Surfing Crab Escondido — Restaurant in Escondido

First time coming. The place is big and seats a lot of people. When we came in we were looking at the menu to know what to order. We ordered the sampler appetizer, chicken fried basket and the trio crab boil. When ordering we told are waitress we wanted it "MILD". First came in the appetizer. The calimari was a bit to chewy for me. The breaded shrimp was amazing. The hushpuppies had all the seasonings which I like. The spring rolls on the other hand were really empty and so small. After enjoying that the waitress lets us know that our crab boil was ready and if we wanted it now and we said yes. She brings it and after we are putting shrimp and what not we tell her if the other fried basket was coming. She kind of was confused and said if it wasn't out and we said no. So then she brings it. Back to the boil crab. Everything was good except it was super spicy for my liking. I felt that it wasn't mild as we requested. So our hands were getting dirty and notice our waitress passing by and ask her if we can get paper towels as our table didn't have any. So she brought it and we went through a lot since it gets messy and every bite was spicy.

Once we received our bill I was flabbergasted that they add gratuity. First of all. I felt like we didn't even get the service we deserved. Our waitress didn't even put mild for our order. Our bill said "MEDIUM". Like no wonder it was spicy. And she also offer to bring crackers with our crab boil which she didn't. And we literally had to tell her the things we needed or she forgot.

Don't get me wrong the food was amazing. But the service here was lacking. If this business is charging gratuity then you should train your staff to do better. Overall I recommend this place cause everything on the menu was good. Just make sure you come with 5 people or less so they don't charge gratuity. It seemed like they had a lot of staff but most of them were just talking...

I met some family their that I have not seen in a while. This is our first time there. It wasn't crowded in the late afternoon on Thursday a few days ago. We spent an inordinate amount of time there as we had a lot going on.

Pros, cons, recommendations:

Pros: The seafood they served was absolutely excellent. You have to like shellfish and the food is prepared as a Louisiana crab boil. We had crab, lobster, shrimp and crawfish seasoned with Old Bay and butter. There was also potatoes, corn and sausage in the mix. There were a good number of combos and seasonings to choose from. The food is served in a fun way; in big cafeteria pan. There's a bucket for cast off shells and paper towels. The price breakdown was actually pretty good for this current economy. For the seafood, it came out to about $26.50 per person.

Cons (although the shellfish was excellent I can't give this place a 5....yet): Since we were there so long (over 3 hours honestly) we did order dessert. We ordered a lava cake and a cheesecake. The cheesecake was served on a warm plate and was warm on the outside. The lava cake had crystalized ice cream on top. Not quite right for either one. Service was okay but not I'd consider great. The waiter wasn't bad, just didn't seem too happy to be there.

Recommendations: For the customer: this is a good choice to eat with people with whom you are very comfortable. There is no graceful way to eat this meal. The fish is so good, it gets downright barbaric. Wear the bib they give you. This place is not a good choice for a first date. For the restaurant: sinks around the restaurant would be nice so you can get up and wash your hands easily. There are BBQ places in town that have them and would be good. Fix the...

First time here after hearing it replaced Macaroni Grill. We went here to celebrate my husband's birthday for lunch.

Their menu has a variety of alternatives to choose from that makes it easy for if you're eating with company that does not do spicy or Cajun flavors. Chinese inspired entrees with rice mostly.

We ordered the Escondido Surfing Special and fried calamari app to share amongst ourselves.

Fried calamari was crispy, piping hot and came with cocktail sauce for dipping. The calamari itself was just a tad chewy but good.

Escondido Surfing Special came with 1/2 shrimp, 1/2 snow crab and 1 lobster tail. All their specials also come with corn, sausage and potatoes.

Decent amount of seafood for the price. We ordered all of the above surfing special sauce in medium spice. Spice was 7/10 spicy.

Lobster served in it shell - did not easily pull from shell which indicated to me that lobster was overcooked. Shrimp came deveined with head off and she'll still attached. Easy to pull and eat. Snow crab was underwhelming in size and came whole in a set of pincher with 3 legs approximately.

Our waitress was amazing and checked in on us periodically to ensure we had everything we needed.

We also ordered a house special fried rice to go for our little one. Family loved it, they filled our container to the brim. Our new go-to for fried rice.

I also asked if they do anything for birthdays and they were nice enough to serve us cheesecake with a candle.

All in all, delightful new boil place for us North...