When he noticed a foreign species of Asian shore crab in his favorite beach, Bun Lai of Miya's restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut, did what any sustainability-minded seafood chef would do: he made the invasive species into sushi!
The dish “kanibaba”—made with Asian shore and Dungeness crabs and spinach, rolled up tightly in potato skin, infused with Asian shore crab stock, and topped with toasted havarti cheese and lemon dill sauce—is now one of the most popular items at Lai’s restaurant, Miya’s, in downtown New Haven. “We run out of them at this point,” he says. “We go out and get thousands of them, and we sell thousands of them every week or so.” Kanibaba has become the signature dish of his “Invasive Species Menu,” a chapter in Miya’s 60-page menu that reads like a manifesto on sustainability, spirituality, and the creative process.
Zak Stone of GOOD magazine has the story: Link
It was interesting to hear him talk about how it is strictly an American thing to have an aversion to "bugs" as a source of protein.