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Pat's Pizzeria
Pat's Pizzeria, or Pat's Family Restaurant as you may also know them, started out in Pennsville, NJ back in 1974. Since then, Pat's has grown to be a regional pizza chain in the MD/NJ/DE/PA area. They've always been known as Pat's Pizza, but in 2004 they felt that they had evolved enough that they upgraded their dining rooms and altered the name to be Pat's Family Restaurant. Their pizza speaks for itself, and when the pizza is good, the other menu items tend to follow suit. Did this pattern stay true for their crab cakes? Let's find out!
Crab cake availability will depend on your location. Some locations offer them, some don't. The ones that do may just have them as an entree, a sandwich, or both. The Pat's Pizza that we visited in Bel Air, MD offers crab cakes as a wrap (jumbo lump crab cake, bacon, melted provolone, lettuce, and deli mustard, served with fries), a sandwich (jumbo lump crab cake on a kaiser roll), a sub (jumbo lump crab cakes with lettuce and tomato), and as a dinner (single or double jumbo lump crab cake with fries, cole slaw, and a dinner salad).
For our review, we opted for the sandwich, which, much to our surprise, was nothing more than what the menu described: a crab cake on a kaiser roll. We could have customized our order to include toppings like lettuce and tomato, but we decided to keep the selection as it was on the menu.
The crab cake itself was about 5 oz in size, with large lumps of crab mixed amongst really broken up pieces of crab, to the point that it was mostly shreds of crab. The meat was bound together with a very moist breadcrumb and egg mixture that had the consistency of pâté. You could see some parsley mixed in for color, but we didn't overly sense (or smell) any spices.
The large lumps of crab meat were relatively flavorless except for a fishy aftertaste, and had a dryish texture to them. The broken strings of crab had an even fishier taste to them, and when mixed in with the binder, reminded us of a brown tuna salad. We were either served bad crab, or they used blue swimmer crab (which, in of itself, can be considered bad, especially around Maryland).
The binder didn't have much flavor to it, outside of tasting like breadcrumbs, and we couldn't detect if any seafood spices were used. The crab flavor was pretty overpowering, so we weren't able to taste anything but the crab. The bun had potential to be good, but was a little too toasted, and most of what you could taste was the char from the bun, that lasted far after the bite.
If you couldn't tell, we were less than impressed with this crab cake. The crab meat was subpar, if not suspect, with nothing but a fishy flavor and aftertaste. The binder had an off-putting texture, and the bun was far too burnt to enjoy. Adding some condiments like lettuce, tomato, and maybe some sort of sauce would have helped the crab cake last more than two bites before being thrown in the trash, but at that point you're really just masking what should be the star of the show.
Additional Info
- Restaurant Name: Pat's Pizzeria
- Address: 804 Conowingo Rd. Bel Air, MD 21014 Locations vary in the NJ/MD/PA/DE area
- Neighborhood: Bel Air
- Restaurant Type: Regional Chain
- Website: http://patsfamilyrestaurant.com/
- Review Date: 10/28/2014 1:32pm
- Atmosphere: Not Busy
- Item(s) Ordered: Crab Cake Sandwich
- Cooking Style: Broiled
- Other Styles Available: Yes
- Available by mail order?: No
- Price: 9.99
- Order Type: Sandwich
- Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
- Filler: Average
- Spice: Minimal
- Overall Impression: Stay Away
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Rating (out of 5 crabs):
