Captain's Boil

Captain's Boil opened up about 5 months ago but a few nights ago was the first time I had a chance to venture into the restaurant.  The restaurant is located in the heart of North York on Toronto's most popular and Canada's longest street Yonge Street and located just south of Finch Avenue.  The restaurant specializes in seafood served in some of the most amazing sauces imagined.  From cajun sauce, lemon pepper sauce, garlic sauce to their signature Captain's Boil sauce, each one of those sauces can also be topped off anywhere from mild to super spicy to the liking of the eaters that evening.

We made reservations for the evening however in order to do so, they need a minimum party of eight and that every member must be present to be allowed into their restaurant.  The rules are strict and there are no exemptions.  Failure to do so will mean forfeiture of your table.  Punctuality is a must and there is about a 2 hour eating limit.  Prior to placing our order, the waiter explained to us that lobster was about $36 a pound, the crab was about $23 per pound and the crawfish was about $16 per pound for the evening.  We ordered a little bit of everything and tried every sauce possible to get the full experience of Captain's Boil.

First thing hitting our table was the Mussels mixed with Garlic Sauce.  Before I go any further, one must know that most of their food is served in plastic bags.  They provide gloves and bibs for you to eat and you will need it because it will get super messy.  The seafood was all marinated thoroughly inside these plastic bags according to the sauce that you had ordered.  We went with the garlic sauce with the mussels and believe me when I say they didn't hold back on the ingredients.   There was a ton of garlic inside the bag and the mussels themselves were pretty big as well.  Each mussel was caked with garlic and every mussel was steaming hot.  Everything tasted wonderful and the combination of the garlic and the mussels were absolutely perfect match.

Mussels with Garlic Sauce

The next one to hit the table was the Crawfish with Mild Captain's Boil Sauce.  The sauce was delicious but the crawfish had a slightly bitter taste within it.  I haven't had crawfish for quite some time but I remembered the taste could be a little funky with or without any sauces.  It was either a hit or miss with each one.  Some of the crawfish tasted fine, some were a little bitter.  If I had to do a redo, I might have gone with a cajun spicy sauce to try to repel some of that funky taste or just skip the crawfish altogether.

Crawfish with Captain's Boil Sauce

The Fish Teriyaki with Rice was next and they were one of two dishes that we had ordered that was not served inside a plastic bag.  For the non-spicy loving people, this dish was for you.  The fish was nicely cooked and the rice was moist and tasty.  I actually enjoyed the rice as there were also some green onions and corn inside the rice to give it that extra flavor.  A hidden secret but the rice tasted even better if you mix the rice with some of their Captain's Boil sauce because when you do so, the entire dish actually comes to life even more.  Try it next time if you haven't done so the  next time you are at this restaurant. 

Fish Teriyaki with Rice

The clams were also eaten with their signature Captain's Boil sauce.  It was a good thing that the seafood was mixed inside a bag because without it, the clams would not have been completely marinated.  The clams themselves were tiny so having them inside the bag really made sure that every clam was drenched in its sauce.  We also had the sausage tossed in there with the clams as well.  The sausage themselves tasted a little cheesy which led me to believe that there were stuff with a little bit of cheese inside them as well.  Not sure if that was the case or whether it too had just absorbed large amounts of Captain Boil's sauce but it was the sausages were saturated with taste.

Sausage and Clams with Captain's Boil Sauce

The other non seafood dish we ordered that evening was the Chicken Tender with Fries.  This dish was actually more for the kids as they really can't dig spicy foods.  However, it looked really tasty and it came with about four rather large pieces of chicken tender so a couple of us actually tried the chicken as well.  The breaded part was nice and crispy and the meat inside was well cooked and tender.  The fries were a tiny bit spicy although one could also request it to be made without the cajun sauce if one really wants non-spicy fries to go with their chicken tenders.  

The last two dishes were my favorites for the evening.  We ordered two different types of shrimp.  The first one was the Shrimp mixed with Cajun Sauce while the second bag was Shrimp mixed with Lemon Pepper Sauce.  Both were equally good. The Lemon Pepper was more pure and less gunky while the shrimp that was mixed with cajun sauce was much more savory in its taste.  I enjoyed both of them and the shrimp themselves were medium in size.  You really couldn't go wrong with either ingredient.  

Shrimp in Cajun Sauce

The last dish to arrive and the best dish of the evening in my mind was the Crab mixed with Captain's Boil Sauce.  This dish was fantastic in that by doing it the way they did it, the entire crab was perfectly steam and had sauce covered in every nook and cranny of the crab.  For those who love to eat tomalley, they actually even took the time to remove the membrane and tomalley part under the crab head shell for you, have the that entire part cooked and marinated and have the entire portion served inside the crab head.  I love eating that part of the crab, more so than the arms and legs as it was incredible.  Kudos to the boys and girls in the back for getting that part right. 

Crab mixed with Captain Boil Sauce

Overall, it was a fantastic night with fantastic food eating with fantastic people.  The table next to us ordered a king size crab and I can tell you it was absolutely huge.  For that dish, I didn't see it being served in plastic bags although they would have needed garbage bags to get the entire legs marinated.  Despite being on Yonge street, sneak into the 24 hour Metro store to get two hours of free parking. Everything tasted great and a head's up, the cajun sauce is super spicy so watch out.  All of the seafood tasted great with the exception of the crawfish.  As mentioned it was a hit or miss.  If you were to avoid one seafood, that would have been the one.  We didn't go with the lobster as we thought $36 a pound was a bit much plus we had plenty of other seafood to go around.  We will certainly go again in the near future.  Overall I give it a 4.25 out of 5. 

Captain's Boil
5331 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario

647-348-7808