Anyone who has scarfed a crab cake while standing up outside Faidley's Seafood in Lexington Market won't find the concept of a fast-food crab restaurant unusual.
But it was a big step for the Chesapeake Bay Gourmet Company. After 25 years as a crab cake factory in Baltimore, including a lucrative gig pitching its products on the QVC shopping channel, the company has opened its first restaurant - and it hopes to turn the concept of eat-on-the-run crab cakes into a national franchise.
For its first stab at restauranting, the company has chosen a terrific location. It's in the Hunt Valley Towne Centre, a giant shopping center featuring the state's only Wegmans supermarket, high-end clothing stores and a row of "fast-casual" restaurants, including Noodles and Company and Panera Bread. On a recent Saturday night, the center was so crowded that finding a parking space was difficult.
The restaurant, called Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes and More, fits right in, and, frankly, it's nice to see a locally owned restaurant in the mix.
But compared to some of the other restaurants, CBCCM is small and spare, with none of the warm colors of a Panera, for example. The restaurant's narrow space is crowded with eight tiny round tables, each barely large enough to hold food for two.
Customers order at the counter in the back, and the food is brought out to them. A computer is set up near the entrance for diners so enchanted with the food they need to place a retail order on the spot.
The extravagance of the food is something of a shock in these surroundings.
From crab fluff to lobster pizza, this is decadent dining, luscious seafood combined with creams, butters and cheeses. In many restaurants, the same dishes would cost $25 and up; at CBCCM, a lobster pizza large enough for two is $7.95, and a fat six-ounce crab cake sells for $10.95.
You save money because there's no wait staff and not much atmosphere. The skimping certainly doesn't apply to the food. The crab cakes are impressive - lots of enormous snow-white lumps, some mayo and not much else. A heart-healthy version ($7.95), made with egg whites, fat-free mayo and low-salt spices, featured similarly large lumps of seafood and tasted almost exactly the same.
My choice would be the heart-healthy version, simply to balance the richness of other dishes. That lobster pizza is coated with a very creamy lobster sauce, as well as sizable - though not particularly tender - lumps of meat.
A crab and shrimp quesadilla ($7.95) was loaded with so much cheese that the delicate flavors of the seafood were overpowered. This dish arrived with tiny plastic pots of completely forgettable salsa and guacamole, as well as sour cream.
I have a theory that nobody eats fried calamari for the taste of the squid, since it hardly has any. It's all about the coating, and the CBCCM version ($5.95) was hot, crispy and quite salty. The generous portion of tender rings and tentacles came with a zingy cocktail sauce containing lots of horseradish.
For such a small restaurant, the menu is both extensive and ambitious, ranging from appetizers like crab dip ($7.95) and coconut shrimp ($6.95) to soups that include smoked salmon and corn chowder ($4.95) and lobster bisque ($7.95) to entrees like a marinated tuna steak with salsa and grilled veggies ($7.95) and even sides like cole slaw ($3.95), potato salad ($3.95) and sweet potato fries ($2.95).
Even desserts are a big deal at CBCCM. Steve Cohen, president of the company, said small vendors throughout the country provide unusual regional treats, including Racine Danish Kringles ($8.95) that resemble giant frosting-covered crullers, Key lime pies ($3.95) and red velvet cake ($4.25).
We chose a mini apple pie ($4.95) that was baked in a brown paper bag and served warm, the bag ripped open to reveal mounds of sweet apples overflowing a flaky crust. Delicious.
Cohen said the Hunt Valley restaurant is small on purpose. Less space and no wait staff means franchisees will have fewer expenses, he said.
It's easy to imagine that this concept will catch on. It already seems to be doing well in Maryland.
Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes and More
Where:
118 Shawan Road, Hunt Valley Towne Centre, Hunt Valley
Call:
410-229-2292
Open:
Daily for lunch and dinner
Credit cards:
All major
Prices:
Appetizers $2.95-$9.95, entrees $6.95-$10.95
Food:
*** (3 STARS)
Service:
** (2 STARS)
Atmosphere:
** (2 STARS)
[Outstanding:**** Good:*** Fair or uneven:** Poor:*
