Bubble Crab Seafood Restaurant

Bubble Crab continues to serve the best smoothies and milk teas. They taste great because it is made from the heart and everything they serve are made fresh daily. Our favorite is Taro Milk and Thai Tea and our favorite toppings are Boba and Egg Pudding. We have also tried their Matcha and Mocha Smoothies, as well as Almond Milk Tea. They were all good! Their snacks are truly awesome — Egg Puff, mini Honey toast, French fries, French toast are some of our favorites. Just tried their new fried banana dessert yesterday and it was yummy, soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. They are certainly very creative with their new approach to fun snacks and desserts, and continue to add new items to suite everyone’s palette, ranging from popcorn chicken to chicken wings, popcorn shrimp, fish and chips, egg rolls, fried lobster balls, corn dog, waffles, snow ice and more. Check them out, it is worth the trip and also makes a great place to hang out and chill!

Boba and Crab? Not exactly two things that you think would together. After driving past the store in downtown Hayward, my friend’s interest in the store was piqued and she suggested that we try the store, if not for shits and giggles.
Name is a bit misleading. They no longer serve crab since apparently they’ve re-​vamped their menu. It’s a boba store now than a seafood store as half of their name suggests. When we first entered the store, it was completely empty even though it was a Friday night/​afternoon. However I can see why their store is completely empty as their boba was just plain not good at all. My friend ordered a plain milk tea with boba, and was only able to drink about ¹⁄₃^rd of it before she threw it away. She said that the milk tea tasted noticeably «fake», but that the boba was soft and yummy. ¹⁄₅ stars, would definitely not return to.

I went here for dinner as a backup place tonight and for a Friday night it was NOT packed at all! I’m very disappointed because it was very unreasonably overpriced, service sucked/​the waitresses were rude, and the food was hard. I ordered combo 1 which was 1lb of shrimp, 1lb of mussels, corn, sausages, and potatoes. But they gave me literally one whole potato. Not peeled just steamed and thrown in the bag. Now, with the corn it was very bland. The waitress recommended to get medium because the spice level would be a ⁷⁄₁₀ but to me it was actually a ⁴⁄₁₀. I should’ve gone with my true latina roots and gotten spicy! I am for sure not coming back here, no wonder it’s never busy. If I was the owner or manager of this resturaunt, I will start making changes. Backyard Bayou in Union City is way tops better.

We come here often because its close by our house and its convenient. However, they really need to tighten up the service on the new gals. Not once did they refill our waters and the second I put down the cash for the bill, one of the girls came over and started stacking our cups. I really wanted a refill. or at least another sip! I thought she was bringing it back but nope, she definitely took it away. She could have cleaned up the table before she took the drinks. We were still sitting, enjoying a few last bites!
The food is priced fair compared to other places we’ve been to, its slightly cheaper. I give it 3 stars for the taste. This is the ONLY place I come to where the flavor leaves a weird after-​taste until the next morning. TOO much garlic in the broth– I think.

Yummy ! We tried a shrimp and mussel combo with a basket of fries. Seasoning was pretty good. Portions were decent as well. Good enough to share ! I tried bubble tea for the first time. Very simple vibe. I really enjoyed this place. Will be making the drive to come back :)

The boba drink is good here. About 5 bucks for a large size. When the weather permits it is a nice treat.
It was a little empty and staff were not very inviting. They kind of we’re doing their own thing. For a place that has just opened kind of expected more smiles and encouragement on the menus.
Will definitely grab boba drink again here!

Ben was a great server wonderful service food was very good i recommend to come to this spot

I am slowly coming around more and more on these tea joints, and this place is close to home, so why not see if it passes the smell (or rather taste) test?
I am not as big of a connoisseur of bubble tea (or boba as the youths say), so I don’t know many flavors. Since I like to keep it simple, I usually just go with any type of coffee cold or hot drink, since it tastes like a Starbucks but costs about half of that. The few times I’ve been here, it was tasty and wasn’t too bitter. I’ve never had the food, but maybe one day I’ll agree to get my hands dirty and sample their seafood. High ceiling inside, and stamp cards are offered, similar to other tea places. Parking not on site so drive around to find one. Downtown Hayward is slowing making its mark, and you can add this place to its list of heavy hitters.

I wanted to like this place but the food was just ok but not a good value for the prices. The shrimp seasoning was good but the don’t serve cleaned shrimp. The veins are still in and you can tell the shrimp is frozen. Being in the seafood business is tough and risky because it is very perishable but there should be better attention to quality.
I also found that eating off paper plates & plastic utensils very sad. There should be silverware to eat with for those prices! I know the restaurant is new but in order to remain in business the Asian Cajun must be better. Had the «gumbo» and it had no flavor, the rue was terrible, there were no bay shrimp to be found and the rice wasn’t up to par. Just a mediocre place at this time. Hopefully they will get better

I was going to give this place a chance but by experiencing it myself, I totally agree with all the negative reviews! Then one 5 star review? Obviously Lee J. is 1. A friend of theirs or 2. Was totally paid on the under to leave such a review!
Really Bubble Crab? Train your employees before you feed them to the public!

I won’t be back.
I’ve given this place a chance three times. The last time was tonight (2÷17÷15) because my dad wanted to try it out for his birthday.
First time I was actually impressed with the quick service from the young brunette working the floor. She suggested a passion fruit drink which was really good and the garlic crab. When I got the crab I was disappointed because it was swimming in what tasted like cayenne pepper mixed with oil. Not good. I had to send it back to reboil and get all of the stuff off so I could actually taste the crab. Oh, and it wasn’t very big either. When they brought it back, they gave it to me with the sauce on the side which worked. In that same order, I bought garlic fries, clam chowder for my daughter and gumbo for myself. Those items were actually really tasty.
The second time I waited forever for anyone to even acknowledge I wanted to order simple gumbo and clam chowder. It shouldn’t take thirty minutes to order but that’s what happened.
Third time I decided to try the oysters. They look like cheap oysters you’d get in the freezer section at a grocery store. Worst part is they don’t even make an effort to make them appear fresh by putting seasoning on them. They were 80 percent batter and 20 percent oysters at most. After trying one, I ordered gumbo with rice since I knew I wasn’t going to eat them. Our server didn’t seem to care either.
Once I received the gumbo, I realized there was a MAJOR difference in quality from the first time I had it about 3 weeks ago to now. They have put A LOT more big chunks of vegetables like onion and bell pepper in the gumbo and there were maybe 3 salad shrimps and 2 dime sized pieces of chicken. I asked for more rice since the one scoop wasn’t enough for me and the waitress told me that it would cost me extra since the gumbo only comes with one scoop of rice. Now keep in mind, I had just ordered gumbo from them 2 weeks prior and asked for extra rice with no added charges or push back about it. And at the end of the day, rice is so cheap. Seriously? Just give me the darn rice.
Unfortunately, they did not. So considering that among the decline of service and food quality in such a short period of time, I will not be back. And thanks to platforms like Unilocal,I can share my experience in hopes they either get it together or I can save someone else from being their next victim.

There seems to be an ongoing theme for this restaurant. We were here with a large party and the service was detrimentally slow. We waited for our food for over an hour. When part of our order did show up, the food that came out was mediocre at best. The fish and chips looked like it came out of a frozen food aisle bag and dumped into a fryer. I can’t even remember the other dish because at this point most of the people in the party were up in arms due to the wait we had to incur and yet little to no foodage.
To make the long story short, we canceled the extensive list of the rest of the order and departed making assertions of our displeasure (as nicely as possible).
I don’t think we’ll be patrons at this place again.
The End

Ok I don’t see what other people are complaining about when it comes to the wait time. It’s not fast food and it only took 20 to 30 mins to get our food. Also the staff is very friendly and attentive despite the amount of people that was in this small packed restaurant. Only complaint I honestly have is the group of about 20 people and another group of about 10 people they was serving. These two groups killed the service for us and others. I felt bad for the staff as they were trying their best to keep up with pace. Be patient and you’ll have a good experience. And It will be faster if there isn’t a lot of people there.
Great food as we ordered Crawfish, Shrimp with corn and sausage, and Garlic Noodles. Everything tasted great. Price… it’s up there but you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Got a chance to try a local crab house & frankly it wasn’t bad at all. The place is called Bubble Crab and it recently opened up in OCT. 2014. We love to go to Boiling Crab in San Jose and tried Kicking Crab and this one is just a bit below of the other two. not too far down but waiting for judgement.
We got there when it had just opened for the day & maybe that explains the wait. The place is clean, TV’s in place to show the games, and wasn’t busy (at least when we arrived). The server gave the menu & we ordered 2 lbs of shrimp with mild sauce & catfish with garlic fries. We waited a good long while. about 20 minutes to get both orders. Kinda long considering there were only 3 tables occupied when we got there. but hey, again I said they just opened when we got there. So I’ll cut them some slack.
The shrimp came in bowls but the sauce was a bit thin. Good flavor for a mild sauce and the shrimps were fairly big with a nice snap to them. I must agree with a previous Unilocaler that the sauce was poured on the shrimps but honestly. it’s no different than Boiling Crab putting the shrimps in the bag with the sauce. The catfish were a good treat. They came as whole fillets so we got 2 of them. Other places serve them in pieces so it looks a lot but I’m sure they’ll amount to 2 fillets also. The garlic fries was a plus because they were not coated with garlic powder but fried garlic.
So in fairness, I can only give 3 stars since the impression it gave seems promising. The shrimp was good but the sauce was thin. the catfish altogether was good also. But I couldn’t disregard the fact that we waited 20 minutes to get our order with only 3 tables taken. Later on as we were finishing, more people were coming in so this place has potential. We’ll go back another time to see if anything is better.

This is a good place to come if your craving something similar to boiling crab… but their shrimp sauce wasn’t flavorful or thick. They don’t serve your food in a bag, instead it’s in a bowl and I hate how my shrimp wasn’t drowned in sauce. The shrimp took 30 minutes to come out and the restaurant wasn’t even packed…
The Cajun fries were pretty bland… didn’t taste hot and crispy.
The milk tea was really good and I’m glad they have it combined with a seafood restaurant!
We also got oysters and the sizes were huge, way bigger than boiling crab or rays crab shack! I LOVE IT hahaha finally a place that gives big oysters that’s not far from me
The service was friendly but overall I just don’t like the shrimp sauce. But I would come back for snacks

We came to this place last night after a movie and was looking for a place still open just before 10:00 PM on a Sunday night. I know the server wanted to slap all 3 of us walking in 10 minutes before closing. She asked if we were ordering for «here or to go». Of course we said we wanted to dine in. She was gracious and seated us as there was only one table of patrons remaining in the restaurant.
Everything said, «market price» on the menu she handed us. So we asked for the prices. She pointed out the blackboard with the daily prices and specials. We were sitting at a corner table not in plain view of the board. So we all got up and walked to the board. The crab prices were HIGH. Since this was our first visit, we decided to go with the lb. of shrimp and garlic noodles. That would give us a good idea how the sauce and flavor was for a potential revisit for something more expensive.
The garlic noodles were really good. They actually taste pretty close to Thanh Long/Crustacean’s. You could taste the fresh garlic. That was a plus. I decided to go with the mild combination sauce. I like heat, but wasn’t sure what kind of heat they were working with. So, I tried to play it safe. The sauce was thin and not really tasty to me. It tasted like your standard crab boil. Nothing special. But the presentation was nice. If you’ve been to Crabaholic, the seasonings and spices in their sauces are MUCH better. This is just to compare. But Crabaholic’s garlic noodles aren’t nearly as good as this place. So, take your pick.
This place also does not give you the option of having the heads and shells on or off the shrimp. They come with the heads and shells on only. So you lazy bones gotta put a little effort into eat your skrimps.
Considering we were the only ones there at one point, the service was ok. There was only one server, but she was still slow in checking on us. Our shell container was full and we started to remove the bag ourselves to make room because she was gone so long.
The place was decent. But I probably won’t be back. There are better Cajun crab boil places.

Bubble Crab Cajun only had their boba/​snow menu so i ordered what i was gonna order anyways. nothing interests me on the crab menu. one order would be too much and boring for me.
drink: almond milk tea (3), less ice, sugar
–no boba, came very sweet, nice almond flavoring
–felt an afterrtaste after awhile
syrup used must have frutose in it.
drips:
–milk teas ok if one doesn’t mind frutose
–frequent buyer card given.
–questionable return.

One of the newest Cajun seafood restaurant. If you like spicy food, you will definitely love their sauce. The serving size is excellent. We were kinda confuse who our server was since different girls are attending to us. Since its new, it doesn’t get too crowded.
One plus to this place is they have boba drinks. So if you just want a quick cold drink, you can order it for to go.

Review is just for boba… haven’t eaten here yet.
The boba is reasonably priced and is pretty good. I can’t remember which flavor milk tea w/​tapioca I got the first time but it was yummy. On our most recent visit we got almond milk tea w/​tapioca. The tapioca balls were softer and chewier the first time, so I was a bit disappointed. Hopefully this was just a fluke.
They have snows and slushes as well as milk tea. I felt that the milk tea was the right level of sweetness, but I’m pretty sure they’d let you customize it if you want less sugar. There aren’t a lot of good boba places in Hayward so I’ll return to this one anytime I’m in the area.
Convenient parking lot behind the restaurant and plenty of street parking as well.

I try to be fair so I came here twice before I’m giving this review…
First time when I came here, I tried their crab, chicken wing, shrimp, fried calamari, ice milk drink… Crab and shrimp with crabby combo was okay, little salty for me, love the fried chicken wing and calamari, can’t go wrong with those, and the ice milk is little sweet for me… The friendly lady who work there asked for our opinion and we told them how we feel, that was when they first open…
Two weeks later I come here again, with the recommendation from the super friendly guy who work there, I gave it a try on their garlic butter sauce, I’ve tried garlic butter from boiling crab and rocking crawfish before and I didn’t like it, but surprisingly I love the garlic butter sauce here, they were perfect for me!!! And I also ordered garlic noodle, honey green tea with aloe and hazelnut ice milk, they were both good!!!
I’m gonna give them 5 stars! Cus I’m happy to see this around our neighborhood, and I’m sure they will do better and better with these good food and great customer service!!!

My boyfriend and I originally came to Hayward to eat something else but we smelled some delicious seafood and saw Bubble Crab.
We went in and wanted to order crawfish but they were all out for the day so we ended up changing our minds.
We were going to leave but I decided to try their dessert drink which was the red bean and sago drink, it was pretty good, it reminded me of Bambu.
The employees were very friendly, I just wish they didn’t run out of crawfish because everything else on the menu was kind of overpriced like their fries, lol. But I’ll come back and check out the crawfish some day.

There are reasons why it’s 5 star (to support Hayward with good restaurants like this). It’s part of getting our downtown the right attention it needs.
Pros:
1. It’s their first week and it will be better. They will find their sweet spot.
2. They’ve added something new which is boba and tea drinks.
3. The seasons aren’t bad. They compare to crab shack, backyard bouyon, and rocking crawfish. No one can get close to boiling crab.
Cons:
1. They’ll need more employees to speed up their service as they become even more busy. There’s only 3 people serving, and taking payments.
2. Pricing per lbs is high, but it’s what everyone is selling it at. That’s what people are willing to pay.
Other than that, it’s another shrimp Cajun shrimp joint.