Seattle Week! The Crab Pot

I’m not afraid of doing the tourist thing, and lining up for the busiest restaurant on the Pier is one of those things that I figure is worth doing sometimes just to “tick” something of the recommended list for visitors.  However, when a friend recommends said place as an actual good place to eat, well, that certainly ups the ante!  Our friends C & B (who now live in Ottawa, and I was happy to recommend them some restaurants in my hometown earlier last year) had lived in Seattle for about 18 months or 2 years.  They suggested we try The Crab Pot – so off we went!

Right on the waterfront near the Aquarium

They do not take reservations, and the lines do get very crazy around lunch and even worse around supper time.  I’d suggest you do like we did, go for “Lupper” and sit in the bar while you wait for your table (draught beers, which we enjoyed, were between $4 and $5 each, so not bad).  After about 15 minutes, we were called to our patio table in the glorious sun.

Crab Pot Specials

We knew what we wanted to order – we had to have the Seafests!  You’ll see why soon… While the prices are not totally cheap, you get a lot of food and a good variety.

Really good sourdough bread

This is the bread you get for free – I think we ate two of these.  There’s just something about west-coast sourdough I love!  We knew we’d be served the dish on the table, and knowing we’d already be using a paper table cover, we declined the plastic lobster bibs.

So, our main course – we chose The Westport which was a crab (snow and dungeness) upgrade on their basic seafest of clams, mussels, shrimp, corn on the cob, andouille sausage and potatoes.  We thought the next level up was too steep for us, given that I’m not a huge fan of cooked oysters, and I was skeptical about how well fish would hold up to a “crab boil” cooking method.

The Westport ($24.95 x 2)

So – this amazing mess of food was our meal.  It was ceremoniously spilled onto our table, then, armed with wooden mallets and small cutting boards, we were told to have at it!  It was huge!  Everything had been boiled together in a well-spiced broth, but because the shrimp were still in their shell and the crab was also in big, whole pieces, their sweetness was preserved.  The corn was good, but the potatoes were amazing.  I also really liked the sausage which clearly added spice to the broth too.  I enjoyed both the clams and mussels, but the best thing was really the crab.  That snow crab was excellent.  We ate every single last thing!

Full bowl of discarded shells & napkins

Empty table!

While I can understand that some seafood purists will balk at the idea of boiling these items under hard heat and all together, this was a fun, very memorable meal and experience.  I am glad we went, and thank our friends C & B for the recommendation!

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