

Guests arrive in the late afternoon at a private room off a colonial-era courtyard building in Colombo, where the day's lagoon crabs are weighed and graded in front of them. The session opens with how the crab is sourced, why size is graded rather than averaged, and what freshness means in a kitchen that freezes nothing. Guests then work through the breakdown: cleaning, cracking and portioning, and the difference between a pepper crab and a chilli crab once it hits the pan. Sri Lankan and Japanese technique run side by side, with a short section on rice, dashi and knife handling. Dinner follows at a single long table, crab served with kade bread and the sauces made during the session. It closes with curd and treacle, and coffee.