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Main Street Oyster House
Bel Air's most recent restaurant, the Main Street Oyster House, has a good bit of history to it, as well as boasting Harford County's longest oyster bar. Yes, this very location dates back to the post civil war area, and has been home to John's Barbershop, a watch repair store, the original headquarters of the Aegis newspaper, and most recently, the Dark Horse Saloon. But a new era has come into this very location, and bills itself as an upscale seafood venue. If you've been here during the Dark Horse days, things seem very familiar, yet slightly different. But with new management and identity in place, were the crab cakes on par with what an upscale seafood restaurant should be? Read on and find out!
While the focus is oysters, there are plenty of dishes featuring crab on the menu. Specifically for crab cakes, they offer a crab cake sandwich that has a broiled colossal lump crab cake served with lettuce, tomato, and tartar sauce on a freshly baked roll with waffle cut fries on the side; or they have the Maryland Crab Cakes entree -- a single or double broiled colossal lump crab cake entree served with wild rice pilaf and fresh seasonal vegetables.
As the name implies, the crab cake does have a few super large lumps of crab in the cake, amongst mostly broken pieces of crab. The cake is definitely Maryland style, with a good bit of breading in the binder mixture. That breading allows the cake to retain a good bit of moisture, helping to keep the delicate crab meat from drying out. The binder is mostly breading, along with some egg to hold it all together, and some spices to round out the flavor profile.
The texture of the crab cake is mostly moist breadcrumbs. The fact that most of the crab is broken up allows the breading texture to come forward. But lucky for us, bread is not the primary flavor in this cake, it's the crab. The crab meat has a decent sweetness to it, which is refreshing to see given that most colossal crab meat turns out to be blue swimmer crab. The amount of spice in the mixture is nice as well. It accentuates the flavor of the crab without overpowering.
Overall, the components of the crab cake work nicely together. The spice backs up the crab, and the quality of the crab meat was really good. The amount of broken up crab lumps makes us think that they could have used a lighter touch mixing everything together. That alone would lessen the mushiness of the crab cake texture, and let the crab take another step forward. Other than that, we thought this was a tasty crab cake that Harford County can be proud of.
Additional Info
- Restaurant Name: Main Street Oyster Hosue
- Address: 119 South Main St Bel Air, MD 21014
- Neighborhood: Bel Air
- Restaurant Type: Local
- Website: http://oysterbarbelair.com/
- Review Date: 11/22/2013 8:45pm
- Atmosphere: Not Busy to Moderate
- Item(s) Ordered: Maryland Crab Cakes
- Cooking Style: Broiled
- Other Styles Available: No
- Available by mail order?: No
- Price: 16.00
- Order Type: Single Platter
- Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
- Filler: More Than Average
- Spice: Average
- Overall Impression: Very Good
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Rating (out of 5 crabs):
