The sign is simple enough - an image of a crab, surrounded by the name, “The Boiling Crab” - a name that is full of promise.  But can a seafood restaurant located more than 20 miles from the beach live up to lofty expectations? The answer is a definite yes, and there are several reasons why.

One of three locations located in the Southland, The Boiling Crab got a modest start in 2004 when Dada Ngo opened it’s first location in a strip mall in Garden Grove.  A history recently profiled in the L.A. Times (link), Ngo wanted to transplant a traditionally Southern seafood treat, the crayfish, to the west coast. Not knowing if it would be successful, she and her husband took a chance, and 4 years later, there are multiple locations with others opening soon in Texas and Northern California.

Upon walking into the restaurant, patrons are greeted with the strong aroma of garlic and butter, and tables are littered with piles of shells - and surrounded by smiling groups of satisfied eaters.  Because the restaurant doesn’t take reservations, there are a large number of people waiting outside for a table - sometimes up to two hours - and everyone seems hungry.

The premise is simple, once seated around tables covered in disposable table covers, you are invited to order various shellfish offerings, whether it be crab, crayfish, shrimp or lobster, by the pound.  You can then choose the seasonings you want that above mentioned seafood to be prepared in and it comes out in piping hot plastic bags, ready for consumption.  There are no forks or knives, and eating is done in a manner befitting of shellfish - with your hands.  It is messy, a bit barbaric, yet totally satisfying.

The restaurant offers 3 main seasonings - cajun spices, garlic butter, or lemon pepper, or you can opt for all of those in a seasoning they deem “the whole shebang”.  You can have it spicy (mild, medium, or hot, but beware, medium is plenty spicy!), or not, and to top it off you can add in some sweet potato, normal, or cajun fries.  Prices range from 7.99/pound for crayfish to market prices for whole lobsters and crabs.  We opted to start out with some sweet potato fries, two pounds of shrimp, 2 pounds of crayfish, and a whole crab (between two and three pounds) for the four of us.  Service was quick and attentive, and food came out within minutes of ordering, steaming hot in the bags of seasoning we requested.

The food was wonderful.  Sometimes it’s hard to find fresh seafood places, but The Boiling Crab certainly delivered.  The shrimp was large and succulent, full of flavor absorbed by the sauces they were cooked in, and not at all mushy.  The crab meat was tender and solid.  The most popular selection, the crayfish, was sweet and just like eating tiny little lobsters.  Everything was so good, in fact, that when last call was made at 9:45 (the restaurant closes at 10pm), we put in an order for ANOTHER two pounds of shrimp.

By the end of the evening stuffed is an understatement to how we were feeling.  Our hands smelled of garlic and our table was literally piled up with discarded crayfish, crab, shrimp shells, and corn cobbs (we ordered the latter in addition to the seafood).  The food was definitely worth the wait.  Just being able to eat and not worry about anything else, then throw whatever you don’t eat on the table is an experience - even more so than similar establishments that give you a bucket of seafood.  When the check came, it didn’t blow us away - around a hundred bucks for 4 of us, not too bad considering how much we ate and how full we were.  Overall I did enjoy it all, but do have to say that the crayfish may not be worth the work for some.  It is a lot of work to get to the smallish amounts of meat each one holds.  While the four of us had our fill of seafood (almost 10 pounds!), as we walked out we were all thinking the same thing - of when we would return.  I can taste the shrimp and crab already.

The Boiling Crab
http://www.theboilingcrab.com

742 W Valley Blvd
Alhamba, CA

13892 Brookhurst St
Garden Grove, CA

14241 Euclid St #C116
Garden Grove, CA