I had been wanting to try this place ever since it opened but something always came up, so when my good friend, asked us if we wanted to join them for dinner, of course I had to say yes.
The Crab Planet is a “Halal” restaurant located in the Canoga Park neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley on Desoto Avenue. It is the sister property of Lemon Grass Thai-Halal Restaurant located a few miles away.
Located on the main Desoto Ave, you cannot drive past it. From outside even if you don’t read the name, the Crab tells you its mainly seafood. Parking is right in front of the restaurant and is a bit tight. The entrance hallway is wide and gives an open feel to the dining area and the adjacent bar. The lovely bar and the dining area has a rustic tone with an underwater theme throughout the restaurant which compliments the menu.
The Crab Planet is a Cajun-Thai-Seafood place and has the same concept as “The Boiling Crab” and “The Shrimp Haus” restaurants where you order seafood by the pound, decide your seasonings and choose the heat level. But that’s not it. They have a full Thai menu too with yummy appetizers, soups and entrees. Also its good to have an option of a fusion restaurant in the San Fernando Valley so do you not end up driving far to enjoy Cajun seafood.
If you order the seafood, they top your table with wax paper and give you bibs encouraging you to make a mess (trust me you will). Forget a bucket or a bowl, the seafood comes in plastic bags and you dig right in.
There is a variety of appetizers to choose from like chicken wings, satay, fries and egg rolls. We ordered the wings and fries. The wings were not spicy at all and came with a sweet sauce and a mayo sauce.
The kids did not want to try the seafood so we ordered Thai fried rice and Chow Mein for them and that too without veggies. As for the adults we ordered Tom Yum Soup, Drunken Noodles with Beef from the Thai menu. We ordered headless jumbo shrimps with Cajun seasoning and a side of rice and lobster with crazy mix seasoning (which is a mixture of all seasonings since we could not decide on one :))
The soup and noodles were very tasty and spot on. You can order the shrimps headless but they come with the shell on and you have to break it yourself. They gave lobster crackers to crack the lobster but did not have special seafood forks to get the meat out of the lobster so we ended up using the regular forks which did not help a lot. The shrimps were tasty but the lobster felt a wee bit undercooked. Crazy mix seasoning was waay flavorful than the Cajun seasoning.
Overall, if cracking, mixing, digging in seafood is something you enjoy, than do take the plunge. For the rest of safe eaters like me, stick to their Asian Sensations.
