The Crab King

Best fish and chips I’ve ever had. Service is mom and pop shop. Crisp thin battered fish and amazing fries. Even the cole slaw is good! And you can have a nice cold beer with your meal.

The view, of course, is breathtaking. However, I think the ambience of the restaurant itself could be better. The service was quick and satisfactory. The food is great! The appetizers alone are flavourful.

Had a Groupon I bought for $ 11.00 for $ 20.00 towards crab.
First bad impression, before I even sat down my chair was full of crumbs??? Clean much ?
Found out with the Groupon they only had 1 menu choice. The 2 crab meal for about $ 75.00. I asked was there anything else we can order and she said no, it’s either that or the $ 11.00 value of the Groupon. (She was quite rude about it).
We were debating on the fresh steamed crab or the black bean… black bean only because the waitress said it was «number one».
So we trusted her and ordered the black bean.
A word of advice… if you are eating «fresh» crab always get it steamed… can’t really go wrong with steamed. (Or maybe they can I don’t know).
Please note I’m 100% Chinese when I say this and I’ve seen this done at almost every Chinese restaurant that serves crab.
Most Chinese operated businesses always strive to cut costs at any expense (look at China.lead.etc) anything to literally save a dime… no a nickle.
Please note I have no proof this restaurant does this, but this is standard practice for Chinese restaurants… especially if their lively hood is crab.
They will have the front case full of large fresh crab and use illegally obtained undersized crabs to cook with. What do you think they do with the dead ones? … One thing about deep frying a crab you can hide the freshness. They can literally deep fry frozen/​dead crab and most people wouldn’t know the difference. I have eaten crab plucked right from the ocean, so I know what fresh is and what I ate, was nothing close to fresh.
Presentation was nice but when the crab arrived at our table, I was fooled. The waitress said it comes with roasted potatoes and corn on the cob. It was greasy deep fried potatoes and 2 tiny pieces (about 1″ in length) over cooked corn. Hummm definition of «corn on the cob» an ear of corn served whole”.
Lies all lies !!! Or they are playing the «I don’t know English card»
Crab was so so dry and full of grease. If you looked closely at my pictures you can see this. You may ask what is all the little crumbs? … It’s deep fried batter mixed with msg. You would think it would be herbs, black bean, garlic etc… Deep fried msg batter???
I complained to 2 waitress about the dryness of the crab which is completely unacceptable for a place that specializes in «crab», and the 2 itty bitty pieces of corn… for $ 75.00.
Funny you would think 2 full crabs has 4 claws, one on each side of the crab. My obviously disabled crabs only had 2 claws total. This place will rip you off! They are complete scammers and liars. So incredibly dishonest! And you know what they don’t care. They simply don’t give a flying FU. K what you as a customer thinks.
They don’t give a shit here, they don’t ask you how is everything or how your meal was… they simply don’t give it shit and it shows.
This place is a one off… meaning you come here once and you will never ever come back again.
The worst crab I’ve ever had in my life! EVER! Maybe because I’m spoiled with fresh seafood right from the ocean, or I expect to get what I pay for when dinning out.
I have had better illegally caught crab at hole in the wall Chinese restaurants that they give away for FREE when you order 6 dishes or more. They also deep fry their crab but shitty hole in the wall places do it better then here.
Fool me once… urgggg!!!
I asked for the bill and paid the exact amount ONLY.
I told the waitress that I did not leave a tip because of the issues I had and I already felt I way over paid for what I received. There was basically no service, and what «service» they give you it was way way way below standard. They literally plop your food on the table and that’s it.
Stand behind your food, if a customer complains for any reason fix it. Smile at your customers once in a while. Your not in China anymore your in Canada and we have standards.
How dare you come to Canada and run a business with no standards, with no pride.
I guess they are happy with their one time customers.
Tourist do not be fooled, this place is still standing because of you. Do yourself a favor and eat somewhere else. Your wallet and your peace of mind will thank you.
PS
Remember to read all the «non recommended reviews» at the bottom of the page.

I was told that the Crab King had a Lobster Poutine so I wanted to give it a try. Sorry, but they don’t have it so I elected to try the King Crab one instead. It was great! I loved it. The only thing I would say that the cheese was more of a shredded kind and not the cheese curds as all poutine should be but it was delicious and plentiful.

Great seafood, fresh and delicious.

Freshest seafood I have ever had for a long time! We bought a groupon for this place and ordered two of the «gold» hotpot! The two order of gold hotpot came with 2 good size crab, 4 huge scallops, 7 – 8 prawns, muscles, clams, fish and 4 of the freshest large oysters I have ever had at Steveston Village! Along with this order came a full plate of varieties of veggies!
Two order of the gold menu was more than enough for 4 people — after dinner the chef came out and introduced himself and also gave every table a complementary dessert! This restuarant is worthy of trying because the chef was a hotel chef in HK for over 20 years before immigrating to Vancouver, BC! There is absolutely no MSG in any of the soup base! I can’t wait to go back and try the rest of the menu items!!! The price for the fish and chip is more reasonable than any other restuarants in Steveston Village! Must try this place everyone!!!

First time going there because of its promotion from Groupon. The dish that’s recommend was very salty

My date and I were walking around Steveston lookin for a place to eat. We stumbled upon this place, and the menu looked great. While walking down we were greeted by the rudest person I have ever encountered in the food service industry. I don’t know where she learned her customer service from. She rudely asked if we had a reservation, when we said we hadnt she yelled «no table!» I will never come back to this place. Im glad she yelled at us, cause by the looks of my fellow Unilocalers this place is terrible. Thank you rude hostess.

It was a couple years ago when I first ate here. I was with a party of five. Passed by the live crabs at the service area, but they looked pretty anemic. We settled in under the enclosed area to the left. We were the only people there. My review is both positive and negative, in that the crab dishes that my friends bought were piss poor. By that I mean the crab was fresh tasting, but very crunchy. Some Dingaling forgot to take all the Crabshell off:-) extra calcium I guess.
However, I bought fish and chips, and now I have a new favorite fish and chips joint. Dave’s fish and chips have let me down the last few times, so now I have somewhere else decent to go to get my favorite comfort food. The trick here is to have fresh fish cut thick enough to cook in the same amount of time as the batter. Cooking 101 in my humble opinion. Most of the other shops are cutting the fish thinly so when the batter is golden brown the fish is overcooked. These people are doing it the right way. I’d rather pay more and get a superior product then most of the junk that is being sold in the village right now.
Of course, that’s no excuse for putting out craft products that are not properly shelled. Nobody appreciated the extra calcium they were getting:-)
I have eaten there since– Takeout-​and the fish and chips we’re still excellent. The chips are extra crunchy-​french fries for our American brothers and sisters-​because the chef put flour on them, which when fried up makes them extra crunchy. The beautiful golden brown batter, a thick piece of cod and everything cooked to perfection.
We’re not crazy about their crab products given our experience the first time around. They may have rectified that since our first visit, but I would highly recommend Their fish and chips.

Been to the Crab King twice now when stopping by in Steveston area. If you love eating Crab platters with your hands, being messy and enjoying a big platter of fresh seafood — this is your stop ! Reminds me of the seafood boil platters in New Orleans where you throw on the big big, and chow down on crab, crab, crab !!! It was nice to eat by the docks and check out the little tug boats parked alongside and just relax and enjoy ourselves.

First time OMG! So Delicious. We had crab lots of crab. In ginger garlic sauce. Awesome Steveston location nestled in the boats on the harbor.
Came with fresh corn on cob and potatoes. Coming back cuz we’re crab lovers and there is no place as good as this here (Vancouver area)
Bringing all our friends too!

Black bean crab was the best!!! Also whenever you are here I always recommend the crab cakes, they’re so damn tasty!

Rotten fish, Poor customer service response
Our party of 3 split a few dishes, among them was an order of battered cod. It tasted rotten. When I brought this to my server’s attention, she was apologetic and said she could bring a fresh one out or take it off the bill. We were satisfied with this resolution.
However, as we finished eating, another server came over and said it was impossible that it was bad because they it was freshly caught seafood. I do not see how that precludes it from being possibly unsafe and definitely inedible.
Then she said we would to pay for the cod because we had eaten some of it. I explained that I was eating the other food while my guests ate some of the cod, and they were too polite to say how bad it tasted. She refused to honor what we had already agreed upon with our primary server.
We had ordered some expensive crab dishes and drinks and were obviously not trying to score a couple pieces of fried fish. The whole crab dishes were of average quality but overpriced. The crab poutine was pretty good but inauthentic, no cheese curds. Needless to say, I do not recommend this restaurant.

Casual restaurant. Nice view and good quality food. We tried the fish n chips here and it was good.

The hostess needs to use her brain
20 seconds after being seated she asked if I was ready to order
The restaurant was ²⁄₃ empty
Therefore no tip

2.5
I want to like you, but if it’s going take 55min for takeout, I can’t give you more than 2.5
To put thing into perspective, our other group of friend’s that started lining up at pajo’s was done eating before we even got our order.
Our ginger + garlic crab tasted great but I’d rather eat somewhere else for overpriced crab ($ 45) with slow service.
If you’re in a hurry I suggest you eat somewhere else. There are many other options in the area (i.e. pajo’s)

One of the big appeals of this place is the fact that the restaurant is not only located at the docks of the very picturesque Steveston Village, but that it is also a floating restaurant.
However the first thing we noticed upon entering the place was the fact that the floors were pretty sticky. While I’ve been pleasantly surprised by worse restaurant settings, I was a bit hesitant about what we were about to get into. Service overall was not too bad, though they some how forgot our corn and gave it to us at the very end of our meal when we were about to pay. The crab cakes had a lot of great flavour and were sizable, though the side salad that came with it definitely seemed like an after thought. Unfortunately, where this experience fell flat was when we ordered the king crab legs which seemed to be totally over cooked, dry and absolutely lacking in the juiciness that one would expect.
The main highlight it seemed was in how well the calamari was prepared (not overly battered, well seasoned, with a bit of a crunch). That being said, for a place that calls itself Crab King I was expecting much more from its crab offering.

We started off rocky, but ended up good.
The Rocky:
I guess this place just opened. We had a reservation for about 14 people and a baby. We asked for a high chair. When we sat, no high chair. Found out they only had 1 high chair and gave it to the family they sat right before us… but we had a reservation and asked for a high chair… SO! Then the waitress proceeds to tell us, as she is starting to bring out the food that there is a mandatory 15% tip on all large parties like ours. I spoke up, «Can we lower that mandatory tip a little since we don’t have waters and the high chair we asked for was given away? Or at least go borrow another high chair from a nearby restaurant?» Mind you the only people in the restaurant are us and that other table who got our high chair. She went to talk to the manager and basically she wasn’t allowed to go get one and leave the floor. So I asked why doesn’t the manager go get it? The manager is the cook… oooookaaaaaayyyy… lol! In the end she ends running to get a high chair but the best she can do it a booster seat.
The GOOD:
The crab is good! Get the garlic whole crab and the thai spicy whole crab and surprisingly the crab poutine was DELICIOUS! Sounded soooo groady, but it was good! yeay! Get some! Really! :)
They also did not add the mandatory 15%, but our party gave her 15% anyway. :) She earned it! :)

I grew up in Steveston, and always went to Dave’s fish and chips (which are excellent). I have to admit that the fish and chips at Crab King were also excellent. I really like to location being down in the docs.
Steveston in general has great seafood.

We were looking for a place to eat whole dungeness crab on our drive back from Vancouver to Seattle. This was the only decently rated place for lunch that wasn’t a canto restaurant (we wanted something different). Turns out, it was a great meal!
The restaurant is actually a floating room on the water — pretty cool. Tables are lined with heavy wax paper, so feel free to make a mess.
Lobster poutine — love poutine, love lobster. What’s not to like about this dish? The fries were actually really good, or rather, it’s the way I like my fries. Pretty good amount of lobster. The cheese wasn’t exactly right for a poutine, but what’s an American got to complain about it? Definitely a great starchy appetizer to go with the crab.
Seafood medley — we were going to order two crabs, so this was a nice third entrée for the 3 of us. It came piping hot and the seafood was really fresh. Nice variety too — shrimp, clams, chunks of fish, scallop, one crab leg. It’s served with a nice savory tomato sauce, garlic bread (great with the seafood and sauce), and side caesar salad. Great dish!
Fresh steamed crab — definitely the must-​have. I guess you can order other things on the menu like burger or fish and chips… but you have to get the crab as well. Dungeness is a great crab — easy to break down and lots of meat. All crab entrees are served with two corns, some cole slaw, and roasted potatoes. All this for $ 29? What a steal. I like the fresh steamed crab over the other ones with sauce because you can taste the original flavor of the crab AND it’s not as messy.
Crab with scallion, ginger, and garlic sauce — this was kind of a canto preparation. Sauce was delicious, but it becomes really messy as you try to break down the crab. My hand was covered in goop the entire time. After you get the meat out, the sauce is great. Maybe you can ask for the sauce on the side…