Crabchella At The Hungry Cat's 3rd Annual Crab Fest

Traffic in Hollywood was a complete mess on Sunday. Yes, most of the traffic was caused by the Immigration March & Rally in Hollywood, but I'm convinced that the arrival of 600 pounds of Maryland Blue Crabs at the Hungry Cat didn't help any. As thousands of civil rights protestors marched the streets in Hollywood, hundreds of selfish eaters poured into The Hungry Cat for their annual Crab Fest.

Our party arrived half and hour early and we were quickly seated outside. Unfortunately, all of us were too excited for the crab and too in awe of the complete Crab Fest makeover. With the blaring rock music and charcoal grills, we forgot that it was freegin' hot, and with the afternoon sun directly above us, several of us had to sit in Sunday's blazing heat. Ouch!

Well what do you do when your arm is burning?? If you're at the Hungry Cat, you order drinks. Dylan and I looooooove The Hungry Cat for their cocktails. The are so freegin' delicious. To this day, Dylan will still rave about his first Hungry Cat cocktail, a vodka and lemonade infused with szechuan peppercorn and thai basil. The poor thing always asks for this drink, but their menu changes seasonally, if not daily. So enjoy your drinks at the Hungry Cat, because you may never see it again.

The Hungry Cat was serving three specials cocktails for the event: a mint julep, Southern Style sweet tea, and a peachtree margarita. I had the latter two and they were so incredibly refreshing and they easily numbed the pain of my burning arm.

The Hungry Cat started us off with piping hot grilled corn and corn bread. Both were simply perfect. The corn was perfectly seasoned and grilled and the corn bread was so warm and moist. So delicious!

Our first course began with a hot bowl of Maryland Blue crab soup. Some of us were already burning in the sun, so a hot bowl of soup wasn't what we really needed. But we couldn't complain because this soup was damn good. There were chockful amounts of crab and corn in there to keep our stomachs and minds distracted from the heat.

Before we can even take a break from our soup, out came the second course, Hungry Cat's 4 ounce crab cake "sandwich" with a tangy remoulade, creamy cole slaw, and a side of macaroni salad. The Hungry Cat doesn't f*ck around with their crab cakes. There are no fillers in this baby.

By the time the Maryland Blue Crabs finally made their appearance, most of us were pretty full off the corn and crab cakes, not to mention the flowing drinks that our table kept ordering. Daily Gluttony was the first to start flipping the crabs over to check the sex. "Yes, all males!" Her boss is from Maryland and told her to make sure to eat the males, which are sweeter and tastier. Sweet and tasty they were. Marinated in cajun spices and bay leaves, the crabs were quite a treat. I didn't mind that there were served cold, the cold crabs definitely gave us a break from the previous piping hot dishes. Most of our crabs were tender and meaty. However, there were several mushy critters that crept onto our table. Overall, I think coming earlier in the day allowed us to eat the fresher critters. I've read that reservations later in the day ran into the mushy crabs and/or no crabs at all.

After mounds and mounds of crabs and guts and shells flying in every direction, our party finally surrendered and gave up. We had a good crab run. It was a gluttonous victory for us first timers as we sat back and gazed at our carnage.

At the end, our overly tangy Santa Rosa Plum cobbler was an actual relief from the exploding salt content from the crabs. And that was it, our first Crab Fest at The Hungry Cat.

See you next year.

The Hungry Cat
1535 N. Vine
Hollywood, Ca 90028
(323)462-2155
www.thehungrycat.com