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Buontempo Brothers
You may be more familiar with Little Italy when it comes to Italian restaurants in Baltimore. But up in Bel Air, the Buentempo Brothers provide a slice of Little Italy in Harford County. Located in the heart of Main Street, Buentempo Brothers has been knocking out their famous pizzas since 1991. Fresh dough and great customer service are only part of what makes this place special. So with great Italian food, we were excited to see crab cakes on the menu. Are they as good as the pizza? Let's find out!
Crab cakes are available as a sub (both small and large) or as a single platter. The platter delivers a respectably-sized 8 oz crab cake with french fries, garlic bread, and a side salad. Subs come with a list of toppings available. While the platter is priced Market Price, the subs have set prices. Our review is for the crab cake platter.
The crab cake is unmistakably Maryland style - bound together with egg, bread, and spices. While there are some large lumps of crab, most of it will be broken up, either in much smaller pieces, or to the point of being strings of meat. The breading is actual bread, and not breadcrumbs like others might be. All of this broiled to create a crispy outer crust.
When we first opened the platter, there was a faint fishy smell emanating from the crab cake - a clear sign that blue swimmer crab was being used (or of bad crab, but we'll assume the former). The larger lumps of crab were meaty in texture, but dry and relatively flavorless, except for a hint of that fishiness we were mentioning. The smaller bits had a similar flavor, but weren't quite as dry.
The spicing was nice, definitely trying to get your attention as you take a bite, but not so obnoxious that it assaults your taste buds. The binder was nice and moist, although the crab cake as a whole seemed to have more breading than it should. Some bites were mostly bread and not much crab. Expected given its size, but could be avoided by not breaking the crab meat up so much.
All in all, this was an average crab cake that used low quality crab. Blue swimmer is often used to pad out better crab meat to meet a price point, but is not usually used at the only crab meat source in a crab cake. It has a distinctive smell, texture, and flavor that, frankly, isn't very good. We liked the spice, and the moisture levels were spot on for a Maryland style cake.
Listing your crab cake as Market Price usually indicates that you'll get better crab, so we were quite disappointed when we didn't. As for the portions of the crab cake that were mostly bread, we can only suspect that they were going for size over quality. If better crab was used, then we wouldn't have minded receiving a smaller crab cake.
Additional Info
- Restaurant Name: Buontempo Brothers
- Address: 1 S. Main St. Bel Air, MD 21014
- Neighborhood: Bel Air
- Restaurant Type: Local
- Website: http://www.buontempos.com/
- Review Date: 11/05/2014 8:22pm
- Atmosphere: Not Busy
- Item(s) Ordered: Crab Cake Platter
- Cooking Style: Broiled
- Other Styles Available: Yes
- Available by mail order?: No
- Price: 13.99
- Order Type: Single Platter
- Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
- Filler: Average
- Spice: Average
- Overall Impression: Average
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Rating (out of 5 crabs):
