Review The Holy Crab - Vancouver

Plenty of seafood with the choice of 2 sauces. In my opinion they should just offer the sauce separately instead of putting it all over the food. The seafood quality is average. You can have a good time with friends due to the originality of the serving.

Good ambiance and friendly staff. We ordered the dungeness crab, mussels, calamari. We asked for Holly Molly sauce on the side. A lil bit pricey due to the market value of the crab. But I believe its better than CB less waste of plastic

Very good seafood here, I like that the serve the lobster whole and uncut so I can see what I'm getting. The sauces were decent but very limited choice. Cajun has a nice taste. The chowder is good too and loaded with seafood.

Came here for dine out. It was by far my most favourite so far. First off, the service was excellent. Our server was really nice and so was the girl in the front. The food was delicious as well. I got the seafood bisque. It was so good, as was the cajun fries. Im not a big fan of chowders or onion rings, so I cant comment much. I loved the garlic black pepper sauce, and I dont usually use sauce. The crab was fresh and so were the prawns. The potatos were cooked perfectly. It was definitely very filling. A bit of a mess to eat, but that is part of the charm. Their washroom is quite interesting too. Unique! Would definitely be willing to come back again!

This restaurant has a great seafood selection. The seafood is fresh and spiced well. I had a sampler containing the shrimp and crawfish. The onion rings were also a good choice. They were able to accommodate my food allergies. The restaurant is conveniently located on Robson Street. It can get busy here, so it's best to call ahead.

This is the best seafood-scattered-around-the-table type of restaurant I have tried. The freshness of their seafood made me speechless and the sauce is extremely tasty. The crab was presented to us as a whole crab and the waitress was almost unable to snap it open because it was really fresh. The prawn's shell were hard and not stick to the meat of the prawn. This place surpass any of the same style restaurants I've tried such as Captain's boil in Richmond or Captain's Boil in Vancouver where the prawns were far from fresh (the shell of prawn and meat were inseparable), or So Crab So Good in Burnaby where the whole place not only looks shady, the seafood were not fresh. The Crab Pot in Seattle just isn't very flavorful. Not to put other restaurants down, but I'd like to let you know where this comment is derived from. I highly recommend The Holy Crab if you are okay with the price.

we had ordered one order of the shrimp by the pound and that came out very quick and it was delicious. i ordered the shrimp pasta which went over very well for me as the pasta really complimented the shrimp in a good way which made it stand out. the staff was nice and quick to seat us in a booth and answer any questions we had on the menu or our order

Saturday afternoon, after we went shopping the whole day, my friends and I had The Holy Crab for dinner on the Robson St. At 5:00 PM, it was still early before the dinner time, but the restaurant had already big line-up at the front door. Luckily, one of my friends made a reservation the day before. We quickly got into the restaurant. It was a medium size restaurant, was very crowded. The servers there were very nice and friendly. They were very helpful to explain about the menu. After discussed orders, we decided to order King Crab Legs, Crawfishs, and Mussels with three dipping sauces, such as Holy moly, coriginal Cajun and Garlic Pepper . Besides that, we also ordered Onion Rings, Sausage, Sweet Corn, and Steamed Vegetables. The food came a bit of slow, but the taste was very great. All the seafood, meat, vegetables were fresh and hot. You can eat them alone or dip them with the sauces. Only one minus thing about The Holy Crab is the price of the seafood is very expensive. If you slipped with your friends, it would be great.

Honestly have been to this place twice now and first time was about a 3 out of 5. But they were brand new so figured we would give it another go and see if it was a better overall experience this time. Well sadly I have to say it pretty much sucked. We had a larger group and the server was taking meal orders for some and appetizers for others not letting everyone know that “the table” was ordering appies and or meals. Half our table was eating while the other half was waiting on drinks. We ordered drinks that took nearly 30 minutes to be received. Had to asked several times as to when they would be ready. “Fresh” Oysters came out frozen. Our server never followed up to see how they were. Fries came out cold... like seriously cold and when we asked for new batch witnessed food runner sticking his fingers in it to ensure this time they were hot while approaching the table. We ordered a crab and sides, got all sides nearly 20 minutes before crab showed up. Crab was tasteless, cooked well but flavourless. To add the final knock out, we were there for a Birthday and they don’t carry any desserts???!! This is seriously the oddest thing. Server had a hard time understanding English and sadly had very poor communication skills. He was very scatterbrained and honestly understandably so as it seemed like he was the only one working among the 10 staff that appeared to be there. We were forced to tip 18% for poor service and overpriced crappy food but happily did so as it really did seem like the server was not given proper training and overwhelmed all evening long. We genuinely felt bad for him, you could see something was not adding up all night. I have to say Holy Crab your quality control and customer service is “Holy Crap” and I for one will not be returning. I highly encourage others to think twice, you can get far better quality of food elsewhere with better service and much more reasonable price.

I went here for the first time on Thursday April 6th, 2017, to celebrate a friend's birthday. Let's start with the great - the dark brown garlic butter goo that comes on the seafood (if you order it that way). I could eat a bowl of that all by itself. Then the seafood itself is simply excellent. Well cleaned, well prepared. The sides are good. The bisque was hot and flavourful. The portions for what you get... reasonable although on the higher end. The market prices for the seafood are quite high. One 2.2lb Dungeness crab? $52. One king crab leg (0.6lb)? $35. A 1.3lb lobster was $50 and the snow crab legs were $25 for 0.75lb. We all shared mind, but it adds up in a hurry. We also had a basket of shrimp (delicious) and clams (nothing special, but well prepared). The service is very good, and our server was enthusiastic and funny and efficient. The bar took a long time to get us our draft beers. Maybe they had to change the keg, but it was a while. The two things I did not like were: one, the place was WAY TOO LOUD. My db app hit 85db regularly and it was really hard to hold conversations. Maybe I'm just getting old. Two, I am totally ok with family style dining. It's great. But... even if the schtick is to slide the food onto the table and we eat with our hands, we want plates. Or a bowl. Or some kind of individual container. SOMETHING. ANYTHING. As it was, the plastic sheet on the table by the end was one enormous puddle of butter and hot sauce and it's good that mama taught us all to keep our elbows off the table. So, would I recommend this place? For the seafood, yes. For the ambiance, mostly yes with the caveat of the loud music. For the price... $56/pp before tip (and the five of us who were drinking shared one pitcher of beer between us)... that's between you and your budget.

We ordered crab,clams,corn w/sausage ,shrimp,Cajun fries,calamari,chicken tenders,lobster bisque,frog legs everything was delicious and the in house sauce with the clams and shrimps was to die for. Great location and the service was great !! Highly recommend this place to everyone.

Defs worth a try - I wasn't disappointed. I personally dislike shellfish, as its just more work than I care to expel to eat. So, I opted for the mussels at a medium cajun. I also grabbed a bowl of steamed rice. Sauce was bland, not enough time marinating, and was heavy on the garlic; which happened to be the only flavour I could muster to taste; The Cajun was weak for a medium, only a slight little tickle of "heat". Rice was oven baked, so bit more drier than rice cooker; or way too little water; Was edible. Service was great, any one who'd come to our table was courteous and prompt -- though, I'd say there was "too many" servers in general. Might change if Manager decides oneday to "push" their capacity. Place was clean, designed very well, and fabulous idea to have a "wash" sink just before the bathrooms. Went with a group of 8+, so an added 18% gratuity automatically. Through sharing, also had frog-legs, deep fried buns, and spot prawns (shrimp) -- all very good.

Hands down best in class seafood restaurant in Vancouver Robson food district. Go for their Dungeness Crab, Lobster, Shrimp - garlic pepper style, and don't forget the soft shell crab, cajun fries, and corn to balance the garlic taste. This is the only restaurant where you can't use your phone while dining... although you'll be busy peeling those deliciously hidden meat

We were walking from Stanley Park trying to find a Taxi to get us to the Hotel and we found this place, which we didn't know about, so we gave it a try and wow the food was amazing 😉 so good we tried the 2.5 lbs crab 🦀, some potatoes and Oysters... it was delicious 😋 and not to pricey. I totally recommend this restaurant.

It about time Vancouver opened a place like this. We've been to many spots like this and its nice to see one here.Great spot for friends and its most def a must try. Hands dirty and want to take a photo? They have selfie sticks you can borrow! NIce touch. But you are seriously so focused on your food that you may only take 1-2 photos. Prices very reasonable. Deep fried buns to die for! Dungeness crab super meaty! The only thing that would have made it a 5 is if the crawish were actually live. They were frozen and sourced from China. Hopefully one day they will one day have those mudbugs live and fresh to serve. Nonetheless, great spot and definitely recommend!

I love this place, it's a fun and messy way to eat. I was here about a month ago, and had the shrimp, next time I'm going to try the crayfish. I wouldn't recommend this place for parents with young kids under 6 years because it's messy.

Service was fantastic, and the seafood was cooked to perfection. We had the crab, lobster, shrimp, crayfish, clams, mussels, and a bunch of sides like steamed vegetables, corn, onion rings (to die for), and their fried bread (Man To, to us asian foodies). Very accommodating staff and owners, and will be thrilled to head back there again in the future!

Great waitress🙋🏻Ordered crawfish, too small for my liking but the shrimp and mussels were good, mmm! Had Cajun fries: good spice but fries seemed the commercial frozen ones: be nice to have home-made cut fries. Good sauces for food were 😋 yummy.

First time to dine here and overall experience was very good! Food was fresh and yummy...garlic pepper sauce delicious, place is nice and bright, staff friendly and gracious! And most of all...food is reasonably priced. Hoping to come back here again.

Went here an hour before close and got lobster, crab & shrimp . Came out SUPER fast & HOT . Menu is very small but I loved every bite!! Will return

It's different kind from the Crab pot in Seattle. I guess shell fish and crab is more pricey in Vancouver than Seattle. I didn't really like the sauce too much but, whole crab was very fresh.

Our initial reason for going to this restaurant was for the crawfish, but we were disappointed with the outcome, overcooked with no flavour. The shrimp was also overcooked. We also ordered a Dungeness Crab, which upon arrival had a bitter taste, another one arrived to replace (the fact that they replaced quickly was great) but this crab had no flavour and was boring. On the positive side the Alaskan King Crab was good and the frog legs were fantastic. The service of our waitress was exceptional, but over all we were very disappointed and will not return.

The Holy Crab is a Louisiana-inspired seafood restaurant offering the opportunity to experience a cajun seafood boil and other delicious creatures from the sea. The food was enjoyable and as a person that doesn’t eat seafood regularly I actually enjoyed myself and was full by the end and that was from eating the sea food.

Seafood boils have been popping up everywhere in Metro Vancouver, and The Holy Crab is one of them. The restaurant is located on Robson and Cardero, so definitely a bit of a walk if you’re coming from the downtown core. The restaurant is Louisiana inspired and focuses on fresh seafood. To start, you’ll be given a fun bib and gloves to ensure you keep clean. You’ll also get scissors, seafood crackers, and paper towel for this seafood mess.

Eat with your hands & try not to make a huge mess kind of place!<br/><br/>Walked by on a Friday & got a seat instantly. <br/><br/>We ordered the shrimp with the garlic sauce to peel & eat. It came steaming hot & juicy. Major turn off when it’s served to customers whole & as is, the intestines of the prawns are obviously still present & very hard to remove completely without breaking it open. <br/>Otherwise the flavour was great. <br/><br/>The deep fried soft shell crab was crunchy, crispy & juicy. Can definitely taste the sea water. <br/><br/>The Cajun fries were average. <br/><br/>My recommendation- deep fried soft shell crab.

Well reading break (UBC's answer to spring break,) this year was decidingly less eventful than years past. Last year during reading break Jeremy & I were coasting through LA, having the time of our lives. We saw the sights, partied, passed out at 4 am, got matching tattoos...the whole shebang. (I basically lived Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. Teenage Dream is one of my fave OG albums, btw.)

The worst seafood I’ve ever had in my life! Everything was tough and under seasoned. I would’ve gave this place a negative rating if possible but our waiter was super sweet and attentive and helpful regardless of the bad food. I don’t know why this place is always full. Never again.

Seafood boils had become a bit of a food trend of late in Vancouver.  Within the last year, Toronto-based Captain’s Boil had opened up three locations in Metro Vancouver.  Several months ago, The Holy Crab opened up in the West End at 1588 Robson Street.  Having enjoyed my experience at the Captain’s Boil, I decided to give The Holy Crab a try.  But this time, I decided to go about it differently by ordering takeout.  Seafood boil at home?  Sure, let’s see how it turns out.

When a Family of 12 – eight adults and four little kids, come into your restaurant having never been there and ask what to order, what kind of human being would take that opportunity to deceive and extort? <br/><br/>I am not writing this review to complain about the food, because frankly, the kitchen got that right. What did leave a bad taste in my mouth is the fact that the servers and the manager took it upon themselves to not explain the menu and just said they recommend the Thanksgiving Special which is $45 per person. We said great, let’s order for 4 people and add extra if we are still hungry. When the food came to our table – all in a barrage, we had no time to question or ask them to stop bringing the food. …… they charged us $45 x 16….. How does that make any sense? We had well over half of the food left over on the table.<br/><br/>When the bill arrived it was apparent to me that they were sheepish about it and knew they took advantage. <br/><br/>I spoke to the manager and she said “Yes I saw that come though and knew that was way too much food, I guess I should have said something”….. but that was it. Including the 18% gratuity that they tacked onto the bill I ended up paying $1,000. No offer of discount, no apology, no remorse. How can you justify selling a table of 8 adults DOUBLE the food? <br/><br/>I feel taken advantage of, but what do you do at that point. I was embarrassed in front of my family who was visiting from out of town, so I just paid the bill. If I wanted to go for dinner and spend $1,000 I most certainly would not have chosen this restaurant. <br/><br/>Buyer beware, this business will not survive with immoral management and staff.

Went here last night for dinner to celebrate my friend's birthday. Most of us are first timer to try The Holy Crab restaurant and we're not satisfied with our dining experienced. The service was great and servers are attentive. The food is good as the flavors/spices are too strong than we expect. Basically they boiled the seafood and put the spices on top. Very expensive. Once in a lifetime experience is enough. I will not go back in here.

overpriced, small portion. good service but wasnt blown away by the quality of food. my friend paid 35 dollars for a king crab leg. i ordered a pound of crawfish for 20. not alot of meat. fries were good. also ordered the lobster roll. it would have been better warm. meat was served cold. it was definitely not worth 20 dollars. i cant believe we spent that much for what we got.

If you haven’t noticed lately, Vancouver has been catching on to the seafood boil fad and new restaurants have been popping up everywhere promising a fun engaging meal with mallets, bibs, and lots of good ol’ seafood. The Holy Crab is one of Vancouver’s newest additions and it is chain that originated from Singapore.

The basics is this: You order seafood. They boil it. You extract the meat (and there's a TV televising the various way to efficiently get meat out of crustaceans), dip it in sauce, and eat it. If you're not sure what sauce to get, they can bring out a flight of samplers. Get this!. To me, crab is crab. So I looked at the menu and ordered other stuff instead. Yeah, I even got the chicken. Really.

Saturday afternoon, after we went shopping the whole day, my friends and I had The Holy Crab for dinner on the Robson St. At 5:00 PM, it was still early before the dinner time, but the restaurant had already big line-up at the front door. Luckily, one of my friends made a reservation the day before. We quickly got into the restaurant. It was a medium size restaurant, was very crowded. The servers there were very nice and friendly. They were very helpful to explain about the menu. After discussed orders, we decided to order King Crab Legs, Crawfish, and Mussels with three dipping sauces, such as Holy moly, coriginal Cajun and Garlic Pepper. Besides that, we also ordered Onion Rings, Sausage, Sweet Corn, and Steamed Vegetables. The food came a bit of slow, but the taste was very great. All the seafood, meat, vegetables were fresh and hot. You can eat them alone or dip them with the sauces. Only one minus thing about The Holy Crab is the price of the seafood is very expensive. If you slipped with your friends, it would be great.

The seafood are fresh but prices are on the high side - lobsters and crabs are based on market price and can be pretty expensive. The sauce for the seafood are the mainstay of the dishes especially the homemade chipotle aioli accompanied with the cajun fries.

for the unique experience and something different in usage of utensils it's definitely a must go, food wise i thought it was average at best, but at the same time it was super packed and busy, there is a decent number of things cam be improved, and overall i think it's worth to try once.<br/> <br/><br/>update: second try was much better than the first, everything was on point, flavour is packed, deep fried bun was spot on, frog legs were tender and the cajun was awesome. overall definitely good.

We just ordered lobster roll, fries and seafood bisque. You know what!? Bisque was the last thing we got served, after a long time waiting. Server couldn't really explain their menu. And said excused late service blaming bisque. I won't go there never again. Taste was ok level. Little over price.

Both cajun sauce and garlic pepper are winners! Dungeness crab seasonal price is considerably fair considering its size, live, and freshness. Not a typical formal seafood dining restaurant, but it is a lot of fun eating with bare hands and wearing bibs! Way to go The Holy Crab!

The Holy Crab opened its Canadian flagship location at 1588 Robson Street, Vancouver.  The Holy Crab is a franchise from Indonesia offering Louisiana-inspired seafood boil with spicy Cajun sauce, mouth-watering crustaceans worth getting your hands dirty for!. The interior is a 2900 sqft. 92 seater that is brightly lit, spacious and clean. You probably don’t even remember that the space was previously a 7-Eleven.

Fun experience. Well thought out in terms of gloves and bib, how-to instructions. In order to have a variety of items it can get very expensive. Most seafood is listed under "market price" so hard to anticipate cost. I would highly recommend the restaurant consider creating a sample platter on the menu with a little bit of everything for a flat rate price.

Is crab boil the next trend in food after poke bars popped up almost every other week in Vancouver last year? Opened its doors early this month, I had a chance to taste the Louisiana style crab boil from this new spot. . Originally from Indonesia and already quite well known there with many locations, The Holy Crab brings the same concept to downtown Vancouver. The idea is simple, pick a sauce, the type of seafood protein and sides and everything will be served in a roundish metal tray and placed onto your table to eat.

I loved the atmosphere of "The Holy Crab." I've been to a similar restaurant in Seattle, where they dump all your seafood on wax paper placed on the table. I tried their king crab with cajun holy molly sauce and their mussels with black pepper garlic sauce. Prices of their crab varies by day, but my order of king crab was 30$ per 0.5 pounds, which is one leg. A little expensive, but was absolutely delicious. Though I enjoyed their cajun and garlic sauces, I prefer my crab with just butter. I wasn't a huge fan of the black pepper garlic because of its super potent taste. After eating a few mussels the flavour was too overpowering for me to enjoy. <br/>The Holy Crab also has great well-priced sides and snacks to go along with your seafood.

Seafood boils are all the rage now. A popular food trend that started in 2016 and saw itself continuing into 2017. So it was only a matter of time before the Robson Street area got its own incarnation of this seafood feast. A messy affair you attend with plastic bid and gloved hands. On this night, I was invited to their grand opening media launch, along with a few other bloggers and social influencers. Tonight we would get to explore the expanse of their menu with our own two hands, literally.

Really fresh seafood! And they are cooked perfectly! Love their sauces too, both the Cajun and Garlic Pepper aren't greasy and oily. Most important of all, not too overpowering. They have really tasty snack items too! So if you are not a fan of cracking crab shell, try their snacks! Their fish & chips is one of the best in town, and their soft shell crab is addicting. They also serve lobster roll, crab roll.. something you don't really see in Vancouver!

The Holy Crab is a Lousiana-inspired seafood franchise from Indonesia which is also their first location in Canada. The emphasis is on a communal experience and bring family and friends together.   The star of our meal was the Dungeness crab. We were all wow'ed by the fact of how fresh this was the second we bite into it. The shrimp was juicy too. We didn't enjoy the clams at all, and the mussels were average. We would skip both the next time we come back. It's refreshing to see something other than ramen open up in the West End.

I don't usually visit seafood restaurants, as I have been let down too many times by little things that spoiled my dining experience. This place, however, is an exception. They ticked all the right boxes on my list.<br/><br/>I had the Dungeness crab, deep fried soft shell crab, fish n chips, and snow crab legs... all cooked to perfection. Overcooked crabs are dry and come with a bitter aftertaste--these are nothing like that. Our crabs were sweet and succulent, and they mesh well with the spiciness of the cajun sauce (I prefered their hottest cajun sauce, while my wife liked the garlic butter better). Also, the crabs were top notch, they're all meaty. Efforts to crack open their shells were very well rewarded. <br/><br/>The fish n chips were initially for the kids, but I have to note that the fries are really, really good! <br/>We ordered some rice towards the end, just to scoop up the extra sauce that I ordered. To my surprise, they have Asian rice, which is a very good thing. (if you're Asian and you've lived in a student dorm in BC, you know what I'm talking about).<br/><br/>I like the aesthetics of the restaurant, it was bright, with huge panel windows, and the entire table is your plate! I saw some big parties with lots of seafood sprawled across the entire table, and it really was a sight to behold. I imagine selfies will be taken (though, be sure to do it before eating, eating here will effectively keep your hands off the phone until you're done!)<br/><br/>Service was great. We had attentive waiters who refilled waters and brought us whatever we needed promptly (hot water, paper towel, extra bibs... we were messy eaters)<br/><br/>Knowing that they're new, I hope they keep up this phenomenal standard, and that I would still be able to get a table in the future.<br/>Will I come back? definitely!

Good Crab and What's Better is Someone Else Cleans up the Mess<br/><br/>Went last night with a Buddy: we ordered Dungeness Crab with medium Cajun sauce, corn and sausage with a side of rice. Nice fresh crab with an unique sauce that I would describe as either Curry and/or Tamarind with other "Cajun" spices in a garlic butter gravy. Next time will try next level-up for spice. Wouldn't order the rice, again - don't get much for $2 and worse the rice was overcooked.<br/><br/>Service was good with clearing shell buckets but will wait to go back when the Holy Crab has a liquor license and starts playing background music (so neighboring tables don't interfere with my crab-eating-meditation to put it nicely).<br/><br/>Some tips: Wear dark clothes, use the plastic gloves if you don't want your hands to smell for the rest of the night and leave the squeamish at home.

The Holy Crab has opened their first location in Canada and it’s located on Vancouver’s Robson street. It’s very interesting to see something new open up in this neighbourhood that isn’t Japanese food. I was invited to try a few things off the menu, so I was ready to get my hands dirty.