A Soft Spot for Santa Monica Seafood – Santa Monica

If Santa Monica’s beach culture could be captured by a food, it would be the soft-shelled crab. High-end and classy, yet casually battered by an accessible deep-fry, even Santa Monica’s ritziest streets give way to the laid back life of a beach bum, a life almost as sweet as a crab.

The day I went to Santa Monica Seafood, my mouth was watering with anticipation. My happiness was only a Soft-Shelled Crab Sandwich away, and said sandwich was only half an hour from where I sat. Unfortunately, my road to happiness was the rush-hour 405, and my sandwich turned out to be better in theory.

For starters, soft-shelled crab should be fried and it was. At Santa Monica Seafood they battered this baby to perfection, but it quickly became overshadowed between two pieces of overly textured toast. The thing is, when this sweet and succulent crustacean is already covered in breading, more breading doesn’t translate into a sweet and succulent sandwich.

You may argue that it’s as simple as fishing the crab out of the sandwich, which is exactly what I did, but after I shelled out $18 for a soft-shell sandwich, I felt pretty bad throwing out the shell, even if it’s just bread. Even the spicy mayo couldn't save it, and what was originally a 5-star spectacular lost one star for each slice of bread.