Crafty Crab Seafood has caught me, my wife, the kids, and, it seems, quite a crowd of enthusiastic patrons to enjoy crackin’ a lot of fresh seafood. Located in Hilltop Plaza at the corner of Route 450 and Race Track Road in Bowie, this crab house is a bit unlike those found in the mid-Bay region or Eastern Shore. At Crafty Crab, the experience is more Cajun country than Chesapeake in that most seafood you order arrives to the table as “boils”—the traditional cooking method of the bayou—or southern fried. You can order steamed blue crabs when in season. So, if you crave Maryland-style homecookin’, sure, you can get that here, too.
On a peaceful Saturday afternoon in November, I took the family out for an early-bird dinner, arriving just before 4 p.m. and was seated into a cozy booth right away by the welcoming hostess. All tables are covered in Crafty-branded brown paper, so immediately you know that some serious cracking and picking is forthcoming.
Up, down, all-around, the structure is chestnut-colored wood tones—chairs, tables, booths, flooring—balanced by a whimsical décor of fish netting, surfboards, dangling starfish and crabs, plus a few fish replicas. To the right of the main entrance is a sports bar area, where folks were enjoying the day’s college football games on the bigscreens. We were seated right-side in the main dining room. The space is open with large tables, all easily arrangeable to accommodate dinner parties of many sizes. (Call ahead if you have a sizable group.) And there are several small booths, perfect for two, tucked away for a more intimate dinner.
Our server, Imani, was on point in greeting us and delivering a first-round of drinks—all low-key sodas and waters. If you want something with more oomph, the restaurant offers a full bar of rail-to-top shelf liquors for specialty cocktails, a range of domestic and imported beers, and house wines.
We brought our appetites and immediately spied steamed scallops on the menu as a strong candidate for an appetizer. Anything ordered steamed or boiled comes with your choice of seasoning and spice level. For this opening plate, we selected the signature Crafty Cajun seasoning at a mild spice level. Six sea scallops were neatly presented in a row on a rectangular plate in a pool of the buttery seasoning. The morsels were fork-tender and simply delicious. Very good.

Photos by James Houck
For main attractions, my wife and I each ordered a special boil and the kids had fried baskets (no surprise there). I selected the Lobster Special, featuring a 1/2-pound tail, 1/2-pound of large shrimp, 1/2-pound of mussels, and two each of potatoes, corn cobs, and hard-boiled eggs. All of this boiled, tossed in the selected seasoning/sauce (Cajun for me, again), and delivered in a massive steamer bag. Our other boil was the Autumn Special, which was essentially the same, but with a 1/2-pound cluster of snow crab legs in place of lobster.
A touch messy, but lots of fun to eat, the boils were best accessed by dumping all contents into the deep-dish aluminum pans we received with each, and then picking our way through it all, one bite at a time. Crafty Crab had us covered with bibs, paper towels, claw crackers, crab picking utensils, and plenty of wet wipes, so we didn’t feel apprehensive about digging in.
Between the mussels, shrimp, and big chunks of lobster pulled from the tail…every mouthful of seafood was heaven. If you love seafood as much as I do, then you’ll find the meal to be an epicurean smorgasbord. The sweet snow crabmeat also married exceptionally well to the kick of Cajun spice. Everything was cooked to perfection and drenched in the addictive seasoning. It was delicious. It was divine. I’m not kidding. And have you ever had a boiled hard-boiled egg? If not, this is the place to enjoy one, two, or more. Everything—the sides, seafood, etc.—can be ordered a la carte.

Photos by James Houck
With chunky fries and house-battered/fried chicken tenders (real breast meat, thank you!), the kids’ plates filled them up. One also ordered a corn dog for good measure and it more-than-passed the taste test. All of this food came with several servings of clarified butter, extra seasoning, ketchup, honey mustard, a “mumbo” sauce. It was a condiment party if I ever saw one.
We packed up what little bit of food remained to take home and called it an afternoon well spent, feasting on quality seafood prepared in a style unique to our neck of the woods. The staff was hospitable, the space very clean and accommodating, and the food…again, simply delicious.
Crafty Crab Seafood | 6800 Race Track Road, Bowie; 240-245-3715; craftycrabrestaurant.com