About Me

Food is one of my many joys in life. It is a common bond I share among my friends and family. Combining food and travel makes it all the more interesting. I enjoy going out for a good meal with friends and family. The array of various cuisines and our fantastic array of produce really makes Sydney such a great city to live in. Blogging is my hobby and my posts on restaurant meals I have had are paid for and not gratis. Any gratis provided to me will always be stated beforehand.

Monday 21 April 2014

House of Crabs (Surry Hills, Sydney)

Crabs! What can I say about crabs except that I do love eating this crustacean! I love getting my hands dirty, cracking the claws and getting into the meaty bits. Yum! And when there is great sauce, even better!!

The first time I heard about the House of Crabs was when I saw some photos on Instagram posted by Helen of Grab Your Fork sometime last year. The crabs perked my interest.

My friends and I finally managed to organise a lunch on a wet Sunday. We got there so early we had to wait outside as the venue was not even opened yet. :)

House of Crabs is located on the 1st floor of The Norfolk. As I walked up the stairs I immediately saw all the crab like decor. There was very much a chintzy, schmaltzy vibe to the place. It was long john silver, shanty like with heaps of quirky artefacts! I loved it! Something so different and blasé with its 'in your face' American South shanty feel. I don't know how else to describe it.


We pored over the menu and decided on:

Creole Corn with Dorito and jerky salt

Fries with Cajun salt

Little neck clams with Mexican sauce

Queensland prawns with Cajun sauce

King crab with Lemon pepper sauce

Ceviche and guacamole with corn chips and lime

Lobster fries with lobster gravy, bacon and corn

A plate of fried chicken

FYI the seafood is served in a bag and is 500g per serve. These are known as The Boil. The seafood available are Mussels, Little Neck Clams, Prawns, Blue Swimmer Crab, Snow Crab and King Crab. You have a choice of 3 sauces to pick from; Cajun, Mexican and Lemon Pepper.

There were no plates to eat out of. The intention is to eat on the table, and the more the table is plied with the remnants, the more enjoyable the meal was! So off we went and ate to our hearts content.

The claws from the king crab were amazing! The meat was sweet and juicy. My friends commented on how odd the claws were not hard but soft. That was because the crab was cooked in the bag and was all steamed up. But I enjoyed the crab.

I absolutely loved the prawns. They were perfectly cooked, succulent, sweet and oh so delicious. And the Cajun sauce that they were cooked in was nicely spiced and full of flavour. My favourite sauce of all the 3 options. We loved the prawns so much we ordered another 500g!

The neck clams were alright. My disappointment was I wasn't very lucky with my selection. I could hardly find any meat in any of the clams I picked. My bad!

The fried chicken was so good! I was so surprised that the chicken was as good as this considering we came for crustacean. Lol!

I will say that I did not take to the lobster fries. I found it was too salty and had a strange taste, not a natural taste.

And for dessert, well we had one choice and are we glad we chose it! Neopolitan ice cream waffle sandwich with Raspberry, almonds and chocolate. Didn't expect it to be as nice as it turned out. I am normally not a fan of waffles but I definitely enjoyed this dessert!

But overall, it was an enjoyable meal. Loved getting our hands all dirty and making a mess of the table. How often do we get to do that eh?

House of Crabs on Urbanspoon
House of Crabs
Level 1, 305 Cleveland Street
Redfern (above The Norfolk)
Sydney
Website: houseofcrabs.com.au/

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

4 comments:

Helen (Grab Your Fork) said...

Glad you made it and the fried chicken is surprisingly good isn't it? So much fun!

Cindy said...

Hi Helen, it was totes fun! :)

Leona (sprinklemyday) said...

OMG, I went to a place like this in vegas that was recommended by a friend it was called.. crazy crayfish or something, had so much fun eating out of those bags even though i felt like I was going to get rolled by a bunch of mexicans Lol.

Love the post. Love your photos!

Cindy said...

Hi Leona, thank you so much for visiting and for your lovely comments! :) Getting down and dirty by eating out of the bags and with bare hands was definitely rustic! But oh such fun! Hehe!