Cerritos: Claws Restaurant

The original Claws in Garden Grove burnt down, and is currently being rebuilt. This location is in a busy shopping center in the same area as Coco’s, 85° bakery, Gen, and where other Asian restaurants are located.

Parking can be a pain, so you either have to arrive early or be patient, or walk it from the neighboring parking lot. I met my friend Roger here for dinner on a Wednesday night, and I had to circle for parking at 6:30 PM. I did end up finding a spot in an adjacent lot near a Korean barbecue place and sports bar.

Like all the other seafood in a bag place, this place offers your typical seafood from shrimp, peeled and unpeeled, clams, crawfish, and crab legs.  We decided to split the 3 pound seafood combo which came with two appetizers. For the appetizers we chose the wings and the garlic fries. My friend Roger did not care for either appetizer, and I found the be just OK as well. The garlic fries or not garlicky at all, and I was shocked they provided us with catsup to go with the fries.

We were told they did not have any live crawfish, so we decided to try just 1 pound of the frozen mud bugs, and 2 pounds of shrimp. For one of the shrimp, we went with just the medium lemon pepper, and the remaining 2 pounds we went with their cannonball, which is a mixture of all of their sauces. We went with the medium spicy level, which was NOT spicy at all (compared to Kickn Crab or Boilng Crab).

This place is definitely cheaper than Kickin or Boiling. That 3 pound combo dinner for two with an added corn and one soda came to $53 before tip. Here’s one thing that pissed me off: Apparently they charged us $.50 for SPLITTING the bag of seafood?? I guess you have to agree that the entire order is one flavor? How petty is that?

They have other items on the menu besides seafood in the bag, I didn’t really check it out as my main purpose was going for the shrimp and crawfish. Frozen crawfish was just OK, a little rubbery, and definitely tiny. It’s not the best substitute for the real live ones.The place is very clean, and I do like that they have external sinks outside the bathroom. The staff was there quickly when we needed something, and the food did not take very long. I don’t think it’s a solid 4 Star but maybe 3 1/2 star.