Craving A Crab Cake? Tune In To Mpt's Culinary Road Show

"Broiled?" she says. "We don't broil here. Only grill."

Roberts gives her a look that suggests she's peddling grilled wolverine.

"OK, I'll try it," he says gamely.

"I expected to detest it," he told me. "Just didn't think it would work. And I loved it."

The bean counters at MPT probably loved the price, too: $8.95 for a crab cake sandwich, $14.95 for a crab cake platter with two sides.

No wonder Sophia Vasiliades says: "You get champagne on a beer budget - that's what you get with our crab cakes."

I don't know what crab cakes go for at G&M Restaurant in Linthicum. And I'm not sure I want to know, given the softball-sized ones in Eatin' Crabcakes. OK, we're not talking about gold bullion here. But 8 ounces of premium jumbo lump crab meat ain't cheap.

But apparently, these crab cakes are tasty as all get-out, because Roberts talks to a group of soldiers just back from duty in Afghanistan who rave about them.

The soldiers say they literally got off a plane and made a beeline to G&M.

One tells Roberts the crab cakes are so tasty he'd do an eight-month tour of duty, instead of the four he just completed, if he could come back and eat more crab cakes.

I don't know if the poor guy had had a few beers or a few shots or what. But that struck me as a pretty outrageous statement.

Look, I like crab cakes, too, but probably not enough to go back to some godforsaken, war-torn country to get shot at.

On the other hand, maybe I should check out the G&M crab cakes for myself before offering an opinion on this subject.

After all, that's what company expense accounts are for.

Well, they used to be, anyway.