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Mama's On The Half Shell
Mama's On The Half Shell set out to provide Baltimore with a "classic" seafood house that the city was desperately missing. A seafood house with tastes and smells that Baltimoreans can remember growing up with. While there are still some out there, you first have to find them, and then get to them. And they'll most likely not be anywhere near the Inner Harbor. Luckily, Canton is accessible by water taxi, so the adventuresome tourists can leave the sanctity of the Harbor and venture out to parts unknown. And it must be worth the trip, as this place was packed on a Tuesday afternoon with tourists and locals alike. But a raw bar and drink specials aren't enough. A classic Baltimore flavor is the crab cake. How did they do? Let's find out!
Crab cakes are 6 oz. and come with Mama's tartar sauce. Menu indicates that the sandwich is available broiled or fried; the platters do not indicate a choice, nor did the wait staff ask. (The default is broiled, so if you want your platter fried, tell your server) Single/double platters come with your choice of two sides and are also served with a lemon wedge. Shakers of Old Bay are available at each table, but you will only need them for the fries.
With the mission of running a classic Baltimore seafood house, one would expect the crab cakes to be Maryland style, which is typically heavy on the bread crumb filler. These crab cakes were saucy, although they did have a bread crumb texture to the sauce. The crab meat was nice and sweet, as Maryland crab should be. Jumbo lump was our guesstimation at the crab type, as there were one or two jumbo lumps in the cake. Otherwise, they were mostly broken up, but not too many shreds.
Overall, this was a really good crab cake. The crab actually had flavor, and the Old Bay is certainly a classic Baltimore flavor when it comes to crab cakes. Our only concern was that the Old Bay flavor was a bit heavy in a few spots, causing those bites to be overly salty. Mix up the sauce a little better before mixing it in with the crab meat, and they'll be good to go. Certainly worth the boat ride over.
Additional Info
- Restaurant Name: Mama's On The Half Shell
- Address: 2901 O'Donnell St Baltimore, MD 21224
- Neighborhood: Canton
- Restaurant Type: Local
- Website: https://www.mamasonthehalfshell.com/
- Review Date: 06/29/2011 5:49pm
- Atmosphere: Busy
- Item(s) Ordered: Crab Cake Platter
- Cooking Style: Broiled
- Other Styles Available: Yes
- Available by mail order?: No
- Price: 15.99
- Order Type: Single Platter
- Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
- Filler: Average
- Spice: Average
- Overall Impression: Very Good
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Rating (out of 5 crabs):
