While I’ve mentioned The Mermaid Inn several times in this blog, I’m not sure that I’ve ever made my obsession with it totally clear. My friend Mary and I are at their Upper West Side location at least twice a month!

What makes The Mermaid Inn so amazing, you ask? Well other than the great food, atmosphere and reasonable prices, they also host the “Happiest Two Hours”  in all of New York!

Every single day of the week, from 5-7pm, Mermaid offers $1 East Coast oysters, $5 beers, $6 wine, $7 cocktails and other snacks like mini fish tacos or shrimp slider for $3-$7. Also… wait for it… wait for it… at the end of every meal, happy hour or not, you get a tiny cup of chocolate pudding for free!

See why oyster loving gals like Mary and I think of this place as a little slice of heaven?

This summer The Mermaid Inn introduced their Summer Crab Boil. Every Tuesday night in the summer they’d be covering their lovely linen table clothes with paper and for $26 you get a bucket of Maryland Blue Crabs, corn, potatoes and jalapeno cornbread. We’ve been meaning to try it all summer so when we found out that our friend Brian, a fellow Mermaid Inn lover who lives in St. Louis, would be in town it seemed like a perfect time to go.

We started out with our oysters as usual and then ordered 3 crab specials. After our oysters were finished a bus person brought a bucket of “tools” over. The bucket contained mallets, picks, extra napkins, wet naps and these fashionable plastic aprons.

We were also each left with a piece of jalapeno corn bread. A few minutes later our bucket o’ food arrived.

The buser literally come over with a huge bucket and then emptied it by piling a mound of crabs, corn and potatoes all covered in Old Bay seasoning in the middle of our table. At that point we knew we were in for some fun!

Eating a whole crab is a lot of work. There is cracking and hammering and picking and sucking involved. Every time we cracked and hammered, bits of crab went flying. We were up to our elbows in Old Bay seasoning and Mary and I both regretted not pulling our hair up before we started eating. It took forever and we were filthy and we had the best time ever! Everything was delicious, we could not stop laughing and getting dirty with abandon reminds you why you loved playing in the mud as a kid.

If you ever have the opportunity to attend a crab boil, do it and if you live in or are visiting Manhattan you should definitely stop by The Mermaid Inn. If you visit the Upper West Side location make sure to tell them that Mary and Alli sent you!