Price's Seafood

Price's Seafood Crab Cake

Price's Seafood has been serving Havre de Grace in its original location since 1944. They consider themselves to be one of the few original "Maryland" crab houses still in operation. You know you're in a legit crab house when all of the tables are lined with brown paper by default, the air smells of seafood seasoning, two different kinds of crab soup are always on the menu, and crackin' crab is the main attraction. Price's is certainly one of those locations. And a great crab house should have a great crab cake as well, right? Well, you'll have to click the link to find out!

Price's Seafood has crab cakes on the sandwich and entree menus. All crab cakes come broiled or fried, and are made with lump crab meat. The sandwich comes on a roll or crackers, with chips and cole slaw on the side; the entree comes with a starch and vegetable. There may also be crab in one of their many daily specials, so check the board when you first walk in. The sandwich on crackers that we used for the basis of this review was served with tartar sauce by default.

The crab cakes are roughly 4oz in size, and claimed to be "Eastern Shore" style. What we received was roughly 60% crab and 40% breading, with the crab meat being mostly broken up. Very few lumps in the mix. All of that crab and breading is bound together with a mayonnaise base, and if there are any spices, then they lean towards the light to non-existent side.

At best, we felt that Price's efforts on the crab cake were just okay. When you could single out a small lump of crab meat, it had a decent amount of sweetness to it. But with the proportion of crab to breading, the bread flavor cancels out the crab, and all you're left with is a bland crab cake that only really hits one note. There wasn't really any visible spicing in the mix, so if any were there, they were in such small amounts as to just get overrun by the breading flavor. More spicing would definitely perk up the flavor a bit. If you're getting a crab cake, definitely ask for a side of crab spice.

Our other concern was with the moisture level of the crab cake. It wasn't saucy, but it wasn't completely dried out, either. But when you break apart the cake with your fork, it just kind of breaks apart lifelessly. A bit more mayonnaise in the mix would help, but so would cutting back on the amount of breading used in the binder. Luckily our crab cake wasn't cooked longer, otherwise it may have come out too dry.

As a side note, the crabs smelt awesome, and we can't wait to go back to try some of the steamed crabs that they are known for!

Additional Info

Restaurant Name: Price's Seafood
Address: 654 Water St Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Neighborhood: Havre de Grace
Restaurant Type: Local
Website: http://www.pricesseafoodrestaurant.net/
Review Date: 04/25/2014 8:24pm
Atmosphere: Moderate to Busy
Item(s) Ordered: Crab Cake
Cooking Style: Broiled
Other Styles Available: No
Available by mail order?: No
Price: 13.99
Order Type: Sandwich
Crab Content: Lump
Filler: Average
Spice: Minimal
Overall Impression: Average
Rating (out of 5 crabs):

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