Biggest Mob Yummy: Cathy’s Place Cullen Bay

Crazy .. and crazy good: Cathy’s Place at Cullen Bay.

For 20 years, Cathy’s Place has been serving up crab dishes at Cullen Bay … and I don’t know anybody who has been there.

Not. One. Person. It’s nuts.

When I told my brother this fact he said: ‘I have been there’ but I ignored that as it ruined my opening paragraph.

Anyway, I have driven past Cathy’s Place many times and wondered ‘what’s with that place?’

The sign says ‘the best crab in town’ and ’$5 beers’ so the marketing is bang on. And yet, it always seemed pretty quiet.

The other night, Her Territory (HT) and I had the funny and, as it’s turns out excellent, idea to go there.

It was different, weird and good from start to finish.

For example, this was the chat at the bar:

Staff: Are you from Melbourne?

HT: No

Staff: Why are you here?

HT: 😄

Like the food, the restaurant has a no fuss vibe .. it’s basically a Singaporean restaurant and has long-time owners and staff.

The sign out the front of the restaurant is misleading as very few of the displayed dishes are available. It’s so misleading that it’s kinda funny and basically, you are having crab and ONLY crab.

But that’s ok because it’s very good crab.

We asked for rice but they had run out. While this was also funny - and weird at the time - it’s also my only kinda complaint being a Singaporean restaurant.

So we got the ‘fried bread rolls’ instead and, as it turns out, fried bread rolls are AWESOME!. Glad we had it. Who knew!!

Our dish of greens never arrived but it also didn’t really matter.

The funky wine glasses didn’t match - which made me love them more - and they didn’t think they had red wine but then ‘found’ a bottle .. but the staff were friendly and fun and sitting near the water was really nice.

We ordered the pepper and the chilli crabs and both were VERY yum.

It was great fun to smash crabs with the cool ornate smasher. I liked it so much I briefly thought about stealing it (ha ha, no I didn’t, that’s illegal).

Smashing crab is probably not a great first date place if you want to look cool (and not smell like crab).

Both crabs were great but, from memory, the chilli was the best (I got a little bit drunk so it’s blurry).

This place is not super cheap (crab is approx $60 per kilo) and the meal cost about $200 for two but it was yummy and fun and weird and you probably haven’t done it before so my advice is to go.

I liked Cathy’s Place a lot and, if you embrace it, so will you.

If you haven’t been in the past 20+ years maybe go now .. better late than never!

Thumbs Up Scale: 3.5/5 👍🏾

Who hasn’t driven past and gone “I should go there one day” .. and then gotten on with their lives. Well - GO THERE!!

It was fun to smash the crabs with this

Mismatched wine glasses. BUT IT WORKS.

This feast was 1000 drool emojis.

Fried bread rolls. Pfft. Who needs rice.