Shell Shack’s pride and joy. Image courtesy of their Facebook page.

Dallasites are passionate about their mudbugs. After the success of the first article, ‘Five Places to Eat Boiled Crawfish in Dallas this Season’, several crawfish-lovers weighed in on our social pages and with their own posts, including the Dallas Observer. To be clear, the first article was not a “Best of” like some deemed it. It was just a list of some convenient places in Dallas that have been consistently been serving crawfish to Dallas proper (sans one located in Addison) without fail for many, many years.

In response to the Observer, Big Shucks and Aw Shucks are not “practically the same place”. They are totally different and owned by different people. Just because the names are similar doesn’t mean jack squat. Maybe the writer hasn’t tasted the nuances. Sorry, that’s just a little jab because we got jabbed at and called a “blogger” like it was a bad word. : )

Here are a few places to get your mudbugs we might have missed.

1. Shell Shack – This somewhat-new player in the Uptown McKinney Avenue restaurant scene has been boasting of crawdaddies for the last few weeks. Their boiled shrimp with potatoes and sausage is nothing less than remarkable, and when we were finally able to grab some mudbugs we were not disappointed. The staff is well-trained and treats their customers very well (I would never want to bib someone, but they don’t seem to mind).  They actually all seem like they enjoy their jobs. White butcher paper on the tables with a bag or pour on the table choice, makes the place quite unique.

Address: 2916 McKinney Ave, Dallas, TX 75204
Phone: (877) 434-1411

2. Tasty Tails – We haven’t tried this place yet, and it’s not in Dallas proper. However, one of the owners contacted us after the first crawdaddy article came out. We were impressed with what she had to say. “We pride ourselves on washing the crawfish, picking out the dead ones, and boiling it in the cajun spices and other ‘secret’ ingredients. We offer our crawfish NOLA style but we also have a cajun garlic butter for non-Louisiana natives that are used to those flavors.”

“We source our crawfish from Louisiana when in season and available, and from California and the Northeast during the offseason. We never, ever, ever use frozen crawfish and this is something we are sticking to through and through. We are proud to say we flavor our crawfish with love and care from the beginning to the end. We only serve what we would eat!” Their Yelp reviews are surely stellar with many rave reviews. We hope to try them out this weekend.

Address: 240 Legacy Dr, Plano, TX 75023
Phone: (972) 517-7868

3. TJ’s Seafood Market – We have been to TJ”s many times for oysters and shrimp cocktails, however only twice have experienced their crawfish. I personally think TJ’s a-ma-zing, but it’s on the pricey side ($12.99 lb). What do you expect in Highland Park and for truly fresh seafood? One unique aspect, they offer all-you-can-eat crawfish on Sundays starting at 2pm.

Address: 4212 Oak Lawn Ave, Dallas, TX
Phone: (214) 219-3474

4. Boiling Crab – Everyone raves about this place. We’ve been once. It’s good, we’ll give them that. They do pretty darn good Facebook marketing too. The flavor was OK. I think it was late in the season when we tried them a couple years ago. We’ll give them another shot. However, I don’t think they’ll have any problems this season with the recent Dallas Observer review.

Address: 10560 Walnut St #100, Dallas, TX 75243
Phone: (972) 272-7086

Often Shuck N’ Jive, Big Shucks, and Aw Shucks get confused. All serve crawfish, not not all do it as well.  Shuck N’ Jive does  karaoke well, but their bugs taste a little too much like the bayou, literally kinda swampy, for our palates. It’s too bad there is only one place in Dallas where you can do crawfish and karaoke (two of our favorite things). With the Korean cuisine influence, and the culture’s innate love of the bug, we’re thinking having a Crawfish & Karaoke Lounge off of Royal Lane would be quite a hit.

Disclaimer, again: This is only the beginning of the season, so some of these spots may not be in full effect. Often, places that offer crawfish run out during the week or weekend, especially at the beginning of the season, because these bugs are in such high demand. I have experienced this sadness many times, by not taking my own advice. If you have your heart set on crawfish, and nothing else will suffice, make sure you call first. This list is no guarantee that each of these places have a supply at the time you’re reading it, since this article will be living indefinitely on the Internet. ILiveInDallas.com is not responsible for your disappointment at lack of crawdaddies.