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The Olive Tree
For over 20 years, The Olive Tree has been serving fresh, local, authentic Italian cuisine in the Aberdeen area. What started out as 10 bar stools and 8 booths has quickly grown to two newly renovated locations with a loyal (and growing!) customer base. In July 2013, friend of the CCR and one of the owners, Mindy H., invited us to come sample their local seafood offerings, particularly the crab cakes, which have been one of their top sellers since they opened. Look online at any of the reviews for The Olive Tree, and they will all mention crab cakes. So we recently stopped by to pay them a visit, and check out one of our favorite treats. Read on to see if the crab cakes are as good as the pasta looks!
The Olive Tree offers jumbo lump crab cakes for both lunch and dinner, however for lunch you are limited to a sandwich, and for dinner, a single or double entree. The sandwich comes fried or broiled on a brioche roll with french fries; the dinner entree is broiled only with your choice of one side. Both are also served with unlimited Italian salad and breadsticks. The dinner menu also includes crab cakes with other menu items, such as the Surf & Turf, and the Broiled Seafood Platter. And while not crab cakes, crab meat does make its way into other entree items as well. This review is for the entree at the Aberdeen location. All prices are market price.
The crab cake is a fairly large size, about as big as a fist (which is helpful to know if you're trying to decide between the single or double entree!). Lots of large lumps of jumbo lump crab meat, mixed in with a few broken pieces, held together with a saucy mixture of predominately mayonnaise, spices, and a small amount of bread. The claims of all killer with no filler is correct! While the cake is on the saucier side, it still has a good bit of structure to it, and is mostly crab meat.
We absolutely loved this crab cake! It was moist, flavorful, and had all the right features of a truly remarkable crab cake. The first thing you notice is the flavor of the crab, which really pops out at you. Flavor of the binder is mostly neutral, giving off a slight hint of bread, but mostly just staying out of the way. Spicing was on point, hanging out in the back, but accentuating the crab meat with the right amount of additional spices. Flavor and binder mixture is consistent, keeping things interesting throughout your entire meal. The only thing we'd recommend is to dial back the binder a tiny bit, but that's just us. Either way, you're in for a righteous crab cake!
Additional Info
- Restaurant Name: The Olive Tree
- Address: 1005 Beards Hill Rd Aberdeen, MD 21001
- Neighborhood: Aberdeen
- Restaurant Type: Local Chain
- Website: http://www.marylanditalianrestaurant.net/
- Review Date: 12/03/2013 6:36pm
- Atmosphere: Busy
- Item(s) Ordered: Maryland Crab Cake
- Cooking Style: Broiled
- Other Styles Available: No
- Available by mail order?: No
- Price: 18.95
- Order Type: Single Platter
- Crab Content: Jumbo Lump
- Filler: Average
- Spice: Average
- Overall Impression: Outstanding
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Rating (out of 5 crabs):
