Time has certainly passed me by. I got so caught up with so many things, I barely noticed that it’s been a few weeks since I’ve uploaded a post. It’s definitely not because my food adventures have stalled. Trust me, however busy life can be, my family will always find time to eat well. It is the writing it all on a blog that I can’t easily find time to do.

As D was browsing through old pictures, he came across a picture of us in San Francisco at a restaurant called Crustacean by House of An. They serve the most sumptuous dungeness crabs that pair really well with garlic noodles.

Naturally, upon seeing the crabs, we started getting a craving.  We went out to this restaurant near his office called Pho and Crab. I called to make reservations, specifically saying we wanted dungeness crabs. When we got there, I was mildly surprised that it had a very hole-in-the wall vibe. I liked that. A lot of the best dishes I’ve had are from places looking like this. The crabs came in two flavors —- roasted garlic butter and tamarind sauce. We decided to order one of each. Our waiter had a look of panic upon hearing this. That should have been my first clue. There was a lot of back talk in Vietnamese coupled with head nodding, which to me implied an affirmative, so we sat and waited.

In about ten minutes, one  dish emerged.

Strangely, the second crab didn’t come out. We were so hungry so we just shared. We were almost done with the first crab and still no sign of the second one. We asked the waiter, and he said it was coming and amidst the thick accent I thought I heard the word “traffic”. Was the second crab commuting???

Anyway, after about 45 minutes , it finally came.

The manager came out and apologized and that was when I got the whole story. When I called, they thought I only wanted one crab. When we arrived and asked for two, they had to send someone to get the crab from their Westheimer location.  This is where the “traffic” came in. That the crab made the journey to our table in less than an hour in the midst of Houston traffic is as mind-boggling as to why one would name a restaurant Pho and Crab, then only have one single crab in the premises…..

Oh well. A good dish covers a multitude of sins. That’s what I always say when dining out. They had a good wine and beer selection which kept D fascinated and I had two glasses of pretty good Thai iced tea, so all is good.

Overall, it was an amusing experience. Will definitely go back but would have to remember to be specific with the crab count. Judging by the size of the crab, two people could have easily shared it. Not us, though. I love D and all, but when it comes to seafood,  we don’t do the “mi crab, es su crab” nonsense…