Chinese diners dig in as the dish soars in popularity

About 10 plates, dotted with crawfish legs soaked in oil, are spread across a small table. What little space remains is occupied by piles of crawfish shells and two bottles of spirits.

This is the scene at a packed crawfish restaurant in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, where demand for the freshwater crustaceans is running hot.

Li Fei, his face reddened, waves his oily hands around and says, "My five friends and I have flown all the way from Urumqi (capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) for about four hours just to eat crawfish for the next three days."

For many, this group's passion for the dish may be extreme. But it gives an insight into just how much Chinese enjoy eating crawfish, which in the past decade has risen to unbelievable heights of popularity.

The species is said to have been brought to China by the Japanese in the 1930s. Decades ago, crawfish was rarely seen on Chinese dining tables.

This year, however, crawfish have been marketed in increased numbers－even before they mature－to meet demand. The dish has been a must-have for fans watching matches during the World Cup soccer tournament in Russia.

After watching the game between Argentina and Croatia at about 4 am on June 22, Li packed his bags and began the journey to Wuhan. After checking into their hotel and showering, his group headed straight for the crawfish restaurant.

The restaurant opens at 4:30 pm. When the group arrived at 4 pm, however, it found that several groups of diners had arrived to secure tables to avoid waiting for hours to be served.

When the World Cup started on June 15, Meituan-Dianping, China's largest ondemand online service provider, delivered more than 1.5 million crawfish between 9 pm and midnight across the country.

Crawfish-related industries, including farming, processing and catering, saw output rocket by about 83 percent year-on-year to reach 268.5 billion yuan ($40 billion) last year. Crawfish catering alone generated about 200 billion yuan.