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A feast fit for a Floridian
By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food and Wine Critic © St. Petersburg Times, published August 4, 2000
Inescapably honest -- and good. Crabs aren't the only thing on the menu, but they're the best. Now that the weather's changed and crabbing's started to improve, the blue crabs steamed in garlic butter are again great eating. And that's real eating: cracking, picking and fishing meat out of the shells, not just swallowing. There's probably no morsel of flesh as sweet as a hard-won bit of crab. Go for the sampler platter that includes the big guys, snow crabs from up north, and the gulf's own goldens, and you might strike it rich, pulling out one long piece of delectable crab meat. Or not. But that's why you pick your way through a mess of crab in the first place, and why you don't wear good clothes or use fancy utensils when you're prospecting for crab. That's also why crab eaters aren't into white tablecloths. Newspaper's enough, and the picnic tables with oilcloth here are even better. If you love crabs, you love a shack, and this place is the real thing, not a sterilized replica created to look old or faux-funky. The main building is low-ceilinged, dark and hard to get around, with an old screened-in porch attached. Both are filled with gator heads, oars, buoys, old photos and relics of old Florida. (My favorite is the sign "Florida's Finest Beer & Ale, Bottles $3.25 a Case." How old is that?) Still, they keep it surprisingly clean, and they've made an effort to pretty up the yellow walls with stencils of crabs. If Martha Stewart isn't wowed, she can pick her own crabs -- and get her own "Damn Fine Beer," as one Crab Shack shirt advises. This is not corporate fun concocted by the marketing department; folks relax and smile here without being told to. There's more on the menu than crab, but it's smart to stick to seafood and other Florida favorites. Local blue crabs were skimpy this year during the drought, but Trappman's fish house next door has kept the restaurant supplied with decent crabs, and of late they're bigger and better. When blues are scarce, try the golden crab, long-legged critters from deep in the gulf. I find them sweeter and not as salty as Alaska's big crabs. Sticking to local flavor is key. Lee's smoked mullet comes unscaled and sooty, so you know it's fresh. Split open, it is as rich as fish gets this side of salmon, and as creamy, smoky and moist as ham on the bone. Grouper likewise is hefty and fresh-tasting but may be eclipsed by the whole corvina dinner. That's one big fish, a foot long, scaled, then slit on the sides, seasoned and fried whole. It's lean and tender flesh, but still real food for real Floridians.
Oysters? The Nibbler will eat them with nary an R in sight when I'm in a place that I know cares to get good ones and keep them cold. These were from Texas, appropriately sized and meaty and smooth in the gullet. Chicken, burgers and steaks are available for those determined to miss out on life's pleasures, but why have them here? By the same token, I had no interest in pasta, found the fries so-so, the shrimp too small and the salads standard issue. However, one piece of key lime pie, not green, not even yellow, but as pale and rich as ivory silk or condensed milk itself on a graham cracker crust, reminded me that the best things about Florida are done perfectly here. That includes cabbage, not swampy, but plain cabbage stewed or fricasseed with a little tomato. So maybe some dishes fail the test; most don't. That sets up odds so good I'd dare a captain's platter. You'll get top-shelf service and wine, too. The kitchen isn't fast, but the servers are usually quick with a fork or a homey quip. (They point out that the cola is generic, not Coke or Pepsi; one discouraged a request for extra forks with key lime pie: "You don't want to share it.") Beer and tea are the beverages of choice, but the Crab Shack has Bollinger and Dom Perignon for the Champagne crowd and a short list of the Nibbler's favorite under-$20 bottles: Dry Creek fume blanc, R.H. Phillips sauvignon blanc, Lindeman's chardonnay and Hess Select cabernet sauvignon. All it needs is a French muscadet: the world's best oyster wine and cheap to boot. Is it silly to talk about wine in a shack? Hardly. This shack's taste of Florida is fresh, plain and worth a toast, whatever's in your glass. The Crab Shack
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