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American Tap Room
The American Tap Room is a take on the concept of a beer-inspired gastropub, owned by the same group that runs Austin Grill (the Bethesda location used to be an Austin Grill, but was recently converted to an ATR). The only thing really "American" about it, aside from the name, is probably the food. The beer list, while mostly American, does contain some foreign beers. But crab cakes are American, right? Yes! So how were they? Let's find out!
This review was taken from the lunch menu, which offers a crab cake sandwich and a single crab cake entree. The sandwich comes with a remoulade, lettuce, onion and tomato. The entree is a single crab cake on top of a bed of vegetable medley, along with a red pepper cream sauce. The dinner offerings is just the entree, but comes with the option of a single crab cake or a double.
The crab in the cake is nice and sweet, with a minimal amount of breadcrumb and parsley filler and a slight hint of Old Bay. The cake itself is mostly jumbo lumps, with a few unavoidable shreds in there. The vegetables don't have much flavor aside from the corn, leading me to believe that they are either canned or frozen. The red pepper sauce is super sweet, with a tomato soup consistency.
On its own, the crab cake is quite lovely, especially for a concept chain restaurant. The only complaint is that the crab meat was about to cross that line where it was about to dry out, as there were a few dry pieces on the outer shell of the cake. But that could have been because it sat under the broiler a little longer than it should have, as the inside was perfectly moist. Being the only one in the restaurant, they were able to pull it out in time and run it out to me. But had they have been busy, I wonder what a heat lamp would have done to it.
The red pepper sauce didn't do much for the crab cake, and while really sweet, didn't have much of a flavor to it. It helped add some flavor to the vegetables, but not really enough and left me wanting to add some salt on there to coax some additional flavor out.
Additional Info
- Restaurant Name: American Tap Room
- Address: 7278 Woodmont Ave Bethesda, MD 20814
- Neighborhood: Bethesda
- Restaurant Type: Local Chain
- Website: http://www.americantaproom.com/
- Review Date: 08/17/2011 11:44am
- Atmosphere: Not Busy
- Item(s) Ordered: Red Pepper Crab Cake
- Cooking Style: Broiled
- Other Styles Available: No
- Available by mail order?: No
- Price: 14.00
- Order Type: Appetizer
- Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
- Filler: Minimal
- Spice: Minimal
- Overall Impression: Very Good
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Rating (out of 5 crabs):
