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| Front of the restaurant |
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| Gumbo with rice |
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| Front counter area |
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| My Meal Served in a Bag |
From time to time I like to break from my wine stuff and I get inspired to do a restaurant review. Well folks today is one of those days. Today Ladies and Gentleman The Desert Wine Guy will temporarily become The Desert Restaurant Guy in order to do a restaurant review of a restaurant named The Boiling Crab which is located here in Las Vegas but does have locations in California, Nevada and Texas. In Las Vegas the restaurant is located at 4025 S Decatur Blvd. O.K folks, before I get into this review I want you to know something. Please keep in mind that I am not some primadonna by any stretch of the imagination and as you guys know I have two vineyards PLUS a garden so I am not afraid to get down and dirty and get my hands dirty. It is important that you keep that this mind as you read this review.
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| Too many "market price" items |
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| Oysters |
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| What a mess |
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| Shrimp W/Head & Legs |
The other day Mrs. Desert Wine Girl and I were out for Dinner at a restaurant I had previously reviewed (the FireRock steakhouse http://desertwineguy.blogspot.com/2015/07/today-i-am-going-to-take-break-from-my.html) on this blog which by the way was awesome. We ended up striking up a conversation with the Waitress. It seems that my Mrs. Desert Wine Girl was eating the Oysters and she complained about how terrible they were. I guess they were very small and contained little meat. Since the dozen Oysters were around $20 she figured she would voice her opinion. The waitress was very nice and apologized and recommended a place named The Boiling Crab for great Crab and Oysters. Well since she loves Oysters that was all Mrs. Desert Wine Girl needed to hear so one night shortly after that we decided to head on down to The Boiling Crab and see what it was all about. When Mrs. Desert Wine Girl and I walked into the restaurant at around 7:30 PM the restaurant was fairly busy so we waited about fifteen minutes to be seated which wasn't bad considering how crowded the place was. We would have been seated about five minutes earlier but decided to wait for a booth. The restaurant is pretty decent size and is well lit. It has a very casual atmosphere and is set up for people to just walk in off the streets and have Dinner. There were family's galore and dress is as you can imagine, come as you are. This restaurant unfortunately, is also one of those places where the manager feels the need to play the music very loudly. While not loud enough that you couldn't hear people at your table talk it is loud enough to be annoying, if I wanted a Nightclub I would have went to one. There are also a good amount of T.Vs for those of you who need your sports updates. Once we were seated our Waitress Jess T approached us for our drink order and to also explain how the ordering process went. Jess did a good job explaining things and was one of the bright spots to the evening (not as bright as Mrs. Desert Wine Girl though :) O.K things are going O.K so far. During this explanation I learned that there
were only basic dishes such as for instance as in in my case, Shrimp. If you
wanted say for instance to add Sausage that was extra, everything seemed to be extra.
There were no combo plates to choose from. O.K I guess that's something that you can get over. The minute I started reviewing the
menu I saw a few issue. The first thing is that there were a lot of things at "market price", in my opinion way to many things. This place wants to come across as a VERY casual, come right off the streets place one one hand yet on the other wants to act price wise like a fancy seafood restaurant. The other issue I noticed was that there was Gumbo on the menu and if
you wanted rice in your Gumbo that was cheaper than if you didn't want
rice and here started my issues. To me this issue of a larger charge without
rice told me that the restaurant was going to charge you more because
they might have to put in a few extra pieces of Sausage or perhaps an
extra Shrimp or two, I don't like stuff like that. Simply just put the
Gumbo on the menu and give me a price, besides I have never even seen
gumbo without rice before. I have been to enough restaurants to know when I am getting "nickeled and dimed" so to speak. I can't stand restaurants that choose to do that. You know the restaurants, the ones who charge you for an extra sauce or want to charge for substitution of Cole Slaw for Potato Salad. Well anyway let's move on because I think you are getting the idea of the type of restaurant I am reviewing. My Wife ordered the dozen Oysters and I
ordered the Gumbo.....with rice. Mrs. Desert Wine Girl told me that the Oysters were great and had a lot of meat to them and that she really enjoyed them, I wish I could say the same about my Gumbo however. My Gumbo was very watery even with the little bit of rice
they were kind enough to throw in. The Few bits of Sausage in the Gumbo were fairly tasty
but the couple of shrimp they were again "nice enough" to throw in were
bland although they were peeled and had no heads or legs. As you read on you will see why I threw that comment in. I was overall not
all impressed with the Gumbo.
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| The bill for eating with my hands |
When ordering the main meal my Wife ordered
the pound of Shrimp and a half a Corn on the Cobb. For flavor she
ordered "The Whole Sha-Bang, non spicy. I ordered the pound of shrimp
with sausage and for seasoning I chose mild. The wait for the food was
about 15 minutes which is fine. The real problems I have with this place
however, start here. All the food was served in a medium size, clear,
plastic bag. There are no plates. Now think about this and look at the
pictures. the food and bag is coated with a messy , sticky, Brown sauce
and you are expected to reach in to the bottom of the bag and pull out
your shrimp, sausage or whatever else you ordered. Want to wear a watch
or any wrist jewelry? You can forget it unless you want to go thru the
process of removing them. Want to have sauce past your wrist to the
middle of your forearm? You are in luck, you have come to the right
place. The only other option is to dump everything onto the table cloth
which is disposable. I don't know about you but having a big mess layed
out in front of me at my restaurant table is not my idea of a good
time. Well I looked at my bag and asked if I could get a plate instead.
Jess, our Waitress looked at me for a second like I was crazy and
informed me that there were no plates. I guess I was also supposed to
know that you eat EVERYTHING with your hands. I simply said "O.K". Well I
opened my ....bag of cooked shrimp and sausage and all I saw was a big
mess (look at the picture). Not only was there a mess of food but there
were things on my shrimp that I never experienced in a place where I had
to actually spend money such as the legs, heads and yes ....eyes. It
seems in this restaurant you have to devein your shrimp, pull the legs
off your shrimp, pull the head (with eyes) off your shrimp!!! I'm sorry
folks but when I spend that kind of money for my food I expect ALL that
junk to be removed BEFORE it gets to me, call me crazy. My wife who hates spicy food said she thought the non-spicy was slightly spicy. I thought the mild was just that, mild. My Shrimp had a greasy / mildly spicy taste to it and was simply O.K.. My sausage was decent although kind of on the greasy side. Mrs. Desert Wine Guy ordered the Shrimp and thought they were simply "O.K". For her side she had the corn which she said was "mushy".
So you don't think that Mrs. Desert Wine Girl or I are off base with our reviews I ended up striking up a conversation with the people at the next table across from us who were made up of four Women. I asked them what they
thought about the place and after giving me a look that said all I
needed to know they voiced that they weren't too happy with it. They also specifically
commented on the mess that you are forced to eat in. I also happened to also
strike up a conversation with a guy in the bathroom (it's a guy thing
O.K) after washing the greasy, messy sauce off my hands and he said he is from Los
Angeles and he wasn't too impressed and also commented on how the shrimp
did not taste fresh.
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| Inside the restaurant |
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| The end of the Dinner - Still want to go?? |
Here is the bottom line everyone. I think this place is popular because
it is new to town and it is unique. I also do NOT think it will last too
long. I can't imagine anyone especially here in Las Vegas where you can
get a seafood buffet anywhere AND also have the heads and eyes and legs removed off your food for you
and also not go thru your dinner sticky and messy. Here in Las Vegas you can get FRESH seafood along with plates and a little more upscale environment for around the same prices as you can at The Boiling Crab. I give the place six
months and it will be gone. For $83.25 there are TONS of better places we can go and not feel like we have to take a bath afterwards. As for me and Mrs. Desert Wine Girl we have had our one and only visit
to this place.
The Desert Wine Guy
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