crustacean

by guest blogger bryan tsunoda @btsunoda crustacean in beverly hills has been around for quite some time. the roasted crab and their famous garlic noodles are crowd pleasers and what crustacean is best known for. despite its name, crustacean is so much more than that and i recently had the opportunity to sample some of their new offerings. crustacean is also known for its “secret kitchen.” a closed doorkitchenwithin a kitchen, it’s where some of the restaurant’s most coveted dishes are prepared. since their opening in 1997, only six dishes have been created in the secret kitchen. now, there's a new secretkitchenitem that we'll be tasting tonight. as i entered crustacean, a three piece jazz ensemble provided entertainment to the bar patrons. the walk on water entrance features a serpentine shaped aquarium that doubles as a floor. it was obvious that crustacean is still a place to be seen as everyone seated at the bar had the required ‘look’. our group was led outside through the sid

from its secretkitchento its opulent colonial decor including the famous winding 80 foot long "walk on water" sunken floor aquarium at the entrance to its impeccable service, and of course the food, one can see why crustacean strongly withstands the test of time in this fickle city.

great food but.... if i could give this place zero stars i would. my boyfriend and i had been to crustacean once before and really enjoyed their garlic dungeness crab and garlic noodles. so when valentine's day rolled around i suggested we spend our first valentines day here. big mistake. the hostess sat us upstairs which at the time i thought was way cool since i'd never eaten upstairs before but this time the circumstances were different...i'll get to that later.

first the menu was a special valentines pre-fixe menu that was $95 each with an added on 18% gratuity. if i had known this we probably could have waited until monday to go but my boyfriend is so wonderful he didn't even blink at paying that price. the first course was an array of weird stuff i guess thekitchenjust wanted to try out, ahi tuna on a tortilla chip, hamburger on a stick (was yummy), watermelon, and shrimp wrapped in some kind of seaweed. next came our crab and garlic noodles which was just as yummy as i remembered, and then dessert, some cheesecake puff and chocolate pudding thing that they could have kept in the kitchen. but overall the meal was good, not $95 good, but good.

now let's go back to revisit that seating arrangement thing. after we were seated upstairs i looked around and noticed that there were quite a few african american couples seated around the dining room and as the night went on the tables around us filled up with more african american couples which struck me as odd since i remember the clientele during our previous visit had been very mixed. so when my boyfriend got up to go downstairs to the restroom i jokingly told him to see if there were any black people downstairs. much to my surprise and lament, when he returned he told me no.

dinner came and went and so we got ready to leave. i really thought my boyfriend was joking around when he said there were no black people downstairs until i got down to the last step to enter the downstairs dining room where there were nothing but white couples and a few asian people sprinkled in here and there. i was totally shocked and my boyfriend had to grab my hand and pull me towards the exit because i was just in awe at how different the dining room was. i mean we're on day 14 of black history month and this restaurant looks like woolworth's in 1962.

needless to say, the ceo is going to hear about this and i suggest that everyone on here rethink going to this restaurant that obviously doesn't believe in treating their customers equally.