This week marks almost exactly one year to the day that I posted on the opening of Fish Grill Factory on this blog, a hopeful new entrant a block away from South Coast Plaza in Santa Ana that tried to copy the success of California Fish Grill by doing pretty much exactly what it did: grilled fish at reasonable rates.
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To refresh your memory here's what I wrote about
It seems apt then that the vacated shell of the restaurant has now been taken over by a crab, or more exactly, a Cajun seafood joint inspired by the likes of The Boiling Crab called The Kickin' Crab. Why do I think it's cribbing Boiling Crab and its other Little Saigon competitors? Look at the menu and see for yourself.
I peeked in and saw that they've done little to the old Fish Grill Factory dining room, and are even repurposing their giant chalkboard for their own menu.
Will I be writing about the next seafood eatery come October 2011? Aside from a morbid curiosity on what new sea critter-themed restaurant might take over the space should the Kickin' Crab kick the bucket (so far that location has been home to a sushi-joint named Bluefin, Fish Grill Factory, and now this) I'm hoping this concept sticks like a barnacle.
The Kickin' Crab, 3611 S. Bristol St. #C, Santa Ana, (714)754-8888; www.thekickincrab.com
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.
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