Feasting In City Island: Sammy's Shrimp Box

One night Andy and I were watching Alton Brown's show Feasting on Waves, where he travels on a boat to search for the most authentic and traditional foods of the Caribbean. He meets the local cooks from street vendors, farmers, markets and restaurants. He learns the history of the food and the way they cook their regional food. The episode we saw was the Island Bakery Visit, where he visited local bakeries and at the end they had a feast on the beach eating lobsters. After we saw the show we were craving for seafood. Andy decide to search online for a seafood restaurant and remember that City Island has many of them.

We checked out the reviews/ratings online and Sammy's Fish Box has the highest so we decided to check it out. Driving thur City Island we passed by many seafood restaurants that we definitely have to try out some other time. We finally saw a huge Sammy's sign but notice there were 3 Sammy's restaurants: Sammy's Shrimp Box, Sammy's Fish Box and a Sammy's take out on the same block, talk about seafood monopoly!! Each restaurant had a huge parking, so we just drove in one of them and asked the valet guys what's the different between the Sammy's. They said all the Sammy's had identical menu but Shrimp Box has a section of Spanish dishes so we decided to go there! And they also have a sushi bar there too.

The place wasn't pack, we walked right in and got a cozy table in the corner. The waiter was very nice but he sort of forgot about us so most of the night we had to flag someone else to help us. I was so hungry I wanted to eat everything on the menu! We wanted to try a little of every kind of seafood so order a Paella dish for 2 people. We read about the huge portions so we didn't order any appetizers but a soup. Things were pretty pricey, it's not a cheap date place: Starter: Bread With a Wedge of Cheese & Relish Tray Compliments of Sammy's:
Sour veggies on top of ice, I guess to make it look fancy? The veggies tasted kind of funky, not very good. The bread was freshly baked and soft. I was really hungry so I ate like most of the loaf! lol..the corn bread was okay.....
Each entree comes with a salad ( At this point, I was somewhat full from all the bread =O)

Lobster Bisque:
It was only okay....I like my lobster bisque creamy but this one was on the lighter side. Andy thought it was very flavorful and he tasted alot of lobster in it. I didn't think it was all that good, I guess because I only like the one from J&R.

Paella for 2: King crabs legs, snow crab legs, dungeness crabs, lobster, shrimps, mussels and clam on top of a bed of Spanish rice. When I saw the waiter bringing our dish my mouth literally dropped open because it was sooo HUGE!!! It could feed around 4-5 people!! Damn all the bread I ate, what was I thinking?!

I always eat snow crabs at Chinese restaurants or buffets but these are def. very fresh! The meat wasn't mushy and it was very sweet! This is the first time I had dungeness crabs and boy what have I've been missing out! The rice was good and had a garlicy taste but the only thing I didn't like was that there were alot of bits of shell all over the place and I had to carefully eat it which was very annoying. I gave up on eating the rice and went straight to eat only seafood. Omg....I can't believe I was getting full from just seafood. I don't think I've ever eaten so much seafood in one sitting. All the seafood was so good and we had so much of it! We ate all the lobster and crabs but we had to take alot of the rice and some of the mussel and clams to go. I def. want to come back here again but next time bring more people! Sammy's def. statisfy all my seafood cravings!
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Sammy's Shrimp Box
41 City Island AveBronx,
NY 10464
(718) 885-0920
sammysfishbox.com