Restaurant Review: Higgins Crab House In Ocean City, MD

Maryland is known for its seafood – particularly crab – so during our two months in Maryland on our 50 state road trip we knew we had to try it.

While visiting the Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum, we got chatting to Robin who was working in the gift shop. We asked her for a recommendation of somewhere to eat crab in Ocean City and she recommended Higgins Crab House. It turns out that was a great recommendation.

Shae’s dad and fiancée were visiting for a few days over Thanksgiving, so we waited until they arrived before we ate there (we stayed in Ocean City for a month). Seeing as it was during COVID-times, Shae and I weren’t comfortable eating inside the restaurant itself. Thankfully they had a tent set up for outdoor dining which had good ventilation and, despite it being late November, the day we were there it was warm enough to be outside.

The menu had an extensive selection of seafood options so there was something for everyone’s taste, along with a few options if you’re not a seafood fan but eating with people who are.

Our server brought out a bowl of hush puppies. I’ll normally eat a hush puppy or two when having seafood, but often find them to be fairly bland and dry. The ones at Higgins Crab House were definitely the best hush puppies I’ve ever had – not dry and far more flavorful than normal. I had to stop myself eating too many while we waited for our meal so that I didn’t fill up on those.

For an appetizer, Shae and I got garlic mussels to share and they were delicious. There was a lot of garlic flavor without it being overwhelming, along with a nice chunk of baguette to go with it.

Shae’s dad and fiancée got seared Ahi tuna to share. I tried some of it and that was fantastic too – I’d definitely order it as an appetizer for myself if we return to Higgins Crab House in the future.

I’m not a huge fan of crab legs. I’m a lazy eater who doesn’t like to work for his food, so those are far too much effort for far too little reward (in my opinion!) I do like seafood though, so I ordered the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Platter which comes with soft shell crab, crab cake, shrimp, clams and fish of the day which, on the day we visited, was salmon. They give you the choice of ordering it fried or broiled, so I decided to go with the healthy option and got it broiled.

It came with a couple of sides, so I ordered a baked potato and the vegetable of the day.

The seafood platter was excellent. Everything was cooked just right and there was plenty of food. The plate it was served on wasn’t very big and so it initially didn’t look like much food. I struggled to eat all of it due to how much food there actually was on the plate, but did finish it off as it was so good.

Shae loves crab legs and isn’t a lazy seafood eater, so she ordered two pounds of the Alaskan Snow Crab legs. Our server brought out a bucket which contained what she’d need for the crab legs, as well as serving as something to put the crab legs in once she was done.

Her crab legs were excellent too, although she definitely had to work for her food given how much she received.

Shae’s dad also ordered the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Platter, but he ordered it fried rather than broiled. His platter was largely the same, although his fish of the day was some kind of white fish rather than salmon, presumably because salmon doesn’t fry well.

Final Thoughts

We had an excellent meal at Higgins Crab House. All of our food was excellent, from the hush puppies to our appetizers to our entrees – all of it was flavorful and perfectly cooked.

Our Rating

Food = 4.8 / 5
Price = 4.2 / 5
Atmosphere = N/A (it doesn’t seem fair to rate the atmosphere while eating in a tent outside due to COVID)
Decor = N/A (we ate outside and I didn’t actually go inside the restaurant)
Service = 4.5 / 5

Total = 4.5 / 5

Address

At the time of writing, this restaurant has two locations in Ocean City. We visited Higgins Crab House South which is at 3102 Coastal Hwy, Ocean City, MD 21842.