Captain Crab

 Mom and Dad (my in-laws) took us to Captain Crab for my birthday on Monday, October 6 (actually the day after my birthday).  We had first noticed the place when taking the 487 bus from work in Downtown L.A. to Mom and Dad’s.  The bus exits the 10 freeway at Del Mar Ave. and then goes west on Valley Blvd. in San Gabriel.  Captain Crab is in a two-story strip mall on the south side of Valley Blvd. across the street from Ajisen Ramen.  It’s in the part of the strip mall closest to the road making it very visible from there.  The San Gabriel Valley Tribune did a review of Captain Crab combined with a review of Fisherman’s Wharf, another seafood place that’s in the same strip mall.  They gave both places favorable ratings.

We arrived there after 6:30 pm but still easily found parking and were seated right away.  We had called ahead to make a short-notice reservation and they had already put the white plastic tablecloth on our table.  We were on the ground floor by the window and half of our seats were a bench along the wall.  There’s also an upstairs part that we didn’t see.  The ground floor had a nautical bar theme going with some rigging on the walls, lots of flatscreen TV’s showing Monday Night Football, and beer brands in neon lettering.  Dad asked that they change the channel to the Angels American League Division Series (ALDS) and they did so for one of the TV’s.

The menus were at our places on the table and they were fairly short.  They included the various crab and shrimp options along with sides and appetizers.  The menus had since been corrected since Captain Crab was reviewed by the Tribune.  They now said “Gumbo” instead of “Gumbi”.   A stand on our table had additional items to order such as appetizers and drinks.  We asked the server for recommendations and she suggested the shrimp.  We ordered it along with several items.

During the very short wait for our food they put bibs on us each with a picture of a red crab.  Then our food started arriving.  They first brought us the sweet potato fries that were hot but still good.  They tasted like they were made straight from the sweet potatoes with minimal processing.  Next came the shrimp in a large plastic bag in a metal bucket.  As the server said, it was very fresh, shelled easily, and tasted great.  We ordered it with the Captain’s Choice sauce, the mild option that had great garlicky flavor.  The shrimp came with the portions of corn-on-the-cob soaking in the same sauce.  Dad was smart in ordering two pieces for each of us.  They brought us the fried calamari appetizer that we ordered from the stand on our table.  Rather than the usual rings, the calamari was in strips coated in batter and fried.  Our server had warned us that it was chewy but I didn’t find it that way at all.  It was the right consistency and the coating was just slightly spicy.

They then brought us the Dungeoness crab, and the largest crab of that kind I’ve ever seen.  Its legs and claws were big and meaty.  After it had cooled, our server expertly broke it into four equal portions.  With the cracking tool they gave each of us I was able to extract the thick pieces of crabmeat fairly easily.  I thought it tasted good, though Dad felt it didn’t taste fresh despite the server’s assurances that it was. The last item they brought was sausage slices covered with the Captain’s Choice sauce.  There was enough for us to each have 1-2 slices and they all cost less than $3.00.  We were well sated when we finished and crab and shrimp shells piled high on our table.

We returned to Mom and Dad’s to have dessert.  My wife had some Straight Talk Crunch ice cream from Baskin Robbin’s and I had fresh strawberries.  We watched until the end of the Angels’ ill-fated ALDS game, watched a bit of some crazy Filipino fantasy soap opera and then drove home.  With the James Concert on Sunday evening followed by Captain Crab on Monday, our birthday month started off with a bang.