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My girlfriend and I went shopping last week and were excited to discover a new Cajun seafood restaurant had opened in South Portland. Mouth watering for shrimp ettouffe or crawfish gumbo, we entered The Shaking Crab.

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Why was the crab shaking? I have no idea. But the place being nearly empty at the height of the lunch hour should have been our first clue something wasn’t quite right.

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Six dollar drinks went a long way to calm our suspicions…

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Though the Cajuns I’ve known wouldn’t be caught dead drinking a watermelon-tini.

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Giant plastic crabs were everywhere. As were plastic starfish and randomly placed hanging plastic water bubbles.

All the waitstaff were Asian. 9/10ths of the customers were Asian. The scent of the room was reminiscent of an Asian kitchen. The menu? Not an ettouffe, Boudin, or jambalaya in sight.

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Though you could order “coleslow” and “braccoli ”. (These appeared twice, spelled incorrectly both times.) I didn’t bother taking pictures of our meals, they were just typical fried seafood baskets as the only other choices were giant plates of steamed things in a plastic wrap bubble you had to crack, and we didn’t feel like making a mess. I did try to catch a shot of one being delivered to another table, but missed.

Imagine a giant Jiffy Pop balloon encircling a metal dish, only its clear plastic instead of foil. It was an absolutely bizarre presentation of what I’m assuming was meant to be a crawfish boil.

I lived down south. I had Cajun friends and neighbors. I’ve sucked heads. Whatever The Shaking Crab meant to be? It sure as hell wasn’t Cajun.

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