Hungry Crab Tampa Juicy Seafood & Bar — Restaurant in Wesley Chapel

Let me preface this review with a little background of my eating expertise. I worked as a chef in a Cajun Seafood for a good portion of my career. Specializing in FRESH seafood and cooked from scratch sauces. I've eaten seafood on five of the seven continents, I have no desire to go to Australia or Antarctica. I have since moved on from my culinary career and own an I.T. business, who would have guessed. I walked into the Hungry Crab not knowing what to expect, I knew what I wanted but not what to expect. First thing I noticed was the smell, or lack of in this case. It smelled like a clean restaurant that made good food, not just seafood. It's very off-putting when you walk into a seafood restaurant and it smells like the Dead Sea. (Mitchell's Fish Market I'm looking at you). It's about 7:15 on a Friday night, a few customers but not terribly busy. A little suspicious but like I said earlier, I knew what I wanted. I get sat immediately, hostess was friendly and my server was VERY friendly and very accommodating. The menu was simple but all business, seafood - fried or steam/boiled, that's it. I like both of those styles. I order steamed oysters with Hungry Crab Seasoning with medium heat. It's a house made blend of oil, garlic, salt and some secret stuff and it was unbelievably good. You can choose your heat preference, but medium sounded perfect to me. I do like a lot of heat usually but really never had seafood offered with a lot heat, sounds like it would take away the pleasure of tasting the seafood. To each his own. I knew I was in for a treat after the oysters, I proceeded to order the fried jumbo shrimp. Extremely juicy, well seasoned and well breaded. Not over or under fried. Perfect! I ordered the Gumbo next. Of all the things I ordered this was my least favorite. Technique was much appreciated, keeping the gumbo and rice separated as not to overcook the rice and the seafood still looked like seafood and not some shriveled up piece of mystery meat from sitting in the hot well. Flavor was lacking, more of a broth base with minimal roux used. I understand how hard it is to get that right, it was good but I wouldn't call it Gumbo. I ordered what I came here for - Seafood boil consisting of shrimp, snow crab legs, and a lobster tail. The usual potato and corn was in the mix as well. No sooner had I ordered than it was coming out of the kitchen, as I would expect 1) the restaurant wasn't busy and 2) it's seafood, nobody wants cold seafood.(When you order it boiled anyways) I ordered with the same House seasoning I ordered the oysters with - Excellent. Nothing was overcooked and the potatoes and corn was not under cooked. I thought the portion justified the price. Bottom line - I would give this place 10 stars if I could. Service was excellent, very hard to find these days, food was extremely tasty and I couldn't have made it better myself. Please visit this place if your just visiting Tampa Bay( this place is Wesley Chapel, a little north of Tampa.) I'm from Wisconsin and there is nothing within a 500 mile radius that could touch this place. I'll be back, if only to eat here. Thank you...

My wife and I went for our daughter's birthday. We were there July 30th at 6:30 and it was not crowded at all. As far as it goes, the food was a 4 and the service was a zero. We were greeted and seated promptly. Our server, Derek, took our drink order. When he returned with our beverages, he took our order for appetizers and entrees. A few minutes later, he put down our appetizers and then started putting down our entrees. I was a little surprised and said, "Oh wow, this is ours too?" He said, "Yeah, the kitchen put it all up at once and I didn't want your appetizers to get cold." That statement made no sense. I care more about my $45 entree being cold than the appetizers, but in reality, none of it should be cold. After he left our food, we didn't see him again until he put down the bill. Considering it was my daughter's birthday, we were going to order coffee and desserts, but I guess we weren't allowed. Our entrees were good even though they were no longer hot by the time we got to them.

Regarding the food, the calamari wasn't bad. It was cooked perfectly, but the sauce was a bad pairing in my opinion. If you get it, I'd ask for lemon or cocktail sauce instead. The fried pickles were standard fare. The fried snapper basket was delicious. My Seafood Trio with garlic butter and mild heat was delicious despite the low temperature and the meat sticking in about half of the shellfish. I had to do a lot of digging for the meat in half of the lobster tail and a few of the crab legs. My wife had a shrimp and crab boil with hungry sauce and medium heat that was very good and she didn't seem to have a problem with the meat sticking in the shells. The sauces, potatoes, and corn in the boils were out of this world.

Had our food been served with proper timing and our server didn't simply abandon us, this would have been a five star review. But bad service, being abandoned until the bill arrived, not owning up to the mistake by blaming the kitchen, and winding up with lukewarm food certainly didn't make this an enjoyable birthday dinner. If our server would have simply apologized for the appetizer-entree issue without abandoning us, we would have been fine, but it was just a case of adding insult to injury. I assume he thought, "I made a mistake, I'm not getting a tip anyway, so I'm done with them." With a simple apology and continued good service, I would have been happy to still give a 20% tip. It's not the mistakes, it's how you recover.

I don't know if I'll be back, but I'll definitely be letting friends know about this experience so they can either avoid the restaurant altogether, avoid this server, or try to make sure their food is...

Listen I use to go to this place all the time. We were bragging about this place to some friends of ours out of state that were visiting us. We decided to take them there last night Saturday July 5th. From the moment we walked in I knew something was different. The first thing I saw was the manager sitting up at the front desk playing on his phone. Never looked up to greet us. Then the service. Oh man it was horrible from the first introduction till the last signing of the check. The server kept calling me chief, he couldn't get the drinks right mind you there were only 4 of us. Kept forgetting a guest of mine was having lemonade instead of water but I digress. Let's get to the food. It's was like night & day from the way it used to be. First I ordered 3 pounds of crab in mild with hungry seasoning. My crab for $35 a pound was the tiniest crab ive ever eaten and more than a quarter of them were hollow. The seasoning was all over the place. Half of my tray was mild the mother medium or hot. The seasoning was lost in a batch of bland soup. My wife ask for more dry seasoning for her very bland combo and they just kept bringing her more soup Which they had the audacity to charge for at the end of the meal. Our guest ordered blue crab. The order was taken then the server came back to tell her they didn't have any. (A server should know whats 86ed off of the menu before his or hers shift.) I had had enough went to the front where the manager was still scrolling on his phone. I let him know of the issues especially my wife's meal. What did he do he brought her more soup. Server at this point hadn't been back in a while but brought my guest another water when he did return. The manager brought me out one little cluster of crab to make up for everything. Needless to say my wife and her friend from out of state left the table and spent the remaining time out in the car and didn't even want her dinner to go. As I left I approached the manager one more time and let him know about everything. I told him he lost a valuable guest and I wouldn't be back. All that place had going on before is lost and my bill is usually around $300+ It back to Mr. & Misses crab for me and my family. Don't waste your time. Signed, Crabaholic F service F...