I had just read about Back Forty’s famous crab boils a few days ago when my friend shot me an email saying they managed to snag a prized reservation and asked if I was in. YES, of course! This crustacean free-for-all is only offered in during crab season and only on Tuesdays. Getting a reservation here is one of the most frustrating things to do in the city. But we were in, and the crabs we’re about to pay the price.
The waitress explained how this would work. She would fill the table top with crabs as one serving. When we polished them off, there would be second crab dump and finally a third. Potatoes and string beans were unlimited and the meal would be finished off with a rhubard pie dessert. All this for $40/person. My eyes got big as she dumped the first buckets of crab on the table. We all immediately grabbed a crab and then slowly looked at each other. How the hell do you take apart whole crabs?!
Anyways, the crabs were seasoned with old bay and damn were they tasty. The meat was amazingly sweet and deliciously juicy. It was a bit annoying having to pull apart entire crabs but it was fun and worth it. Though…somebody kept stealing the claws! Oh, and I didn’t bother at first with the potatoes and string beans, but wow. These were no robin to the bat man crabs, the potatoes were out of this world! I probably ended up eating 5-6 of this butter drench crack babies. Same story with the string beans. It was entertaining eating an entire meal without utensils.
These pictures don’t do this meal justice. They kept taking away our shells and we probably asked for more sides over half a dozen times. We simply destroyed everything on our table. When the dust and shells settled, we had each eaten at least a dozen crabs, platefuls of potatoes and fistfuls of string beans. Oh, and a yum dessert. Crabs:0, Humans:1.
Back Forty
$$
190 Ave B
New York, NY 10009
June 18th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
HAHAHA crabs:0, humans: fat.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Bad day to be a crab. And I think “destroyed” sounds about right. Likes like a damn warzone! Good post man.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I hope you didn’t get your camera dirty with crab juices
June 19th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Thats why there are no posts of the during .. just the after..
June 19th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
bingo!
June 19th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
how difficult is it to get a reservation?
June 21st, 2009 at 7:18 pm
its once a week so you call on monday and leave a message. they’ll randomly call people back on tuesday. if you don’t pick up by the second ring, they cross you off and move on.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 am
I represent Back Forty. Thank you for letting readers know how much you enjoyed the restaurant’s crab boil. One correction about the reservation system: online reservations are accepted by e-mail only on Wednesday starting at 10 AM for the following week’s Tuesday night dinner. The reservation form is on Back Forty’s web site: http://www.backfortynyc.com. Reservations are not accepted over the phone. Also, please note, reservations are considered in the order they are received, not randomly. If your readers are interested in reserving, I encourage them to submit the reservation form at 10 AM Wednesday morning to increase the likelihood that they will obtain a spot. Again, we appreciate your interest in the crab boil and hope that all your readers will get a chance to experience it this summer.
Best wishes,
Ben
August 19th, 2009 at 10:33 am
THIS WAS AWESOME! CRABS AND BEER! DELISHH!