A Harahan Dive

A caller to The Food Show got me thinking about picking boiled crabs. She mentioned having gone to Seither’s Seafood recently, which is a place completely off my radar. Then she related a story about being asked if she had a reservation. A reservation? We both thought the idea absurd. Seither’s is a dive, which explains why they were recently featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network. And that explains the reservation question.

But it did have me thinking about the days of my youth when we boiled and picked crabs we caught. So I called some sibs, and we met up Saturday evening at Seither’s. To be safe, I did make a reservation, chuckling the entire time. We arrived at 5:30 pm on a balmy evening and found a plastic table with an umbrella that had a guest check with my name on it taped to the table. It, like all the other outside seating, shared the parking lot with cars. Weird as it was, the vibe was welcoming, and we settled in for a fun evening.

There was live music from not far from our table, but I found it soothing rather than irritating. It was a Boomer couple playing easy listening songs at rather low volume. I liked their style.

Our waitress appeared to have the whole parking lot crowd to herself. As the tables filled up, her attention was harder to come by. I found our conversations with her amusing. We ordered the boiled crab special that the caller had mentioned. She reported it as  $20 for a dozen crabs with corn and potatoes, but it was $25 this evening. The waitress described them as medium, and they were a nice size, larger than expected. There were about four boiled potatoes and two corn cobs. She delivered the tray to the table with nothing else. 

We asked about plates, and the question seemed to puzzle her. Several of us had picked up a crab and were holding it with no place to put it. There were two crab crackers with the order, but no other utensils. She delivered plastic set-ups like the kind you get with fast food. Huh?

We asked for real utensils, and she delivered 3 knives for five of us, explaining that those were the only clean ones. This was becoming comical. She did return with a few other trays. We shared the knives, marveling at the situation. It wasn’t yet crowded, so what would they do when it was?

She returned to see what else we wanted. We ordered onion rings, cheese fries, and a fried oyster sandwich. 

The crabs were nicely seasoned and were fat enough to be satisfying. Occasionally there was a kite, but the $2.50 price per crab was good. The corn and potatoes were a little spicy but well within the reasonable range. A few of us ordered beers and reminisced about our youth catching crabs and eating them. It was a mighty good time.

The onion rings were enjoyed by everyone who had them, particularly by my brother, who thought them among the best he has had. They were fine, but I promised to turn him onto better ones.

The crinkle cut fries were loaded with cheese and roast beef debris gravy, and plenty of bacon, and topped with chopped scallions and a spicy mayo drizzle. There was nothing special about these to me, and they were messy to eat. But the overall opinion at the table was favorable.

The same was true of the monster poor boy, which was a mess of fried oysters, bacon, and cheese with lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mayo, AKA a Peacemaker in the old days.

Before we left, I poked my head inside to see what it looked like, and it was tiny but much nicer than I expected. There might have been seating for 20 inside, but the action was definitely outside. I tried to imagine the chaos of the period immediately after the Food Network run. And I tried to imagine something like a football game because we had a great time just sitting there, talking and listening to the music with a nice but not huge crowd. 

We will definitely go back because we really enjoyed it, but if it’s going to be busy, I’ll bring my own silverware.