KRABBY'S CRAB BOIL—Knox — Restaurant in Melbourne

We went there on a Tuesday night, so of course the place wasn't packed. Can't fault them for that.

The decor is funky and thematically on point. I particularly liked the giant tentacle coming out of the restroom area.

The service was fast, friendly etc, although I'm not that keen on the qr code system which seemed a lot slower than just telling someone what we wanted. As the table next to us was allowed to do.

As for the food....

To say it was a mixed bag would be both literal and figurative.

It was, quite literally, a mixed bag of hot, delicious, seafood coated in a garlic butter sauce as ordered. And that's exactly what we wanted.

But... And this is a Kardashian-sized but(t). The place was freezing cold.

We were initially seated right near the door, so we were blasted with cold Melbourne autumn air every time someone opened the door.

We asked to move to a table away from the door, and that was quickly accommodated due to the fact there was almost nobody there.

However, the extremely cold breeze continued, and the delicious sauce on our seafood rapidly congealed within 5 minutes, leaving us with a cold, lumpy mess that just wasn't all that pleasant.

It is a large space, and I'm sure it's expensive to heat when there aren't many people there so ok, but when it's 19.8 degrees inside (according to my phone) it's not great for the food or the dining experience.

And then, when you go to wash your hands, at a well-intentioned trough, the innovative and effective driers just blast more cold air which is quite unpleasant.

I will go back and try again, but maybe in summer, or on a much busier night.

Photo taken after about 3 minutes. Already cool...

Overpriced & Low Quality

We ordered the classic combo with butter and garlic sauce. While the flavor was decent, the overall quality was underwhelming, especially for the price. I expected fresh, juicy seafood, but instead, the crab meat was dry and stringy once shelled. Also, they didn’t provide crab cracker or pre-crack for the customers. They served the whole crab and just gave us scissors. It was difficult to eat.

The baby octopus was particularly unappetizing—shriveled and dull, as if it had given up on their miserable life before making it to the plate.

And the way they serve the food - directly on the lined table, makes it cold more quickly.

I’m surprised by all the good reviews here until I learned they allegedly incentivize 5-star ratings with discounts. Shame on them, both the restaurant and those 5 stars PURELY for discounts. Of course, if people genuinely believe this place deserves 5 stars, that’s their call, but my experience was far from it.

Under normal circumstances, this might warrant 2 or 3 stars—it’s not terrible, just underwhelming for the price. However, after noticing the suspicious number of overly enthusiastic reviews (many seemingly incentivized), I’m deducting stars for dishonesty.

Realistically, this is a 3-star experience: passable if you’re willing to overpay, but far from exceptional. If you have money to burn and modest expectations, you might leave satisfied. But when a restaurant prioritizes manipulating reviews over improving quality, they don’t deserve the benefit...

Our experience at Krabby crab boil was abysmal. Atmosphere is the worst I’ve experienced for some time. I never understand when a restaurant is virtually empty yet they insist on seating people on top of each other. At least spread out the 4 tables you have ordering so we have elbow room.

The Service score is low as they had zero flexibility from the set menu (could not swallow out a sugar soft drink for a mineral water as it wasn’t part of the set lunch package).

The worst score goes to the food. We are from North Queensland so grew up eating Mud Crabs. When ordering 150gms as part of a combo seafood, we expected a portion of a mature crab. To our absolute amazement we were served a baby (not even an adolescent) whole crab!! If caught in the wild it would be ridiculously undersized (and illegal to catch). I understand aquaculture, so sustainable seafood is what we prefer…but honestly! The other reason why you would not kill and eat a baby this size is that you would be lucky to get more the. 5grams of meat even if you patiently picked apart the whole thing.

Shame of you Krabby for serving baby crabs! Keep them in your hobby fish tank for people to look at and get some real mud crabs from the great aquaculture farms in...