Writing from Destin, Fla.:
The Crab Trap Seafood and Oyster Bar — 3500 Scenic Highway 98, Destin, Florida. Web site.
Once upon a time, about three years ago at this writing, there was a nice restaurant right on the beach in the Destin area (technically Miramar Beach) called The Crab Trap. It took up half of a big white building with a long porch below, and an open bar down on that porch that you could get to from the restaurant or the beach. There was lots of seating inside, including window tables that looked out on the Gulf of Mexico and were kept wide open to the breezes. The wait staff dressed in smocks with Tequila Sunrize patterns that would make Magnum’s eyeballs bleed, and were mostly courteous and knowledgeable.
The food, of course, was seafood, and it was very good. A variety of baskets from popcorn shrimp to soft shell crab and crab claws, with hush puppies and fries; crab and lobster (the lobster at market prices, of course); a very good mahi mahi, and a variety of other items were there to tempt you. The kids’ meals were served in souvenir buckets with a side of sand shovels, and were used by my kids with relish.
Well, the restaurant is still there, the buckets are still there, and the smocks are still there. But as for the rest…. The wait staff still seems courteous and knowledgeable, but the food is average at the best. We had lunch there yesterday, generally considered the best meal at the Crab Trap, and the only thing that was outstanding was the She-Crab Soup which I ordered for an appetizer. That had a very nice flavor, smoky and sweet. The crab cake basket I ordered for the entrée, though, tasted like industrial crab cakes; in other words, you could have probably got the same experience opening a box of Mrs. Paul’s and nuking it in a microwave. The disaster of the meal was my daughter’s soft shell crab basket. After she pronounced herself full, she passed it to Kitt, who opened it up and took a sniff, then passed it to me for inspection. It smelled definitely fishy, as if it was beginning to go off. Another one seemed just underdone. The waitress removed it from our bill, which was a Good Thing.
Yes, there is still a Crab Trap in Destin/Miramar — but we won’t be returning. Pity; it was one of our favorites before on this annual jaunt.
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Peace be to you.
