With his finger on the menu pointing at the figure $24.95, my friend Jedidiah says to me,”Damn. And that’s only for half. I could get us six of these things and it would only cost me a turkey.” “A turkey?” I ask, laughing.

“Yeah, a turkey leg,” he says. “That’s what you use for baiting the crab. You get ’em at Fred Meyer, they’re like three bucks.”

We’re seated at a patio table at Chandler’s on Lake Union. Except for a cloud of gas fumes left behind by an impolite outboarder, it’s a beautiful nighta beautiful night for crab, and I’ve invited just the right guy. My friend Jedidiah’s people are from New Orleans; they’re Cajun and Creole. His No. 1 passion in life is women, but second and third are crawfish and crab.

“Let’s start with the Dungeness crab leg cocktail and the Dungeness crab cakes,” I suggest, because we’ve already decided that we’re having crab, crab, crab, and crab tonight. A pleasant enough but rather perfunctory waitress appears and agrees to bring us some beverages and convey our appetizer order to the cooks.

Most crabbers agree to the general rule that months that contain the letter R are good for catching crab, but if pressed, they’ll tell you that late July and early August are really the best. As we wait for our appetizers, Jedidiah tells me about a camping trip he took a few weeks ago; he spent his days catching crabs off a dock in Hoodsport and then cooking them over a fire on the beach. He makes it sound like the shore was crawling with the things, like he couldn’t cook and eat them fast enough, so when our waitress shows up to drop off our appetizers and a basket of bread and asks if we’re ready to order, I sigh and order the measly half Dungeness (steamed, with drawn butter) for 25 bucks and Jedidiah asks for the pan-seared soft-shell blue crabs for the same pretty penny.

Soon enough, the appetizers appear. On top of a tall stack of julienned Fuji apples, dressed in curry aﯬi and watercress vinaigrette, is a delicious little crab cake. The sharp, crunchy fruit is a great contrast for the rich crabmeat, but for $11.95, the filler-heavy patty seems awfully lonely and pretty damn small. Served on a bed of shaved ice and adorned with pearl-like kelp strands and some very good lemon and mustard dipping sauce, the pre-shelled crab leg cocktail is even more spendy ($14.95, for seven smallish pieces), and even more delicious.

After Jedidiah and I cry in our beer over the bounty of seafood that’s just below our table and a lot cheaper than what’s on top of it, I ask our waitress where, exactly, our evening meal comes from. She reports that Chandler’s Dungeness crab is flown in fresh from British Columbia, Alaska, and the far reaches of the Puget Sound. They keep them swimming around in plain sight in a tank near the open kitchen, so there’s no questioning whether or not it was ever frozen. (Although they’re very honest about where the Alaskan king crab comes from: the freezer.) Jed’s soft-shell had a longer trip; it came all the way from South Carolina. Upon clearing our appetizer plates and returning to the table, the waitress fastens paper napkins around both of our necks and leaves us sitting there like dummies.

“You know, I’ve eaten crab in a million different places and never had any problems, but you come to a place like this and they make you wear a diaper,” complains Jed.

“Well, technically, it’s a bib, but I know what you mean,” I say, and grab another slice of bread.

THE WASHINGTON STATE Department of Fisheries and Wildlife prohibits the capture of soft-shell crabs, and it’s probably just as well because the meat of a molted or soft-shell crab from our area is far inferior to mature Dungeness or red rock crab. But in the South, where Jed’s clan is from, the soft-shell crab rules, so while we’re waiting for our entr饳, he tells me about po’ boy sandwiches laid thick with whole molted crabs that have been fried until crisp and juicy. When the waitress returns with my half crab and Jed’s two smallish soft-shell ones, the look on his face is somewhere between confusion and anticipation.

“This is kind of different for me,” says Jedidiah.

His soft-shell crab is laced with an irreverent peanut sauce and paired with basmati rice. Two bites into it, however, he seems to have forgotten his roots. Although they’re without his favored tangy Cajun spices, the crabs are there on his plate in their entiretytiny little shell-less fried arms and alland the rich peanut sauce may be an unexpected Asian twist, but it’s good. Very good. Meanwhile, I’m not complaining about the bib; with my nutcracker in one hand, a warm, juicy crab leg in the other, and a little dish of melted butter somewhere in between, I manage to make a decent-sized mess. But it’s a delicious mess, and every bite melts in my mouth. There isn’t a lot of crabmeat in a half of a crab, and the mess of noodles on the side is a joke, but the crab that’s there is incredible, and perfectly, plainly prepared. Not that there’s much trick to boiling water. And the patio is nice and everything, but it’s costing us an arm and a leg to sit here. In a perfect world, me and Jed’d be sitting by some bayou or down on the beach at Hood Canal with a stack of these things between us and no bibs in sight.

Heydoesn’t September have an R in it?

lcassidy@seattleweekly.com