A serving of lip-smacking Mee Kuah Ketam will be great for seafood lover. “Kuah” refers to “gravy” in Malay and “ketam” is Crab, the direct translation would be “Noodles with Crab gravy”. 

Not to be mistaken for mee ketam or even mee udang, mee kuah ketam is a special variation of mee kuah and mee goreng except that it has more oomph in its gravy.

The mee kuah ketam comes either with kuah (gravy) or fried and is usually served with yellow wheat noodles, potatoes and then topped with braised squids, chopped lettuce and spring onions.

On the outside, it looks just like any mee kuah or mee goreng but the taste and flavours of this dish is far from any conventional mee kuah made with boiled sweet potatoes and shrimp stock.

This is because the kuah is cooked with crab meat and the water used to boil the crabs is also used to make the gravy so imagine a thick, crab-flavoured concoction for its gravy.

Mee kuah ketam has become popular in recent times with some mee udang stalls offering a variation of it, especially in rural areas in Seberang Perai.

Strangely enough, though they use a lot of crabs in the ingredients, the mee kuah ketam stalls are not available near rivers or the sea but are often found in rural areas in the interior, sometimes offered at makeshift stalls tucked within a small village in Seberang Perai.

Here are some of the places where you can try out mee kuah ketam in Penang or join our exploration to discover this wonderful dish.

Pak Man Mee Kuah Ketam To’Kun, Jalan Kulim, Bukit Mertajam (12pm-7pm)

Mee Ketam Balik Pulau (12pm-10pm)

Warung Pak Su, Jalan Kuala Juru (12pm-10:30pm)