The Crackpot Restaurant

The Crackpot Restaurant has a special section just for their crab cakes, and they come in numerous flavors. There are also paired options, such as the Surf & Turf, so check the menu if you want something in addition to a crab cake. One thing the menu does not point out is that you can get a double crab cake platter and mix and match the flavors. Our main review and rating is for the traditional crab cake, although we really wanted to try the Cruise Missile (crab cake doused in atomic wing sauce).

The traditional crab cake is a 6 oz. cake comprised of a good ratio of large lumps of crab to broken pieces. All of this crab is bound together by with bread, Dijon, and either egg or mayonnaise. A small bit of spice is thrown in, as well as some parsley for color.

The crab meat has a sweet flavor with a meaty texture. The binder is mostly neutral, but when singled out, has a bit of a pasty flavor at times. We really didn't detect much spice in the mix, and probably more binder in the cake than one would hope for. This was not the case for our Cruise Missile crab cake, so it's all just a matter of the binder not being evenly mixed together. Even so, the crab flavor came through swimmingly, setting itself up as the star of the show.

Overall, we thought this was a very good crab cake. Based on the traditional alone, we felt that it could have used a little less binder and more seafood seasoning. The Cruise Missile crab cake, on the other hand, did have less binder and the atomic wing sauce made up for the lack of seasoning. So our notes would be to add more Old Bay to the traditional to add some complexity to the flavor profile, and to ensure consistency when mixing the binder in with the crab. Get that in check, and you will have a crab cake worthy of being called one of Baltimore's Top 25.

Often you'll hear from crab cake purists that you shouldn't need to flavor up a good crab cake. And for the most part, we'd agree. Even so, it is fun to get a non-traditional crab cake every once in a while. And because we LOVE wings, we had to try the Cruise Missile crab cake. At first it was a bit odd, because the vinegar in the sauce was a bit of a shock. But after a bite or two, we couldn't put our forks down. The crab cake was just doused on the outside of the cake with the wing sauce, so it wasn't mixed all the way through (which would have been overkill). Certainly interesting and delicious, not to mention spicy. Given that the base crab cake is good, we do see ourselves going back to try some of the other flavors. You know, for science! ;^)