Pacific Fish Center & Restaurant — Restaurant in Redondo Beach

I am not a fan of eating with my hands, so my really nice friend SZ had to agree to deal with the crabs for me in order to get me to come here with her. I have never been a fan of eating crabs, mainly because I would have to crack them myself and try really hard to wrangle the meat out, but when someone else does that for me? I LIKE THEM!

... It probably helps that the crabs here are good. And they give you buttaaaaaaaaaa... and I love butter!

Anyway, starting at the beginning. Pacific Fish Center is on the Redondo Pier. Park in one of their parking lots, pay for it (unless it's a holiday? I think it's free then), and walk on over. Place your orders with the nice Korean ladies first and then someone will seat you. Sit down, put on your bibs (necessary), and get ready to get violent with some dead crabs (with the cool hammer they give you). We ordered their Dungeness crab, hwe-dub-bab, and fish & chips along with some Hite beer.

The crab is fresh and juicy, delicious with the butter and other condiments on the table. I don't eat raw fish so I just looked at the hwe-dub-bab, but it looked really nice and fresh and Selina said it was delicious. I just took the salad-y part of it to eat with my food. The fish and chips were alright. Pretty good but nothing special. We got pretty full off of all this food though and it was a good meal.

There is a restroom in the back but the sinks are outside so people can wash their hands easily since this is a pretty messy meal. SZ really likes this place and I can see why. I probably wouldn't seek this place out (because next time I'm going to have to crack open those crabs myself) but I would not be opposed to coming back here ;) Probably more 3.5 stars but let's round up to 4 since SZ made me enjoy...

Personally, the worst experience I can have is when the servers question your tipping even after tipping them a fat 20%. Nothing pisses me off more.

This restaurant you order and prepay before going in. My friends and I came here to eat crabs and Korean meh-oon-tang (Spicy fish soup). As a long time customer, I was furious when the servers (old Korean ladies) decided to question my tipping before our group of friends left.

Long story short. We prepaid our tip, paid for food, ordered extra drinks paid it but didn't pay the tip for the drinks because we had given MORE than enough tip 20%+ when we first paid. As soon as we get up to leave, one of the servers came up to us to QUESTION our tip. Not only is the worst service you can give to a customer but it is the rudest thing that left bad taste in our mouth.

If you are Korean looking for me-oon-tang, go somewhere else. There are other restaurants on the same pier.

If you are a non-Korean go somewhere else.

This place is expensive in the first place, horrible service (slow water refills and never checks up on you), the owner/cashier never friendly or courteous, no smiles, no hellos. All they got is their location.

To be fair, their soup is not bad. So there is your 2-star...

Here's the procedure when you get here:

Get in line to order, once you order at cashier, get your order #.

Stand in another line to wait for your table & # to be called.

Sit down & put bibs on to start eating.

Yes, those mallets are for breaking the hard shells on the crabs =) Be ready to whack & whack the crabs!!

Crabs: 5 stars (market price depending on weight. You can ask for a small crab if you think you can't finish it all)

Yummy here because they catch them live out of the tanks & cook them right in front of you..so the meat is tender since it's not frozen like you'd buy in the supermarket.

I guess that some people do not like the simple flavor of crabs without all the sauces & other extra flavorings mixed in with it.

I enjoy it better the plain jane way, this way you have the option of dipping the crab meat into whichever sauce you prefer (butter/ spicy) & you can taste the actual sweet freshness of the crab meat without other flavors killing it.

Good spicy fish soup; broth is very yummy... 4 stars

Decor: B- (simple tables but great view of ocean & pier)

Atmosphere: B- (Casual & family oriented)

Food: A (fresh seafood)

Service: C- (you have to hail down waitress/ waiters for water &...