The Boiling Crab - Rowland Heights

Ah, The Boiling Crab. You and you alone have figured out how to do it. When others have faltered, you continue to dazzle, you continue to expand, onward and upwards from the humble store in a forgettable mall in Garden Grove, to the San Gabriel Valley, where tastes are finicky and discriminating.

Even here, at the newest outlet at Rowland Heights, wait times are routinely long and frustrating. But the rewards are great. Your minutes spent thumb-twiddling outside will eventually get you a table inside, draped in wax paper and you, with a bib tied around your neck.

You look damned silly with it. But you'll be glad you set aside your dignity for once. The best stuff here is steeped in a butter-y, furiously red-tinged sauce that will get all over the place. Anything not covered will be sprayed crimson like a CSI crime scene.

Once you don protection, dive into a pile of seafood that's simply prepared for reasonable rates. Mostly importantly, everything is as fresh as if the dock were right outside. This is how to do Cajun seafood boil. Drinks served in paper cups; rice scooped into to-go containers.

Catfish is fried into flaky strips as supple as custard. Fries are cloaked in a dangerous chili powder that makes you wince and reach for more.

But the thing to get is the shrimp ($8.99 a pound). The crustaceans, fat and plump, come out in a clear plastic sack and will be best bang for the buck, yielding the most meat pound-for-pound.

Do it Whole-Shabang, which is an ingenious and patentable concoction made from butter, lemon juice, Zatarain's and lots of garlic. Opting for mild is sufficient. Anything hotter and you should've probably brought goggles, lest you want that stuff to accidentally get into your eyes and cause blindness.

Strip each critter of its head, suck the goods from its skull, being careful not to let its sharp appendages poke you a new orifice. Dig into the underbelly, and disrobe it of its shell and tail. Eat the spindly legs and take the sweet meat for once last dip in that sauce before eating. Repeat.

And oh you'll need rice. Plenty of rice.

By the end you'll see the dozens of beady eyes looking up at you from a pile of spent casings. Survey the carnage you have wrought. Lick your fingers with satisfaction. Wipe your throbbing mouth and sweaty brow. You've done well here, my friend.

The Boiling Crab
(626) 964-9300
18902 E Gale Ave. Ste. A
Rowland Heights, CA 91748

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