Captain Pell's Fairfax Crab House

10195 Lee Highway
Fairfax, VA  22030
703.560.0060
www.captainpell.com

A buddy of mine who had a baby (well his wife had the baby but he helped!) three months ago, sent me a text asking me last minute if I wanted to go eat some steamed crabs since his wife and newborn were at the in-laws house.  I figured 1) steamed crabs in this area is always a good idea 2) it was last minute but I still need to eat some dinner, and 3) he probably could use a beer or 19 after his first three months as a new dad.    So, an impromptu crab feast was a go.


We both live in Arlington so our choices were a bit limited in where we could find steamed crabs.  Unfortunately, Chasin Tails, which is only a short drive for us, only serves crabs on Sundays.  A quick internet search pointed us to Captain Pell's Fairfax Crab House.  Going to the website with its corny steel drum theme music sealed the deal.  The place looked like it was no-frills and strictly focused on a table, paper, mallets and a ton o crab which is exactly what we were looking for.

It's not a short trip out there, by no means, but there's surprisingly few choices for crab houses in Northern Virginia which was clearly indicated by how many cars were in the parking lot when we drove up.  It was smack dab in the middle of dinner time but the amount of cars had us worried that they may be running out of the larger sizes of crabs.  When you walk up, Captain Pell's is a plain stucco building that looks like it was some sort of banquet hall or meeting lodge in a past life.  When you walk in, it becomes oh so much more.

You're greeted by a bank of old time arcade games in the foyer.  Multiple choice machines that offered up the classics from my childhood like Donkey Kong, Galaga, etc...Once you get past the stroll through the 80's, the whole restaurant opens up to you.  The space was filled with just what we expected.  Tables, check, dingy chairs, check, brown paper, check, mallets, check, beer, check.  The flat screen TVs with the baseball game on and the gazillion advertisements on the walls were just an added bonus.  If you cleared the tables out, it could easily be a dance hall or taken the paper off the tables then I can see bingo Saturdays hopping here.  They definitely don't invest much in the aesthetics but have managed to create a character to the joint nonetheless.

They have an all-you-can-eat options on crabs, they had crab legs and may have had an assortment of sides on the menu.  We just ordered a dozen extra-large crabs along with two pieces of corn on the cob.  Oh, with beer, of course.  Sam Adams for me.  Coors Light for my buddy.  The crabs that came out were a nice size but they I would swear on my Maryland roots that they weren't extra large not that they weren't enough to make a meal of.  They were steamed perfectly but there was a distinct lack of crab seasoning (they used some generic brand of Old Bay) and the good Captain should take lessons from Ship's Cafe in how to get enough seasoning into every nook of the crab.

We came looking for an old fashioned crab house and that's exactly what we got when we went to Captain Pell's.  It's not much to look at and I would guess that the place has seen better days but no-frills is probably the best way to eat crabs.  After all, part of a crab feast is the social adventure you get when you're picking through all the meat in the crab and for that part, you don't need much more than brown paper, a mallet and a nice cold beer.