If you want a Low Country boil built by the pound, The Hidden Crab is a short drive off the island. It's at 942699 Old Nassauville Road, on the mainland side of the Amelia River at the corner of A1A, and the restaurant's own directions tell you to look behind the Circle K. It's locally owned, has been open more than 15 years, and calls itself a family-style eatery rooted in down-home cooking. Dogs are welcome with their owners.
The boils are the centerpiece. You choose hot or mild and build your own by the half pound or pound from shrimp, crab legs, crawfish, mussels and sausage, then add corn, potatoes or boiled eggs. Snow crab legs also come as a full dinner with two sides and drawn butter. Other plates:
- Crab cake dinner with two jumbo lump cakes, billed as "all killer, no filler."
- Nassau crab soup, thick with lump crab and laced with sherry.
- Louisiana-style boiled crawfish and garlic butter mussels.
- Fried chicken by the piece or by the bucket, cooked to order (the menu warns it takes at least 20 minutes), plus fried gizzards and livers.
- A Little Crabs menu for kids and key lime pie for dessert.
Two weekly specials are posted on the site. All You Can Eat Wednesdays run from 5 to 9 p.m., with snow crab legs, shrimp, coleslaw and fries. Happy hour is 4 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and wings are discounted all day on Tuesdays. Groups of eight and up have an 18 percent gratuity added to the bill, and the restaurant also caters and hosts private events.
If you'd rather order oysters on the water, Shuckers is on Wade's Place, and Timoti's handles quick seafood baskets downtown. The Insider's pet-friendly guide covers more places that welcome dogs. For a crab-night crowd that doesn't want to drive back across the bridge, transportation coordination can sort out the rides.