Soft Shell Crabs are inside this truck!

Capers White

When we began to talk to chefs and others in town about seafood one of the names we heard again and again was Raul’s Seafood, purveyors of pristine stone claws, shrimp, crabs, and fish. We drove out to meet Kimberly and Bobby Carroll, the owners, at their new location on the dock of Shem Creek, and we highly recommend that you drop by too. Enjoy having a seat on their dock, catch a bit of their friendly vibe and take home some of their fresh-off-the-boat seafood. 

Kimberly gets excellent shrimp, and seafood daily as it comes off the boat. But perhaps the highlights of her bounty are the fresh blue crabs, stone crab claws and soft shell crabs Kimberly and Bobby harvest themselves. 

If they are available, by all means purchase some of their stone crab claws. Kimberly generously gave us perhaps a dozen and a half she had brought in from the boat an hour earlier. With instructions to not let them touch ice and a determined comment that we should eat only local seafood, sent us on our way. 

We prepared the claws to her exact specifications and enjoyed them with a cold beer. I think the meal she provided for us that day was perhaps one of the best I have ever had.

Kimberly’s Instructions for Perfect Stone Crab Claws 

Keep the claws at room temperature; never let them touch ice. If you buy seafood or shrimp at the same time and it is on ice, put the claws in a separate bag. This keeps the meat from sticking to the shell. Put the claws in a pot with just enough luke warm water to cover them, and bring the water to a boil. Let them boil 10 minutes, then dump them in the sink and run cold water over them. Serve with drawn butter. (We recommend lemon too.)