Review: The Crab Shack, Auckland CBD

Pleasingly, The Crab Shack's menu offers plenty more than crab. Photo / Fiona Goodall

Princes Wharf
Auckland
Ph: (09) 972 1599
crabshack.co.nz

The appeal of the crab eludes me: it's great food if you are lost in the wilderness and eating to survive, but at dinner it's less a dish than a test of one's dexterity and perseverance.

At the Crab Shack, the Professor and I donned big bibs and set to with the crackers ("They should provide hard hats, too," she said, as I sent a chunk of claw whizzing past her) and scrapers, like the ones street traders in India offer to clean your ears with.

The result of our combined labours on four claws of the Atlantic Jonah crab (the cheapest, at $33, of the four "crab pot" dishes on the menu) was a heaped tablespoonful of flesh that, without the lemongrass and chilli sauce, would have tasted of nothing much at all. Most of the sauce was lost in a gloopy clump of shredded lettuce in the bottom of the bowl. A kilo of Nelson paddle crab at $40 would have delivered four times the feed (and four times the cracking and scraping), but the fact remains that eating crab is more about crab than eating.

The Crab Shack, a feature on Queens Wharf in Wellington since mid-2013, opened an Auckland branch last week where the Leftfield Bar was. It's the new venture of the prolific Simon Gault and it's plainly a good-time place to hang out.

A bar is set up like a beach cabana and faux crayfish pots hang from the ceiling, as do TV screens showing music videos so old that our waitress called them weird and the Professor and I recognised all the acts.

Fortunately, there is more than crab on the menu. The "shackboards" choices include delicious trios of commendably gristly tuatua fritters with jalapeno creme fraiche and cakes of minced crab and crayfish with a wonderful coconut aioli. The seared tuna with ribbons of pickled cucumber was like cajun sashimi, although the lime and coriander dressing wanted for character.

More substantial mains (lamb rump, blackened fish) were well discharged although both came with a chipotle slaw full of peanuts, which are famously allergenic: a warning at the very least was in order.

And putting a caesar salad in a jar made as much sense as serving chicken broth on a banana leaf.

Teething troubles are mainly to do with service: different T-shirt colours denote different duties, but when a black-shirt hostess stood nearby smiling inanely as we waited for a grey-shirt waitress to take our order, it reminded me of the old 70s demarcation disputes on the nearby wharves.

The bottom line is The Crab Shack is less a dining-out destination than a relaxed and fun place to be. I'm sure it will go off like a rocket.

Crab $33-$112; entrees $15-$25; salads $15-$27; mains $26-$29; burgers $22-$24; desserts $12.50

Verdict: As much about fun as about food