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Weekly reviews of crab cakes around the MD and DC area

Cafe Soleil

Cafe Soleil is a restaurant located in the Club Quarters hotel, just outside of Farragut Square within the Golden Triangle district, and 2 blocks from the White House.  For 12 years, they have been serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week to hungry tourists and locals alike.  With as long as they have been around, and the neighborhood they are located in, you have to bring your A-game when it comes to the discerning food palates in our nation's capital.  Should these crab cakes get the presidential seal of approval, or should their recipe get vetoed?  Stick around and find out!

The only crab cake on the menu is in the form of a crab cake sandwich, consisting of jumbo lump crab meat topped with lettuce, tomato, and onion, served with tartar sauce and fries on the side.  Crab cake is fried, with no mention of a broiled option.  There is potential for the crab cakes to show up as a dinner entree special, but should be available in sandwich form for both lunch and dinner.

The crab cake consists of mostly crab meat, bound together with some bread and onions in a Dijon/lemon base, then breaded and lightly fried.  Jumbo lump crab is completely broken up and stringy.  Binder is a Dijon/lemon mix with bread and onions.

Predominantly, the binder comes through as the main flavor of the crab cake.  If there was any flavor to the crab meat, it will surely get overlooked.  The onions end up being crunchy, and create sort of a contrasting texture to a soft crab sandwich.  

The crab cake itself really isn't much to write home about given the overpowering flavor of the binder.  That said, it works as a sandwich as all of those extraneous flavors work well with the roll, which was sort of dry and average.  Still, we purchased a crab cake sandwich, and crab is what we would like to have tasted.  

Cafe Soleil Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Additional Info

  • Restaurant Name: Cafe Soleil
  • Address: 839 17th St NW Washington, DC 20006
  • Neighborhood: Farragut Square
  • Restaurant Type: Local
  • Website: http://www.cafesoleildc.com/
  • Review Date: 10/09/2012 12:06pm
  • Atmosphere: Moderate
  • Item(s) Ordered: Crab Cake Sandwich
  • Cooking Style: Fried
  • Other Styles Available: Yes
  • Available by mail order?: No
  • Price: 15.00
  • Order Type: Sandwich
  • Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
  • Filler: Minimal
  • Spice: Average
  • Overall Impression: Average
  • Rating (out of 5 crabs):

    3-crab
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