Look for the local Dungeness crab to start popping up on more menus across town as the commercial crab-fishing season was just, finally, given the green light to begin.

The fishery south of the Mendocino-Sonoma County line is now open for business as of Sunday, with this year's stock of crawling crabs having gotten an extra month to grow and plump up. The commercial season was originally set to begin on November 15, but California's Department of Fish and Wildlife tacked on a month's delay because of concerns about the number of whales off the north California coast still making their way south for the winter. Whales have frequently become entangled in crab-fishing equipment in recent years, leading to a lawsuit by the Oakland-based Center for Biological Diversity.

As SFGate reports, the first boatloads of Dungeness crabs began arriving at Fisherman's Wharf on Sunday, after local fisherman took their traps out near the Farallon Islands. Any Dungeness you've been eating up until this point in the season was either caught by sport fishermen or it came from outside the Bay Area.

If you're wondering where to find some delicious Dungeness crab dishes around SF this week, check out SFist's list of the best seafood restaurants as a start. But expect to find crab specials at an array of restaurants of all stripes.

Also, grocery stores including Bi-Rite, Mollie Stone's, and Whole Foods are selling pre-cooked crabmeat if you want to whip up your own pasta or crab toasts without doing all that shelling yourself.