Niki P.
Yelp
I finally tried Steven's one night when I had a the strongest seafood craving.
I called ahead, and they actually answered! I was surprised because most of the time, the seafood markets in the area usually have disconnected numbers or avoid answering... I initially asked if they had any blue crabs, and the man who answered said that they had gotten some in that very morning. I was a little skeptical because most places have very low quality live blue crabs that are either only male or are half dead. He also said that blue crabs were made-to-order after you pick them, so no call-ins for those... However, I think you can do pick-up orders for most everything else.
When my boyfriend and I arrived at Steven's, the first thing I noticed was the two crates full of live blue crab. As we were choosing some, they were mostly all feisty and many were female -- a rarity in the area. Even after we chose our crabs, a man came and picked through the crabs to throw away the dead ones. I was amazed at their commitment to fresh, quality crabs since most markets leave the half-dead ones for their customers to choose from and take the feisty ones in the back til they need to replenish the upfront supply.
The seafood is a little bit pricy considering its a seafood market, but I couldn't complain because it was most definitely the cleanest seafood market I've been to. They also seemed committed to high quality, so I didn't mind the $5.99/ lb cooked blue crab ($4.99/ lb live, $1 cooking fee) or the $4.99/ lb crawfish at first.
The guy quoted us at a 30 minute wait, and I was pretty sad. However, I think it actually took about 20 minutes with two orders ahead of us. As we were leaving, about 6 different parties rolled in around 7, and I was pretty glad we came around 6:30 and avoided that rush.
When we got home and opened the tray of crabs, I was so happy. The way they cooked the crabs with butter, cajun seasoning, and parsley was on point. This is where I'll be getting blue crabs from now on. The crawfish on the other hand was such a disappointment. They were too watery and seemed to be frozen -- not fresh. To be fair, they didn't have any live crawfish out front nor did I ask, but these were still so bad... Some were rubbery, and some were on the verge of disintegrating.
I'll never order crawfish from here again, but his is my blue crab source on the Southside!