LA Boiling Crab in Orlando, FL

I had lunch at LA Boiling Crab in the Mills-50 District of Orlando. Surrounded by Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants, this place specialized in New Orleans style po boy sandwiches, crawfish, crabs, and other types of seafood. 

I ordered the soft shell crab po boy. This sandwich was filled with fried soft shell crab, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise. It was served on a French baguette with a nice, crispy crust. The crab was very tender and the batter that it was fried in had plenty of flavor.

I shared an order of beignets for dessert. These four fried fritters were topped with plenty of powdered sugar. They were light and airy on the inside. They may be a type of doughnut, but beignets aren't just any doughnut. Beignets are the official state doughnut of Louisiana! An appropriate end to a meal at a restaurant with LA in the name.

I had fun at LA Boiling Crab. It had been a while since I've eaten Cajun food, so having a po boy and beignets was enjoyable. At some point I want to return here and try some of their crawfish and crabs which smelled delicious as I was eating.

Boston Lobster Feast in Orlando, FL

I visited Boston Lobster Feast on International Drive for a birthday. This restaurant is a seafood buffet that is definitely targeted towards tourists. They are way overpriced for buffet food, but that doesn't seem to stop the tourists from pouring in.

Boston Lobster Feast has three buffet tables set up inside the restaurant. The largest serves most of the hot seafood. Another is housed with much of the chilled food, and the third is filled with desserts.

My first trip to the buffet tables resulted in a plate filled with three different types of salmon. This included grilled salmon, smoked salmon, and cured salmon (lox). I also picked up corn on the cob and a biscuit.

Lobster bisque wasn't self-serve on the buffet, but I said yes when our server offered to bring some to the table. I didn't detect much lobster in here, but the creamy soup was tasty enough.

I tired some crab next. I sampled a whole blue crab and some snow crab legs. Somehow I know these crabs weren't as fresh as the crabs from the Maine Avenue Fish Market that I visited in DC earlier this year.

My next plate consisted of some seafood, but more filler items from the buffet. For the seafood, I had a tasty little crawfish, some fried shrimp, and a stuffed crab alongside rice and caesar salad. The crawfish was my favorite thing on this plate. Most everything on this plate was mediocre buffet food.

I was going to be done with the gorging after the last plate of food, but I then started thinking that I should probably get lobster from a place called Boston Lobster Feast. The problem is, I'm not the biggest lobster fan out there. It's an okay food, but I just don't understand the hype surrounding the crustaceans. I'd take crab over lobster any day. I got one of the lobsters here and it did not change my opinion. 

Boston Lobster Feast is mostly mediocre food on a very expensive buffet. I suppose if you want to pig out on as many lobsters as you please, then perhaps this place would be for you. The crab was good, but lots of local Chinese buffets also have crab at a quarter of the price. As for the rest of the seafood and other items, most of it was forgettable. Boston Lobster Feast is okay for what it is, but go in expecting typical buffet food and don't set your hopes too high...

Maine Avenue Fish Market in Washington DC

I remembered reading about the Maine Avenue Fish Market sometime in the past. While visiting Washington DC, I decided I should visit this place. The Maine Avenue Fish Market is the oldest seafood market in the country and consists of several floating barges filled with all sorts of seafood docked around a wharf. The floating seafood market setup was way cool and the place had a very unique feel.

I couldn't quite figure out if all of the barges here had the same owners or not. Captain White's seemed to be one of the big vendors here, but there were other names on the barges as well. Some barges only sold fresh fish for you to buy and cook at home, while others had pre-cooked seafood, and yet others cooked your food on the spot.

I went with a barge that cooked the seafood. Crabs seemed like the thing to get here. I went with a half dozen blue crabs. This seemed like a good deal for $7, plus the whole process of eating the crabs in a fish market was quite the experience.

The live crabs were hand picked, sprinkled with seasoning, and dropped into a steamer.

After about fifteen minutes, the crabs were cooked. They were placed in a paper bag and were ready to eat.

Besides my crabs, I also got a bowl of clam chowder here. The creamy soup was tasty with lots of pieces of clam and big chunks of potato.

To eat the crabs, there was a small dining area by the water. There were no seats. Everyone stood around counters smashing their crabs open with mallets and devouring the very fresh, sweet crab meat.

I very much enjoyed my visit to the Maine Avenue Fish Market. I suppose if you don't like seafood, this place wouldn't be for you, but why would you be going to a fish market in the first place? The whole setup of buying seafood from barges floating in the river was something that I've never seen before and was a fun experience.

It looks like Anthony Bourdain did a segment on the Maine Avenue Fish Market on an episode of No Reservations.

JB's Fish Camp in New Smyrna Beach, FL

JB's Fish Camp is a restaurant located on the Intercoastal Waterway, right on the border of Canaveral National Seashore. Given JB's location, their outdoor patio has a great view...

I ordered the Jumbo Soft Shell Crab Sandwich. Deep fried in a Cajun flavored batter, this soft shell crab was served on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, and cheese. A pickle and really tasty fries came on the side. I'm always slightly uncomfortable with that initial bite of a soft shell crab. Eating an entire crab is very different than just eating it's meat. Once I get past that first bite though, I'm good. This crab had great flavor, crispy on the outside, but nice and juicy on the inside!


One warning though, beware of the mosquitoes if you're eating outside at dusk!

Publix Spicy Roll

I ate a Spicy Roll from the Sushi department at Publix in Lake Mary, FL. The roll was pretty similiar to the Tsunami Roll, but was filled with krab instead of shrimp salad. I think this sauce was spicier than the sauce on the Tsunami roll as well.

Food @ the Longwood Arts & Crafts Festival

I went to the Longwood Arts & Crafts Festival on November 22, 2008. It was a good time walking around Downtown Longwood, looking at the old houses and what people were trying to sell. Much of it was actual handmade arts/crafts, while a lot was also mass produced junk made in China that people were trying to pass off as their own. This is a food blog though, and that's why I took lots of pictures of the food stands at the festival. The food always seems to be very photogenic at events like this, and although my visit to the festival involved no actual eating of the food being sold, I'm posting the pictures of the food stands anyway.

California Earthquake from Imperial Dynasty

I ate at Imperial Dynasty in Longwood, FL. I noticed one of their sushi specials on the way in was something called a California Earthquake. It was described as a California Roll topped with baked fish. It sounded interesting, so I ordered the roll and a wonton soup.

Imperial Dynasty has good wonton soup. Unlike most other Chinese restaurants, they put lots of good vegetables in their soup. Besides from the standard wontons, pork, and scallions, Imperial Dynasty also put cabbage and carrots in the soup. Adding more vegetables to a soup is never a bad thing in my opinion.

As for the California Earthquake, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was still really tasty. The sign with the specials said the California roll was topped with baked fish, so I was expecting actual big pieces of fish. Instead, it was more like a fish salad. The fish was broken up into small pieces and mixed with other ingredients (it said something about eel sauce) to make the topping for the roll. All of this was topped with crumbled tempura batter and decorated with some radishes carved into flowers. I would definitely get the California Earthquake again.

Imperial Dynasty Spider Roll

I ate a Spider Roll from Imperial Dynasty in Longwood, FL. It was good, although I felt the cream cheese didn't really go with the other contents of the roll...

Crab Cakes on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

I ate a crab cake sandwich from the Sea Gull Pier Restaurant on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia. The last time that I traveled over the bridge and ate at this restaurant I had breakfast. The time before that, I also ate a crab cake sandwich. My problem then was that the crab cake had bits of crushed crab shell in the cake and made it a pain to eat. This time, the crab cake on the sandwich seemed ultra processed. As if it was a frozen pre-made crab cake. Someone else at the table ordered another crab cake sandwich, and it looked exactly the same, where crab cakes that are freshly made by hand don't have that much uniformity. It was what I would imagine a krabby patty would be like, if it wasn't a fictional cartoon food. The waitress said they made the crab cakes fresh at the restaurant, but I don't believe it. Maybe they came fresh out of the freezer.

It did taste okay, but it wasn't exactly what I would consider a good crab cake...

Fuji Sushi

I ate at Fuji Sushi in Lake Mary, Florida. I ordered a Black Widow Roll and miso soup. They gave a bean sprout appetizer, followed by the soup, followed by the roll. The roll was filled with soft shell crab, flying fish eggs, eel sauce, and scallions. It was tasty and presented nicely, but the roll was a bit boring and didn't have enough variety in it. Still good regardless...