It was a Monday, and our first choice for dinner was closed. So, there we were, standing next to our cars in an empty parking lot toward the south side of Aiken, Googling nearby restaurants.
“There’s a seafood place up the street,” offered my friend Tricia. “The kind that serves food in a bag. We could try that, or there’s another one up that way, but they also serve it in a bag.”
A bag? I stopped her to make sure I heard her correctly. “You know,” she said. “They put all the seafood and vegetables in a bag and shake it up with seasoning. Then they bring it to your table. In a bag.”
Maybe this is a common thing? But I’ve never, ever had my seafood presented to me in a bag. So, after briefly considering a fancier restaurant—which we were definitely not dressed for—instead of fine china, we decided to go for the bag.
Tasty Crab House is located, according to Tricia, inside a former Fatz Café building. There’s a porch out front with picnic tables, and inside, the walls are a deep coastal blue, with stone, wood paneling and a giant plastic crab on one wall, which made me smile. The restaurant itself is huge, with about 12 booths and 14 tables in the area where we sat, and a second room with almost as much seating and a bar.
On this Monday night, it was quiet, but, Tricia said, it was usually packed on a weekend night.
Our server cheerfully brought us big plastic menus. The Make Your Own Seafood Combo features seafood by the half-pound or pound, with choices like head-on or head-off shrimp, snow crab legs, blue or Dungeness crabs, black or green mussels, lobster tail, crab legs, crawfish and baby clams. Each serving comes with a half of a cob of corn and one medium potato. You choose your seasoning—Cajun, garlic butter or lemon pepper, or the Tasty special, which includes all three—and your spice level, from non-spicy all the way up to extra hot.
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Bigger appetites might want to consider the All Day Specials, featuring a pound and a half to two pounds of seafood and sausage, corn, two potatoes and one hard-boiled egg, but the seafood is chef’s choice and there are no substitutions. Another option are the Seafood Combos, featuring one pound each of two seafood options, two half-cobs of corn, two potatoes and one egg.
If you prefer your food in a basket, bowl or plate, Tasty Crab House also offers a variety of fried baskets, soup and salads (I was impressed to see lobster bisque on the menu) and appetizers. A kids menu and lunch menu are also featured, and on the table, there was also a drinks menu, one side filled with signature cocktails and the other with beer and wine selections.
For this visit, Tricia opted for a fried oyster basket with sweet potato fries. But I was all in on the bag, ordering a half-pound of head-off shrimp, Tasty Special-style, with mild heat.
I’m pretty sure I laughed out loud when my bag was served. The clear plastic bag was puffed out with steam, and I could just peek through and see my shrimp, corn and potato swimming in a pool of melted butter and Cajun spices. It was tied at the top, ready for me to undo, and as I rolled the edges down to create a makeshift bowl, the glorious scent of seafood and spices enveloped me.
Our server also brought a basket with silverware and a wonderfully kitschy plastic bib, which, when I unfolded it, revealed plastic gloves to protect my hands plus a hand wipe. I decided not to use the gloves, but immediately tied the bib on.
OK, so I admit, my expectations foodwise were pretty low. But the seafood smelled amazing. And as I pulled the shells off the shrimp and dipped them into cocktail sauce, they tasted amazing too. They were simple—steamed shrimp, seasoned well with plenty of butter, garlic, cayenne and other spices, and they weren’t overcooked or tough. The potato, too, was cooked just right, not too soft and not too firm, and the corn was sweet. My only complaint? I should have gone for the full pound.
When our server came to check on us, I was intrigued and wanted to know: Do they actually cook the seafood in the bag? She explained that each serving is steamed in a metal bucket, then placed into the bag with the seasonings. And when I told her it was my first time there, she exclaimed, “Well, you’ll just have to come back! I’m glad you like it.”
As soon as I got in my car to head home, I texted my brother, who’s a big seafood lover like me: “The Tasty Crab in Aiken. I think you would probably really like it. … They serve you your food in a big plastic bag….”
Make Your Reservation
Tasty Crab 996 Pine Log Rd., Aiken www.tastycrabhouseaiken.com, Entrée cost: $11 to $74
