A dish served at Wang Bao He. [Photo by Gao Erqiang/China Daily]

The 54-year-old, who first started out as a dishwasher at the restaurant, has been around for even longer than Zheng. Today, she and seven other employees are expertly extracting the flesh and roe from boiled hairy crabs.

Wu and her colleagues produce about 300 grams of roe and flesh for every kilogram of crabs. The sweet and tender flesh is featured in the some 50 crabs dishes that are prepared at the other end of the kitchen by chef Wang Hao.