HOT SPOTS
Gettin’ Crabby
Find the best food in St. Louis
Subscribe to the St. Louis Dining In and Dining Out newsletters to stay up-to-date on the local restaurant and culinary scene.
Over the past decade or so, the popularity of Cajun seafood boil–type restaurants has soared across the nation. The best seller is typically a bag or bucket of seasoned seafood—shrimp, crab, crawfish, mussels, lobster, or a combination—plus potatoes, corn on the cob, and sometimes sausage and hard-boiled eggs, which gets dumped directly onto the table, New Orleans-style. Krab Kingz Seafood has opened two metro locations in the past year, with two different franchisees. The Mad Crab opened at 8010 Olive two years ago and will open a second store in Bridgeton, at 12490 St. Charles Rock Road, on August 1. Hook & Reel will open its first Missouri location this year at 4860 Chippewa. Construction is also underway at 9616 Olive for a new location of The Kickin’ Crab, a nine-year-old California-based chain with 20 units. And in the Deer Creek center in Maplewood, a banner for Blue Crab Juicy Seafood has been up for months. No signs of aquatic life just yet.
INSIDER TIP
Shooting for a Record
St. Louis Craft Beer Week, an annual nine-day “week” that features more than 40 beer-themed parties and events across the metro, is being held July 26–August 3. As always, the roster of events runs the gamut from informative (Brewers and Biologists) to food-themed (Beer & Bites) to just plain fun (Family Feud: Craft Beer Edition). This year, Gezellig in The Grove will attempt to set a world record for—wait for it—the most people shotgunning a beer at one time. In conjunction with 4 Hands Brewing Co., participants will receive cans of Full Life, the brewery’s new lager. The shotgun line will form along Manchester, the emcee will give a countdown, and then history could be made, according to the event page. A drone film crew will be on hand and there will be a party afterward at Gezellig. Tickets are free and include the beer and a koozie from 4 Hands. The organizers ask that participants sign up in advance and note, “Guinness Book of World Records does not actually acknowledge speed drinking as appropriate or worthy of an official world record, but we don’t care. We’re making our own world record.” 4191 Manchester, 314-833-5532.
MICRORANT
Shoe Leather–Style Roast Beef
Few things are better than a well-made French dip sandwich—thin-sliced roast beef and melted cheese on a hot, crusty baguette with au jus on the side. That is, except when the roast beef is overcooked. Most restaurants heat medium-rare roast beef in the jus to warm it, but almost as many heat it until it’s well done and tougher than date-expired gas station jerky. If customers prefer their sandwich beef well done, then they can request it that way, but the majority of patrons prefer the meat a little less cooked. Why do you think Lion’s Choice, the city’s preeminent place for roast beef sandwiches, cooks all of its beef roasts to medium-rare?
Follow George on Twitter @stlmag_dining and feel free to send him Tidbits at [email protected]. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
