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In Maryland, you can get crab cakes all over the place. But I'm wondering how popular this food is in other areas.
For those of you especially outside the mid-Atlantic region, have you had crab cakes? Do you know what they are?
of course we know what they are; Now, as for quality, there is no place that has better crab cakes than the mid Atlantic region, not even the Pacific coast with all their great crab meat.
Here what we get are all filler but that can be said about even the Atlantic region. Our daughter just sent us some form Legal Seafood, in Mas. They used to be really good, these are hardly fit to eat. They are pasty and not much crab. IN fact we had the last night. Now I am trying to decide what I can do with them to make them edible. I am thinking, as they are pretty thick, maybe I should flatten them more and fry them longer or use the air fryer to cook them?
We did have them,small ones, at our anniversary party 2 weeks ago. I do not know how the restaurant made them or where they came from, but they were as good as I have ever had. Even as good as we used to get on the east coast.
I have very painfully learned that pretty much regardless of how good/expensive the restaurant, crabcakes very far out of Maryland are HORRIBLE!
Stringy, nasty, skimpy, full of filler. Where are the sweet lumps of succulent crab? I end up disappointed every time and usually after paying a premium price - I just refuse to do it any more.
This is exactly the situation in northern Ohio. Filler constitutes at least 90% of a crab cake. They taste nothing like delicious delicious fresh crab, nor is there any crabmeat texture. It's disgusting.
Imagine what a crab cake would be like from the $2 appetizer menu at Applebee's. Then lower your expectations.
The only people eating them are people who never ever ever had a good one.
I don't get this. Why do you think that only crabs from the Chesapeake are edible?
Sure, Dungeness or other crab species can be used, although I consider Blue Channel crabs to be better, but it's the preparation that makes the difference. Other places just don't seem to be able to get it right.
If you're much more than a hour away from being able to spit directly into the Chesapeake Bay or one of its immediate tributaries (I don't mean the Susquehanna River in Cooperstown, NY), don't bother with crab cakes. You might get lucky and get one that's edible, but the chances are slim.
This doesn't even make sense. I went crabbing with my parents as a little boy back when Ike was president. Took 'em home, boiled and ate them.
While the custom here is lump crab, crab cakes are on *every* menu. Some are good, some are great, some are Sysco.
Sure, Dungeness or other crab species can be used, although I consider Blue Channel crabs to be better, but it's the preparation that makes the difference. Other places just don't seem to be able to get it right.
To be fair, even in Maryland it's only the more expensive restaurants that get crab cakes right. I tried the crab cakes at a hole in the wall place in Ocean City and it was awful.
OTOH, one of the best I've had was at Rusty Scupper at the Baltimore Inner Harbor.
I don't get this. Why do you think that only crabs from the Chesapeake are edible?
It's food made with mostly fresh lump crab meat versus frozen canned crabmeat with a ton of filler. Near the Chesapeake, nobody would dare serve the flyover country version of crab cakes. It's like fish sticks or McDonalds Filet o' Fish vs fresh fish. The fish I eat isn't square.
I think you're in NYC so you have an excellent supply chain from pretty much everywhere. You can get seafood that was swimming yesterday. Lobster, scallops, cod, haddock, sole, swordfish, tuna, crab, etc are all less than a 6 hour refrigerated truck ride. That's not how it works in flyover country. Fresh seafood comes with an airline ticket and is expensive enough that not much gets shipped.
My sister and brother-in-law were in from Vancouver BC last month. We eat local seafood pretty much exclusively when they're around. I was complaining that the local fish market was now getting $49.95/pound for lobster meat so I was having the grocery store steam $4.99/lb lobsters in the store I then shell for lobster meat. They commented that fresh Dungeness lump crab meat is now up over $100/pound. I guess the Japanese are buying everything in sight so the prices have shot up. It probably takes 10x the labor to create a pound of lump crab meat compared to lobster.
Sure, Dungeness or other crab species can be used, although I consider Blue Channel crabs to be better, but it's the preparation that makes the difference. Other places just don't seem to be able to get it right.
I've had some great crabcakes in restaurants along the Jersey shore, and I've had some disappointing versions with too much filler, too, but mostly in the northern part of NJ, away from the ocean. Still, crabs (and crabcakes) are hugely popular in New Jersey.
We don't have the same association with crabcakes as a signature food as Maryland does, though.
To be fair, even in Maryland it's only the more expensive restaurants that get crab cakes right. I tried the crab cakes at a hole in the wall place in Ocean City and it was awful.
OTOH, one of the best I've had was at Rusty Scupper at the Baltimore Inner Harbor.
Like most anything else, you get what you pay for.
But the worst crab cake that I've been served in Maryland was better than the crab cakes that I've been served anywhere else (before I realized that there's no point in ordering crab cakes anywhere else).
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