We ate at the Crazy Lobster on the weekend of the recent seafood festival. It was in the heart of the action at HarborWalk, so we waited until Sunday evening to avoid the crowds. It was a smart move. A staffer told us they had been hit hard the previous night. Joan Jett must have worked up their appetites.

Crazy Lobster is a place where you’ll want to bring an appetite. The portions are big, and the preparation and seasoning are New Orleans style—rich, robust and indulgent. The emphasis is on seafood—crab, oysters, shrimp, crawfish and, of course, lobster. There are also some land-based items like chicken, steaks and burgers, and some traditional Creole and Cajun specialties like etouffee and jambalaya.

The restaurant is right on the harbor, with a brightly-lit sign that was shining like a beacon when we got there, running through rain and a strong wind that had the seafood festival tents flapping and the last stragglers heading for shelter. Crazy Lobster is a big place, with several dining areas, a large bar, and outdoor seating overlooking the water. The interior is

Poppy’s Crazy Lobster Bar & Grill
56 Harbor Blvd.
Destin
(850) 424-6744

Hours: Open daily at 11 a.m.
Reservations: Call-ahead available
Children’s menu: Will accommodate
Dress: Casual

Food:
Service
Atmosphere
Overall:

bright and clean, with plenty of tables and booths, and televisions placed high enough and pitched low enough to not be much of a distraction (the real sports fans tended to congregate in the bar for game-day drink and snack specials). The walls are decorated with Louisiana-themed posters of music and food festivals, and a touch of local memorabilia as well. The staff is friendly and efficient, and the management tours the room to make sure everything is in order.

Our server Jennifer took us to a table, offered to check my umbrella, and gave us menus. Crazy Lobster’s menu features a long list of starters, gumbo, salads, raw or grilled oysters, po boys, burgers, seafood platters, steamed seafood buckets, boiled seafood, grilled steaks and house specialties.

We split an appetizer of fried onion straws. They were the kind I like best—light, crunchy batter, with a dusting of slightly spicy seasoning. We boxed up about half, which reheated well the next day.

Other starters include raw oysters, seafood gumbo, corn fritters, calamari, crab claws, fried pickles, wings, smoked tuna dip, seafood queso dip, crab cakes, stuffed oysters, jambalaya, firecracker shrimp, shrimp remoulade, red beans and rice, and others.

For the main course, my friend ordered red beans and rice with smoked sausage. I stayed in the Louisiana vein and ordered a crab cake dinner. Louisiana crab cakes are a different animal than what are known as Gulf Coast style crab cakes, and I wanted to see how Crazy Lobster did them.

The red beans and rice came out, a little small for an entrÈe. Jennifer realized that the kitchen had sent out an appetizer-sized portion and went back to get a full-size. However, she left the small portion with us, so that my friend would have something to eat along with me. We were not charged. Good job.

The servers were getting questions about the steamed buckets, which come in various sizes and are market-priced. Before committing to what is probably a high-ticket meal, the diners wanted to know what they were getting. The management has a large bowl full of seafood replicas—lobster, crab legs, etc. that the servers display to the tables like product samples. It’s an effective sales technique.

The red beans and rice was a huge serving, a platter full of rice blanketed with thick, earthy red beans and a sliced smoked sausage link. My friend finished her appetizer portion, then boxed up all of the dinner portion. It yielded two more meals.

I got four large crab cakes, made with dark, almost creamy crab meat, deep fried with a drizzle of remoulade. Some crab cakes taste mostly of filler, but the sweetness of the crab came though on these. On the side were corn fritters and a mound of seasoned fries, half of which went home with the onions.

Other items include chargrilled oysters with various seasonings, shrimp, oyster, catfish, roast beef or crab cake po boys, fried seafood platters, grilled chicken or prime rib sandwiches, cheeseburger, a daily catch, buckets of mussels, crab legs, lobster, shrimp, clams, corn and potatoes, jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, shrimp Creole, stuffed lobster and seafood pasta.

Desserts that night included something with chocolate, a key lime pie, bananas Foster, and bread pudding. We split the latter, a block of dense, creamy pudding with raisins that almost had the texture of flan. We managed to finish it without bursting, thanks to having boxed much of the meal to go.

Despite the dicey weather, the place was doing a good business, with double daters, families and football watchers. The Crazy Lobster seems to be bridging the seasonal gap pretty well, offering plenty to eat at reasonable rates.

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