I will be in California next week ans will be visiting San Francisco and Mendocino. Can anyone suggest the best place to get some Dungeness crab. Mmmmm.

I am also interested in this, as I will be in the area, too. Hoping to get some good suggestions.

For me, having never eaten them before, a place that will give you a lesson or has a little guide on doing it might be nice, too. I can eat the Maryland Blue Crabs fine, but imagine those guys out west are different.

Unfortunately crab season begins in November, so I don't think there will be any of the great, fresh local guys available. But I imagine that the restaurants must do a pretty good with frozen crab.

Not crab but...if you like oysters, on your way up the coast before you get to Jenner there is the small town of Marshall on the Sonoma County coast, where you will find Hog Island Oyster farm. You will love it!

http://www.hogislandoysters.com/temp...4tOL&pageId=12

thereyet

Sadly, as cabo posted the fresh Dungeness Crab won't be available until some time in November.

But thereyet's suggestion, oysters, ambrosia for sure!

There's always dungeness crab at San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf.

They do fix dungeness crab a special way at Thanh Long's in San Francisco, but it's way expensive for me.

R & G Lounge in San Francisco Chinatown fixes dungeness crab several different ways and is a bit less expensive.

Also Monterey's Fisherman Wharf has dungeness crab. Bit far for you to travel just for crab.

The dungeness crab during this time of year may be a bit less "full" because they are a bit starved (don't know why, has to do with crab cycles, I guess). It's September, so some crabs may be fairly full. Very sweet crab meat.

I do several "crab feasts" at my house, but we usually wait until late October at least to start.

Try R & G, probably your best bet, unless someone else can come up with a better suggestion.

There is plenty of dungeness crab available. I had a whole crab at Scoma's just this past Sat. Not the sweetest I've ever tasted - but it was definitely fresh and definitely yummy.

As for "technique" - if you want to eat a whole crab - they'll bring you a shell cracker, a cocktail sized fork and a bib. But not to worry - they will have cleaned it and cracked most of the shells and separated the legs from the body. Just tear into it and toss the shells in the waste bowl. Not hard - but messy/greasy w/ the olive oil/drawn butter and all.

It is nothing like eating soft shell crabs.

But - there are MANY other ways crab is served that don't require any work on your part.

You can likely find sa few eafood stores and some restaurants that maintain live crab in tanks throughout the year, they will almost always be better than frozen.

We just got back from a 2 week visit to Sonoma/San Francisco/Monterey and we found Dungenes Carb available almost every where we went, especially in the costal towns. Plenty of oysters, too. Some of the restaurants had tanks filled with live Dungeness crabs others may have served frozen crap (no tanks visable) but we at plenty.

Was at SF's Fisherman's Wharf Saturday and everywhere you looked there were people eating crab.

Cool guys, thanks! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I live in Florida and buy dungeness from our local Costco when they have it. It comes frozen and is very good any way. I love them with lemon and melted butter. They are pretty easy to crack compared to most other crab I have eaten inluding blue crabs, stone crabs, golden crab, snow and Alaskan. As far as flavor I would have to say dungeness is my favorite but I have never met a crab I didn't like!

Swann's Oyster Bar on Polk Street is fun:

http://tinyurl.com/7tjvz

Swann's is very close to the cable car line on California St. at Polk.

Someone once mentioned that you can get crab at Whole Foods, 1765 California St, end of cable car line on California St., have it cracked, and take it for a picnic. There may be tables in front of the market but not sure.

The Dungeness crab that we are enjoying now in and around SF is most likely brought in from southeast Alaska, British Columbia and maybe off the Olympic Penn. So, many of the posters here are correct in stating that our local season does not begin until November, peaks here in January and continues to move north up the coast. Go ahead and enjoy - it's still Dungeness !

R5

We had it at Fisherman's Wharf - good stuff!

I was at Swann's yesterday and they verified that the crabs right now are coming from Washington state. Also verified that our season doesn't start until November. Still yummy.

BTW, my sis had the clam chowder at Swann's and it was the most delicious clam chowder I have ever tasted. Loaded with flavor, not overly creamy. I had the crab salad ($20). The salad with shrimp and crab looked good, too. They cracked the crab and put the meat on my salad.

We got there at 11 a.m. and were seated immediately. There was a line when we left. Found easy street parking (meters - 25 cents for 10 minutes - 2 hour max I think?) Course, it was a Monday and not the weekend.