now tonight we turn to the food guy and Steve Linsky is wrapping up this monthlong look at a few classic Chicago restaurants tonight this has been fun his criteria each restaurant is at least 15 years old and the kind of place that you take out of Towners for a great meal well tonight it's Seafood with a 40-year backstory Steve joins us now with more Steve so hard to find a more consistent Seafood House in this one guys this is really a special place crab shrimp oysters anything from the sea act
ually that's what's been on the menu at Shaws for four decades and whether you go for the casual bar or the more formal dining room you know a meal here is an essential part of the Chicago dining experience the Raw Bar opened first in the winter of ' 84 the more formal dining room came a few months later there have been hits and misses in the Lettuce Entertain You portfolio over the years but there's no denying Shaw's Crabhouse has become the city's preeminent destination for seafood since it op
ened on East hubard it's quality and and staying true to your quality has a certain authenticity when you're not chasing Trends you know there's a virtue in being classic that means a proper chowder and a more decadent lobster bisque crab cakes made from lump crab not back fin plump shrimp cocktail and fried calamari that's both crisp and tender it helps that everything is done in house butchering the fish here or making everything from scratch that enormous tunin goes from raw hunks to seared a
nd seasoned in about about 5 minutes served over a bed of crispy rice noodles with crunchy peanuts scallion and chives dressed in a Tangy Ginger soy the Louis Dressing on the seafood salad is homemade too layered with shrimp crab and lobster they recently switched their king crab from Alaskan to Norwegian but haven't missed a beat the switch happened out of some necessity when they closed the Alaskan market and then we found a really fantastic product in Norway you know it's the same crab but it
's fished a little bit differently that we're really proud to be associated with family fishering we believe it's a tremendous product its market price dictates a more upscale environment to serve it in same goes for the Florida stone crabs crack to order serve with that incomparable mustard sauce we wanted to be the steakhouse of seafood white tablecloth more formal and the oyster bar is more casual it's a uh kind of more lively environment I think lobster rolls and beers there's always a dozen
oysters on hand too we try to stay true to six east coast and six West Coast but they stick to cold water oysters only so in the summer months we just go more North in recent years they've added a full Sushi program both sushimi and Maki and continue to tweak the menu adding a few new items while never forgetting the dishes that made them who they are we've developed the reputation of not just being the place for crab but being the place for seafood they also have a location in shamberg and you
can expect to see some big celebrations at the original location later this year more information about Shaws on our website NBC chicago.com just search search for the food guy this was a lot of fun to do this last month I'm probably going to bring this back every now and then we've enjoyed it so much there's just so many places to talk about in Chicago a lot of history too which is fun so you'll see your fa your favorite on the Shaz menu uh I like the seafood salad quite a bit and the crab cak
es are incom that's what I was going to say crab cakes are my favorite good good choice okay
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