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Archive for Blue Crab

Eastern Promises – Pope’s Tavern

Aug27

Restaurant: Pope’s Tavern at the Oxford Inn

Location: 504 S. Morris St, Oxford, Maryland 21654. 410-226-5220

Date: May 25, 2014

Cuisine: American

Rating: Solid modern Bistro

_

Oxford only has 4-5 restaurants (we ate at 3 of them in our short visit) and Pope’s Tavern is almost certainly the best.


It’s located inside the historic Oxford Inn (nearly every building in Oxford is historic).


With cool tin ceilings.



The menu.


A fried rice ball with chipotle sauce.


1997 Remoissenet Père et Fils Romanée St. Vivant. 87 points. While this was a properly mature wine with characteristic RSV terrior, our bottle was mildly corked. Not the undrinkable level of cork, but enough to be annoying.


Lobster bisque. Rich and as it should be.


House salad. Baby greens, champagne mustard vinaigrette, parmesan crisp.


Beet Carpaccio. Greens, blood orange, cider vinaigrette.


Cheese pizza.


Special artichoke ravioli.


Special crab cake on succotash. A pretty awesome crab cake.

Pope’s Tavern has a nice kitchen. It’s not the lightest fare, but it is darn tasty.

For more Washington dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Eastern Promises – Crabs of Yesteryear
  2. Eastern Promises – Brightwell
  3. Eastern Promises – Holly’s
  4. Eastern Promises – BBQ Joint
  5. Eastern Promises – Azeen’s Afghani
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Blue Crab, Crabcake, Oxford Maryland, Pope's Tavern, Wine

Eastern Promises – Crabs of Yesteryear

Jul21

Restaurant: The Masthead

Location: 104 West Pier Street. Oxford, MD 21654. ph: 410-226-5171

Date: May 25, 2014

Cuisine: American Seafood

Rating: Great view and great crabs

_

In the late 70s and early 80s our family ate routinely (on summer weekends) at one of the three restaurants in Oxford Maryland known as “Pier Street” (after its address).


This crab oriented seafood establishment features primarily outside dining on the water and in those days crab men would bring up bushels of live blue crabs to the attached dock where they were transferred immediately to the boilers for conversion into “hardshells.”


The name has changed, but the outside dining remains virtually unchanged, featuring long picnic tables, a great view, and a lovely breeze.


The current menu.


Maryland vegetable crab soup. Not quite as good as at Hollys, but still good.


Chicken salad.


House salad with fried cornbread. lol.


Softshell sandwich. A deep fried blue crab on a bun!


Fish and chips.


A dozen blue crab hardshells. These are spiced with “old bay” and steamed. As this is still May, the crabs are tiny and expensive, but they are delicious!


The Masthead isn’t and never was a fancy establishment.


Tools for crab eating: mallets, more old bay, vinegar.


And this is where the crabs (and other shellfish) are steamed. I seem to remember the boilers were much bigger in the “old days.”


Tasty feller.


The pier ain’t what it used to be either. Some storm wiped it out and they never replaced it.

The Masthead might not be fine dining, but it does have great ambiance and still features some of the freshest versions of one of the world’s greatest crab!

For more Washington dining reviews click here.


Related posts:

  1. Eastern Promises – Holly’s
  2. Eastern Promises – Brightwell
  3. Eastern Promises – BBQ Joint
  4. Eastern Promises – Azeen’s Afghani
  5. Sometimes You Want to Get Crabs
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Blue Crab, Crabs, Oxford Maryland, Pier Street, The Masthead

Go Sushi Goes To Lunch

Oct12

Restaurant: Go’s Mart [1, 2]

Location: 22330 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA 91303  818.704.1459

Date: October 11, 2011

Cuisine: Japanese Sushi

Rating: Possibly LA’s best sushi!

_

This is my second visit to the unassuming Canoga Park sushi temple that is Go’s Mart. You can check out the Foodie Club mega tasting meal I had previously. This time I just dropped by for lunch and had a more “modest” little lunch omakase.


The plate of ginger and wasabi gets the saliva flowing.


Marinated toro collar. In some ways like a really nice marinated tuna fish.


Homemade Ikura (salmon roe). As good as that gets.


Go has the interesting format of serving fish in related flights. This is a foursome of whitefish. All are prepared with variations of wasabi, rock salt, truffle oil, and kelp. Some also have shiso and or yuzu pepper. All four are fairly similar with a nice light bright flavor.


Kue I think, which is a kind of grouper.


John Dory.


Red snapper.


Kelp bass.


Sweet shrimp roe marinated in a mirin (rice wine) based sauce.


It looked pretty cool even after I got most of them out.


A flight of shellfish. Dusted with hibiscus salt.


Japanese snow crab with gold.


Some very fine Alaskan king crab.


Japanese scallop. Yum.


And sweet shrimp (body) with caviar.


The heads came back to us fried. Which are also great.


We ate everything but the eyeballs and beaks.


A flight of tunas.


Blue fin tuna with garlic chip.


Albacore tuna with garlic.


Chu-toro (medium tuna belly) with radish and caviar.


O-toro (extra fatty toro), seared, with gold and a slightly sweet sauce.


A tro of squirmies.


Live octopus, cooked. It was alive a few minutes before we ate it. This was good, but I probably prefer it less cooked.


Fresh abalone. As good as the chewy creature gets.


Baby squid, with a bit of squid guts. Very soft for squid.


Both kinds of eel, sea and freshwater.


The sea eel, with kelp.


And the river eel.


Two kinds of halibut. Both with hibiscus salt, micro greens, and yuzu pepper.


Kelp halibut.


Halibut fluke.


A blue crab handroll with a bit of truffle oil.


Go finishes up with a bit of fruit drizzled in sweetened condensed milk. Very nice finisher. There are rasberries, figs, melon, golden-berries, mulberries and blueberries.

Go-san continues to impress with some really scrumptious sushi. He has his own take on the art and not only is the fish impeccable but the flavor combos very refined and interesting. Given the ultra high end nature of the food (and standard sushi pricing), it isn’t even that badly priced either. Much more reasonable than Mori Sushi for example. Go to it!

For more LA Sushi, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Sushi Sushi = Yummy Yummy
  2. Sushi Sushi – Small Omakase
  3. Sushi Sushi Sushi
  4. Mori Sushi – A Top Contender
  5. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: abalone, Alaskan king crab fishing, Blue Crab, Caviar, Eel, Go Sushi, Japanese cuisine, Roe, Sashimi, snow crab, sweet shrimp, toro, Tuna

Tidewater Crab

Apr26

Restaurant: Tidewater Grille

Location:  300 FRANKLIN STREET, HAVRE DE GRACE, MD 21078 410.939.3313

Date: April 18, 2011

Cuisine: Eastern Shore American

Rating: Real crab cakes!

ANY CHARACTER HERE

One of the great things about the greater Washington DC area is the proximity of authentic Eastern Shore crab (and hence crab cakes!). Technically this is a “guest palette” as my brother was the one doing the eating. So the text and pictures are by Mitch Gavin.


An unassuming coastal frontage but a surprising beautiful find.  My parents have been going to this spot for a decade or two. We used to go to a restaurant up the street with a reputation for great eastern shore crab cakes and fried chicken.  I think I remember a s a kid getting a lot of bacon and dipping it in apple sauce.  To be discussed at a later date.  But in the recent past 2 decades M & D have been talking about this place.  I finally went one recent visit driving from DC to Philly to see my cousins.

To start: Maryland Blue Crab Soup.  Hands down my favorite soup and most scrumptious!  Vegetable base with chunks of tomato, corn, green beans I think and loads of crab meat.  Just crab.  Followed by a spicy seafood seasoning.  Something that reminds you of the beach and spiced vinegar fries.  Hot!  I tried to squeeze a bowl in because it’s going to be a year before I taste something this good again.

Now onto the crab cake!  Tidewater is the best crab cake east or west of the Mississippi.  These things are just so truly American, harder to find and worth savoring every bite.  Again you don’t find this in many places, it’s almost pure crab meat, very large and seared in a pan just right.  The taste of crab is so distinctive and Maryland stands alone at the top, athough Louisiana might get the Blue Crab too and be a closer runner up.  Arguably better tasting than the more expensive Maine Lobster this sandwish melts in your mouth.  The chips at Tidewater are unique — just simple strips of baked potato –and great!  The lettuce and tomato are unnecessary because additions just mask the special taste of the meat, so I recommend just lemon and bun.  No tartar was added to this sandwich.  🙂  [ although Andy adds that he loves tartar sauce because “fat == flavor” ]

After a few iced teas, a cup of soup and the oh so lovely crab sandwich the total was only $24.  Sandwich $14, Soup $4 and tea $2.5.


True tidewater country.


Here is another example, this one from Washington area restaurant Clydes.

Clydes crab cake was surprising lovely too, especially after closely visiting the Tidewater as  acomparrison.  It was a little more seared and smaller but very tasty.  They even simplified the platter for you with no lettuce or tomato, annoying not to be given the choice, especially since they have over the past 30 years.  And I’m not kidding people I’ve been going to this restaurant over 30 years; I even had my Bar Mitzvah there in the bright room upstairs in 1987!

Now the true pride in a restaurant in my opinion is not changing something that’s good.  Over the years, Clyde’s has managed to maintain the absolute best Chili I have ever had, and they have been doing so since before 1985.  It’s dark, molassesy, tangy and damn freaking good.  Seriously I’ve had other “great” chili’s but the tang and flavor of this one keeps me coming back year after year (when home on holidays!).

Dad had to leave early so I ordered the Blondie Brownie Sundae (not pictured), which I liked as a kid for mom and I.  The thing used to come in a tall Sundae glass, have a great grandma blondie brownie with carmel and great vanilla bean ice cream, nuts and everything but when the server brought it out on a flat plate the Blondie Brownie had no brown in it at all. It was disappointing as a too sweet flat white pastry looking thing with some vanilla ice cream, whip creme and thick brown chocolate sauce all over it that wasn’t good, maybe some nuts, the ice cream was similar but in short supply.  Thumbs down and unfinished between two.  That doesn’t say much that we then decided we didn’t need the unnecessary calories.  But on a positive note I’ll be back to Clyde’s again for that Chili, Crab cake and a lot of other stuff.  Clye’s gets a thumbs up.

Some other good crab cakes can be found on the west coast at Houstons or, surprisingly, at Capo. But they aren’t quite the same.

By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Blue Crab, Callinectes sapidus, Clam chowder, crab, Crab cake, Fish and Seafood, Maryland, Shellfish, Tartar sauce, Tidewater
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