Ahhhhhh August. It’s a hot month that makes most people (and piggies) very crabby. So, to honor the crab in each of us, and to celebrate Melissa’s birthday, we decided to have a crab boil feast! We’ve blogged about crabs before, but we decided to re-explore this theme from a different angle; this time we went to the Maine Avenue fish market and brought home half a bushel of live (yes, you read correctly, live) blue crabs. And boy, were they feisty!
The Maine Avenue fish market is located on the Potomac river and is essentially a large series of floating piers and barges where fishermen can unload fresh fish for purchase right on the water. Each vendor stand has gorgeous seafood for sale including whole and filleted rockfish, snapper, flounder etc. Customers can also choose from a large assortment of crabs, cooked king crab legs, raw shrimp, oysters, mussels, clams and other wonderful shellfish. Most of the stands also offer already-cooked crabs and peel and eat shrimp as well as fried fish sandwiches and seafood soups. This place is quite a spectacle—because the customer stands above the level of the water, there is a small gap between the fish stand and the pavement, and it can make the exchange of money-fish quite tricky. Melissa managed to make the hand-off and brought the live rascals and several pounds of raw North Carolina shrimp to Amanda’s house for boiling.
If you’ve never experienced Maryland blue crabs, just know that they are quite messy and take a lot of work to extract the meat. The outside table was set up with a layer of garbage bags topped with several layers of newspaper taped down. The crabs gave a bit of a fight as they were placed into the boiling pot, but they came out succulent and sweet and drowning in Old Bay. We made a huge mess pulling off legs, cracking shells with knives and mallets, and breaking bodies open to extract the sweet back fin meat. This process usually involves entrails and the yellow goo affectionately referred to as “the mustard” to ooze, drip and splat everywhere and on everything at the table. This is not a clean adventure. In fact, there was even a report of some crab-juice squirted in a table-neighbor’s eye. But, nonetheless, we fully enjoyed the messiness and the reward of sweet crabmeat. The boiled shrimp were sweet and tangy and the perfect size to peel, dip in sauce and put into the mouth. We rounded the menu out with homemade potato salad, tomato and mozzarella salad, ears of grilled sweet corn, and Kate’s wonderful homemade peach cupcakes. And since we do usually honor a birthday month with bubbly, we did give Melissa a lovely 40 of Miller Highlife to enjoy with her crabs. We owe her big for her next special day!
The entire feast (for 7 because we did let the boys join us) cost about $100. Since we didn’t all venture to the market together, we decided to rate the seafood and the experience and not necessarily the market itself, although, the market is a pretty cool place and we recommend the trip to Maine Avenue.
3.5 oinks for messy-good crabs and shrimps!
Stay tuned for September………
The Maine Avenue fish market is located on the Potomac river and is essentially a large series of floating piers and barges where fishermen can unload fresh fish for purchase right on the water. Each vendor stand has gorgeous seafood for sale including whole and filleted rockfish, snapper, flounder etc. Customers can also choose from a large assortment of crabs, cooked king crab legs, raw shrimp, oysters, mussels, clams and other wonderful shellfish. Most of the stands also offer already-cooked crabs and peel and eat shrimp as well as fried fish sandwiches and seafood soups. This place is quite a spectacle—because the customer stands above the level of the water, there is a small gap between the fish stand and the pavement, and it can make the exchange of money-fish quite tricky. Melissa managed to make the hand-off and brought the live rascals and several pounds of raw North Carolina shrimp to Amanda’s house for boiling.
If you’ve never experienced Maryland blue crabs, just know that they are quite messy and take a lot of work to extract the meat. The outside table was set up with a layer of garbage bags topped with several layers of newspaper taped down. The crabs gave a bit of a fight as they were placed into the boiling pot, but they came out succulent and sweet and drowning in Old Bay. We made a huge mess pulling off legs, cracking shells with knives and mallets, and breaking bodies open to extract the sweet back fin meat. This process usually involves entrails and the yellow goo affectionately referred to as “the mustard” to ooze, drip and splat everywhere and on everything at the table. This is not a clean adventure. In fact, there was even a report of some crab-juice squirted in a table-neighbor’s eye. But, nonetheless, we fully enjoyed the messiness and the reward of sweet crabmeat. The boiled shrimp were sweet and tangy and the perfect size to peel, dip in sauce and put into the mouth. We rounded the menu out with homemade potato salad, tomato and mozzarella salad, ears of grilled sweet corn, and Kate’s wonderful homemade peach cupcakes. And since we do usually honor a birthday month with bubbly, we did give Melissa a lovely 40 of Miller Highlife to enjoy with her crabs. We owe her big for her next special day!
The entire feast (for 7 because we did let the boys join us) cost about $100. Since we didn’t all venture to the market together, we decided to rate the seafood and the experience and not necessarily the market itself, although, the market is a pretty cool place and we recommend the trip to Maine Avenue.
3.5 oinks for messy-good crabs and shrimps!
Stay tuned for September………
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