A Cracking Good Crawfish Time at Yankee Pier
Messy, but good.
That’s what a crawfish boil is all about, as you tear into a pile of tiny crustaceans with your fingers to dig out the coveted sweet, almost lobster-like morsel of tail meat.
Tie on a bibb and grab your shellfish crackers to enjoy exactly that through May 5 at all Bay Area Yankee Pier locations (San Jose, Lafayette and Larskpur), which are featuring crawfish boils for $35 per person during dinner service until supplies run out.
My husband and I were invited as guests to experience that irresistible taste of New Orleans this past Sunday, as a Zyedeco band grooved on the sidewalk outside the Santana Row Yankee Pier.
One order of the crawfish boil is pretty sizable, so if you want to nosh on a few other menu items, you might want to share one like we did.
We started with half a dozen premium oysters on the half shell ($16.50), which included my fave Kumamotos, so delicate, sweet and nutty tasting.
Monterey calamari ($10), lightly breaded and crisp, tided us over until the main attraction arrived.
Good thing we split it as what arrived was a sheet pan groaning with two fist-sized boiled new potatoes, three tender artichoke halves, pickled cippolini onions, a bulb of roasted garlic, warm French bread, and 1 1/2 pounds of crawfish that had been cooked in a spicy broth.
You have to work for your reward here. But it’s worth it when you put a nugget of crawfish meat in your mouth and experience a singular taste of the Big Easy.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Seafood Watch” guide, by which Yankee Pier abides, gives live, farmed crawfish from the United States a “best choice” nod.
Apparently, a lot of folks have quite a hankering for them, too.
Sunday night, the restaurant went through a whopping 160 pounds of crawfish just like that.
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Tuesday, 1. May 2012 6:44
Gorgeous food! I’d love to taste crawfish…
Cheers,
Rosa
Tuesday, 1. May 2012 9:33
Oh Carolyn, they all look so good…I totally agree with you really messy but really good
Hope you are having a wonderful week!
Tuesday, 1. May 2012 11:22
Yummy! What a feast! So worth the work and the mess.
Tuesday, 1. May 2012 15:30
You guys have some of the best oysters…hands down! Throw in crawfish, and it’s a party.
Wednesday, 2. May 2012 1:32
i am so thrilled by your photos! gorgeous!
Wednesday, 2. May 2012 1:44
I’m drooling here! I adore seafood and I’d devour everything. I was lucky enough to try Kunamoto oysters in Canada!
Wednesday, 2. May 2012 18:13
Wow, looks amazing, I think we will head south to Santana Row very soon! Thanks for sharing!
Thursday, 3. May 2012 20:03
As usual, your article and photos make me hungry.