The Moody Crab — Restaurant in Decatur

I had been dismayed by the other reviews I'd seen for this establishment. Since they had opened just a few weeks prior, I waited a bit longer to give them a chance to settle out and get their process kinks ironed out.

Regrettably, this did not happen.

Up front, know their prices are high for this area. My lunch entre was about $18 before drink and tip. I'm willing to spend that for high quality but what I was served was akin to a Captain D's drive through after a long ride home.

Maybe I went on a bad day, they certainly seemed short-staffed. To be fair, this was about 1:30PM so their A-team may have been taking a break. My waitress was everywhere at once, doing a bang-up and dandy job. Kudos to her.

I ordered scallops. My waitress warned me this would be plated as 4 medium-sized scallops and two sticks of asparagus. Well, gulp, OK; I've eaten at fancier restaurants where they charged you by the amount of food they left off the plate. I was determined to press on and gave her the go-ahead on the order.

The plate came and had one (1) plastic spoon as the sole tableware item. Ever try to cut asparagus with a plastic spoon? I wound up stabbing the stalk and biting off the top as I ate the mouthful. Yeah, I could have asked for a plastic knife as well, but one must have one's standards, mustn't one?

The scallops were indeed scallops, that was about all I could say about them: not rubber, not raw, just cooked right so yeah, scallops.

Now, with all this meh prelude I can finally get to the sauce served on the scallops. I have never had anything so heavenly delightful. It looked to have a 1-beer roux base and something that seemed fizzy as it hit the tongue. The result is that you got a splash of favor and then the hit-and-run sauce simply disappeared. It seemed magical. If they'd sell just the sauce, I'd buy a case.

N.B.: Don't worry, the sauce didn't have any alcohol; a 1-beer roux has been cooked long enough to drink one beer; a 6-beer roux is cooked the time to drink a full six-pack and then through the roux out just to be safe and start again.

Calculating the tip was tricky. The waitress had performed solidly and came close to offsetting the other problems. The kitchen staff nailed cooking the scallops, the asparagus, and that nectar sauce. However I did not want to encourage what I perceived as a poorly thought out restaurant concept.

Then I decided to quit being so much of an engineer and just tacked $3.50 on the bill, then quickly left.

I'll probably go back in a few months because I'd love to help these folks get this venture going. The city needs a good, solid, really-cooked-here Cajun restaurant, I gar-on-tee, to channel Justin Wilson. (If you're a teenager and have gotten this far down the review, you've surprised me: good on you. Now go google Justin.)

tl;dr: good restaurant idea, too expensive for what you get, not...

This place is good, It just opened in Decatur,Al

My wife and I started off with a dozen steamed/boiled oysters and calamari .

They were both very delicious and I got the moody special seasoning which is pretty much all of the seasoning on the oysters, they were delicious but expensive for a dozen (21-22$). The calamari was pretty good too.

For our main course I ordered a combo of crawfish and shrimp I believe it is the "B" Combo, And it comes with a sausage potatoes and two eggs and I chose the moody special seasoning and medium heat , That was very delicious and spicy but not too hot. Will definitely get your nose running which is what I like.

My wife ordered a split combo of blue crab and crab legs the blue crab was kind of nasty in my opinion and mushy But the crab legs themselves were good.

We ordered a few different drinks while waiting for our food most of them were either way too strong or didn't taste like there was any alcohol in them at all. They don't have any beers on draft "yet" but should in the future but for now only bottles.

They have a plethora of liquors and wines and beers to choose from though which is good.

Someone ordered a Shirley Temple and one of the bartenders in training didn't know it was a non-alcoholic drink luckily the other bartender stopped her before she attempted to make it and let her know the correct way.

Speaking of the other bartender the one who had reasonable knowledge behind a bar and servicing people in a restaurant, she was definitely helping run the show, taking orders and making drinks for every table just about in the place that the other training bartender wasn't attending to.

The manager came out and was talking to the bartenders and I joked with him that he needed to give her a raise that she was doing really good helping keeping this place going and running wide open and he just stared at me with a blank stare look so idk what that reaction was but didn't expect from the manager.

Overall - Food was hot and delicious , wait time was as expected , price wise this place is expensive $$$, cleanliness was pretty decent as I could tell from the bar. Staff was polite and courteous mostly. Drinks could use a...

We walked in and got sat immediately...that was great. While looking at the menu we quickly saw the printed disclaimer that all parties 6 and above would automatically be charged a 15% gratuity...as life long servers and bartender my husband and myself have always disagreed with this. A server should be tipped on the caliber of his/her service...not the number of people in the dinner party. Our bill was $238 with a total of $275 after the grat was added. So instead of the $60 something tip she would have received from us...she got a $30 something tip. The restaurant it's self had a nice atmosphere..but it wasn't that busy and dinner from beginning to end took over two hours. Too long of a time for any kind of table turn over and way to long for a party of six with two very small children. The food was nothing to brag about...just your average seafood place. The best thing about the night was the strawberry Hennessy margarita and our server Jordan...who had a great personality but needs to pay attention to detail and speed. And if she plans on making enough money to support a family she needs to find another restaurant to work for. So overall looking at our experience from a server/customer view...we won't be back and we don't recommend...to eat at or...