The Crab Trap – Pensacola
We’ve talked about stopping by the Crab Trap forever – but usually, we are on our way home from Joe Patti’s with fresh fish, shrimp, oysters, etc and can’t stop. 🙂
So we made a plan. And we finally got there. We were extra hungry, so we got there early, but not TOO early. Although it was not even 11:30, many of the outside tables were already taken. They have a great view, and a great outdoor eating area to capture the view:
AdventureMan won the first round with his fresh Apalachicola oysters. He ordered a half dozen, and 7 arrived, fresh and sweet:
My crab cake had a fabulous sauce, but the crab cake itself was only ho-hum. On the other hand, I am very hard on crab cakes, I like them to be mostly crab, and TASTY crab, not tasteless crab, and horrors, not crab with a K, that fake stuff that is really some anonymous fish with crab flavoring, oh no, oh no!
We were both underwhelmed with our main courses. AdventureMan ordered the Mate’s Plate, grilled shrimp, oysters and fish. When it arrived, we looked at it in dismay – it looked like something you pull out of the freezer and microwave:
My St. Joe’s Seafood Salad sounded really good, with fresh shrimp, scallops, crab and oysters on top, and it looked really good, but only the shrimp had any taste. The fried oysters were tasteless, as was the crab. Even the tomatoes had little taste. Their bacon vinaigrette was just OK.
I sneaked this photo of a neighbor’s Jambalaya – that Jambalaya looked REALLY good, and came with two sides. The people having Jambalaya were really chowing down – and looking like they were having a good time. If we ever go back, we know what we will try:
The place was packed. We may have just chosen the wrong things on the menu. I have to guess that most of the people were there for the outside dining and the view. It looks like they also have live music some evenings.
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It’s a shame we didn’t meet before I went vegetarian last year: having lived in D.C./Maryland for 10 years, where crabs are a religion, I learned how to make the finest crabcakes in all the world.
When we first moved to Pensacola, we were COMPLETELY shocked at how cheap the seafood was! A dozen blue crabs (what would’ve been labeled “Jumbo” back in Maryland, and cost us well over $30-40) for $9.99?? NO WAY!!
Sadly (fortunately?), those days are over and you will never be able to have The Greatest Crab Cakes in the World. 😦 I’m sad for you.
Ummm, Rusty, could you share your old recipe and your (former) techniques 🙂 ? I adore crabcakes. I have a friend who showed me how to make them with mostly crab, and oh, wow.
How vegetarian are you?
How vegetarian am I? If I had a dime for every time I heard that…
Put it this way: Once I determined that I could no longer justify eating meat, I also decided that it was gonna be all or nothing. I’m not one who will still eat seafood but call myself vegetarian (I honestly don’t understand that).
Having said that, I’ll also say that I’m not Vegan (and have no plans on becoming one). We did switch to organic dairy and buy eggs locally (or get them from a friend who raises chickens) but the vegan thing is too far for me.
This is the book that did it, btw – http://goo.gl/d19rs – it wasn’t something I had even remotely considered doing. Foer’s other writing blew me away, so when this came out, I knew I was gonna have to read it. Having read it, I couldn’t personally justify continuing the meat eating. It’s not preachy or obnoxious, but it is informative (and “entertaining” if the topic could be such).
The library on Langley has a copy, or we could meet up for coffee sometime if you want to borrow it. 🙂
I just read a lot of the reviews on Amazon . . . even buying the book, even reading the book is a decision point, if you believe what the reviewers have written. I remember you lost a lot of weight and got really fit – did this book have a part in that?
Giving up meat . . . I have to think about that.
No, I had already lost 90lbs by the time I read this book, and believe me, I wasn’t looking to go vegetarian. We had cut out most red meat and were eating a lot of chicken and seafood at this point.
The evidence in the book is compelling (and frightening). It’s beyond a “cruelty to animals” thing – the way food in America is produced & processed scared me for the health of my family.
A good site that Foer works with: http://www.farmforward.com/
Thank you for the information. There is a part of me that knows you are right, even if it were just from the point of view of the antibiotics they are given to ward off disease in the appalling conditions.