Recommendations on the ports with Best Restaurants for Crab Legs

[dave_k58]

Any ideas on the best port to find Alaska King Crab legs? THanks

[1025cruise]

I don't think it's something to worry about this year as the king crab season was cancelled.

[CruiserBruce]

Just a little reading around the board:

 

[nordicus68]

7 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

I don't think it's something to worry about this year as the king crab season was cancelled.

So was the snow crab season.  Crab legs are going to be ridiculously expensive this year.

[donaldsc]

It really wouldn't matter where you buy them as all the King Crab Legs you buy are frozen.  The crab legs you get in your local home town restaurant are exactly the same crab legs you get in AK.  Better to dine on local freshly caught fish.  Go into a good fish restaurant and ask what came off the boat today.

 

See this post - https://www.royalalaskanmovers.com/the-top-16-most-popular-fish-in-alaska-to-catch-eat/

 

DON

[Glaciers]

The Alaska king crab seasons have been canceled the past two years and now, as noted, snow crab. The US has banned seafood imports from Russia who actually supplied most the king crab in the US.  A recent article indicates that much of the king crab is now coming from South America.

[martincath]

I've already seen an ad for King Crab this year here in Vancouver ($60/lb just for the crab) - so those are still happening, although as noted with multiple fisheries canceled in back-to-back years the pricing is rather steep this year (less than ten years ago, $15/lb including the Feast prep was pretty easy to find!)

 

Short of buying a live crab OP, 'best location' really is almost meaningless - a steamed-then-frozen-at-sea crab leg can't be made tastier by anyone, it can at best be heated through without overcooking. Unless somebody in the kitchen screws up badly a crab leg is a crab leg is a crab leg; and any of the shacks in Alaska are going to do enough volume that they know how to reheat their products.

 

If you're going to be in Vancouver and have enough people to do an entire crab justice (6 people is about the minimum I'd recommend, unless they're professional eaters) then the multi-course feasts run in some of our bigger Chinese restos are the only way to get fresh Kings even in years when the AK fisheries do operate - cruise season and crab season don't really overlap. Down here we keep 'em alive in massive tanks rather than cooking at sea, so there's actually an opportunity to flavour the flesh before it cooks, cook it in different ways, and you get to eat the whole crab rather than just the legs...

 

The price quoted at these feasts usually includes a basic menu (soup with stock from shells of prior days crabs while you wait for your crab, displayed to you before the meal, to be dismembered and cooked; legs split, stuffed with garlic then grilled; fried rice with all the crab body meat served up inside the shell; mango pudding and tea) but you can pay extra for special courses like fried crab knuckles, add on any other food you want from the regular menu etc. I don't think the per-person Other Dishes cost should be much different - remember that you're looking at 10+lbs per crab so it's overwhelmingly the priciest element - so I'd ballpark 8 people sharing one crab at ~$800 total, though you could easily push that up to a grand if you add in even modest amounts of booze and extra courses like roast squab (also a specialty of the local resto, Sun Sui Wah, who first started these crab feasts decades ago).

 

Unless you're going to have a bunch of folks with you though @dave_k58 I'd suggest going for Dungeness crab in your ports instead (available fresh for much of cruise season all up & down the West Coast, the 'fattest' of the true crab species with most meat by weight, a big difference compared to your local Texan blue and mud crabs) while you're here. Stick to King legs at home in 'surf n turf' with some of your home-grown beef, should be less gougey in price than at Tracy's and similar and as Donald already noted above it is going to be exactly the same product!

[wolfie11]

Fresh Dungeness is far superior to king crab in my opinion.  I will eat it every chance I get.  Unfortunately, there aren't that many good locations in SE Alaska.  St. George's Inlet was the best but now limits the amount of crab you can get.  Tracey's is too expensive. The Office in Hoonah had good crab but it's been a few years since I was there
 

You can buy it off the dock in a few places.  The ship might cook it for you if they have the "cook what you catch" program onboard.  If anyone finds a good place where you can get a good Dungeness crab meal, please post it!

[Northern Aurora]

I also enjoy dungeness and don't quite understand the tourist fascination with king crab.  And I think that Tracey's Crab Shack in Juneau is over-rated.

 

In Ketchikan we have enjoyed fresh dungeness at the St. George Inlet Lodge.  We also have had fresh dungeness at Annabelle's (also in Ketchikan).  I remember my husband and I sharing a large stainless steele bucket of dungy at Annabelle's which was their special of the day.  Actually we try to go to Annabelle's every time we are in Ketchikan.

[wolfie11]

1 hour ago, Northern Aurora said:

I also enjoy dungeness and don't quite understand the tourist fascination with king crab.  And I think that Tracey's Crab Shack in Juneau is over-rated.

 

In Ketchikan we have enjoyed fresh dungeness at the St. George Inlet Lodge.  We also have had fresh dungeness at Annabelle's (also in Ketchikan).  I remember my husband and I sharing a large stainless steele bucket of dungy at Annabelle's which was their special of the day.  Actually we try to go to Annabelle's every time we are in Ketchikan.

I'll definitely check out Annabelle's this summer.  I really, really miss the all you can eat crab fest at Ester Gold Camp.  Hard to believe that was like 20 years ago.

[malba2366]

Just eat the crab at home.  The Alaska season is cancelled for 2022-23...anything sold at the Tourist trap places on the cruise ports will probably have come from Norway or Chile.

[Northern Aurora]

2 hours ago, wolfie11 said:

I'll definitely check out Annabelle's this summer.  I really, really miss the all you can eat crab fest at Ester Gold Camp.  Hard to believe that was like 20 years ago.

 

I also remember the Ester Gold Camp.  Two Fairbanks-ans talking to each other.  

 

The last time we were at the Ester Gold Camp was in late August/early September 2008.  That was just after the Winther had announced plans to close it.  I really don't understand the business plan of the new owners.  The camp was closed for so many years it will take some time of them to re-invent the concept.  But I wish the new owners well.