The dinner entree consists of two jumbo lump crab cakes drizzled with a lemon pepper aioli, served alongside a watercress salad and pickled beets. There is a Maryland Crab Cake Burger on the lunch menu, although it's a bit iffy on if by "burger" they simply mean a crab cake sandwich.
While there are some lumps of crab meat in the cakes, the lumps are mostly broken up. This is your normal style crab cake, so not much by way of breading, but the cakes at least have a good moisture to them. Predominate spice is Old Bay until you get to the bits of chopped up onion. Lemon pepper aioli adds a tiny bit of additional flavor, but next to the spicing, it really just ends up being more for decoration.
This crab cake had potential, but sort of fell flat. The crab has a decent flavor to it, but the spicing just overpowers any of that sweet crab flavor that you were looking forward to. Once you've gotten over the saltiness of the Old Bay, then you also have to content with the bits of crunchy onions, which also have an overpowering flavor. Tone down the Old Bay and get rid of the onions, and this might turn out to be a decent cake after all.
Have you encountered the Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes at Luminous? Tell us about it in the comments!
