Crabcakes

Jimmy’s Grill

Maine Avenue Fish Market
1100 Maine Ave SW
Washington, DC 20024

Have a lot of free time? Jimmy’s, a stand in the southwest waterfront serving crab cakes, fried fish, clam strips and other artery clogging seafood dishes, is the place to go if you have a hankering for crab cakes and an entire afternoon to waste. First, you stand in line examining the 20 different signs hanging around the shack. Each is printed with a different version of the menu. One offers soft shell crab with fries. Another offers creamed spinach as a side. Then, place your order with the harried cashier standing at knee level inside the buried stand. Then, wait and wait – until the cashier calls your number. All the while, the other customers are interrupting the staff to complain about their order or demand drink refills. There’s no shade at Jimmy’s and no where to sit.

The food is worth it and prices are cheaper than you will find anywhere else in DC. Our crab cake platter was big enough for two. We ate it standing up, underneath a neighboring stand’s umbrellas, overlooking the Potomac. However, there’s another hazard of Jimmy’s. While we were munching on our crab cakes, to the left was a group of Hill interns smashing steam crabs and blabbing on about the Senators they’ve seen in Capitol elevators.

The bill: $9.95 for the crab cake platter

Cheesesteak

Al’s Steak House

1504 Mt. Vernon Avenue
Alexandria, Virginia 22301

While Geno’s, the Philadelphia cheesesteak institution, promotes cheese wiz as the authentic sandwich topping, our Philly source claims that’s false marketing. She says the shop promotes cheap cheese wiz to cut down on the food cost. The real cheese of choice is provolone.

If that’s the case, maybe Al’s Steak House in Alexandria is more authentic than Geno’s. The sub shop only serves its cheesesteaks with provolone. Also varying from your typical cheesesteak, Al’s stuffs its subs with onion, sweet peppers, green peppers etc. While the sandwiches could use a shake of salt, it’s worth the compromise. One Yelper puts it well: “I don’t know if they make a cheesesteak as good here as they do in Philly but I don’t really care. This place is five minutes from my house, Philly is not.”

The bill: $14 for a large

New Haven Pizza

Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza
1400 Irving St NW
Washington, DC 20009

The quest for clam pizza ends, however unlikely, in Columbia Heights. This unassuming lunch spot next to the Metro sells New Haven style pizza to NW hipsters. Although it’s in the same genre as what we ate in New Haven, it’s a distant imitation. My main complaint is their by-the-slice model. Pete’s doesn’t do a brisk enough business to sell by the slice, so the pizza just ends up getting cold. When they reheat it for you, the crust gets a bit burnt while the cheese is still not melted.

The bill: $22.95 for a New Haven style clam pizza

Clam Chowder

Well, despite extensive research we couldn’t figure out where to get an excellent bowl of clam chowder in DC. Although we heard good things about Blacksalt Fish Market & Restaurant (4883 MacArthur Blvd NW) it’s soup features cockles (fancy clams) and costs $11 a bowl. Where can we get a decent bowl of chowder for a reasonable price?

View a map of our trip

Baltimore Crabs:

Crabs are Baltimore’s culinary claim to fame, and Faidley’s Seafood in Lexington Market claims to have the city’s best crab cakes. We had to check it out.

I’m always weary of this dish. Crab cakes are often less lumps of delicious seafood and more hunks of deep fried bread crumbs. Faidley’s gets its crab cakes right. The jumbo lump crab cakes were enormous. They were nicely seasoned with huge chunks of meat and very little filler. However, Faidley’s is not a restaurant. There’s no seating, only long counters that diners stand at while devouring their seafood feasts. Not exactly a great place to relax after fighting our way through holiday rush hour traffic.

The bill: $18.99 for the jumbo lump crab cake platter with 2 sides.

Philly Cheesesteak

Although Philly was in our top places to visit this summer post, the city of brotherly love has been demoted. It’s a dump. I had imagined it to be like Boston: Colonial architecture, cobblestone streets and old townhouses. It wasn’t. However, I may have missed the scenic part of town, because our trip to Philly lasted two hours. That was enough time to grab a cheesesteak and a beer at Devil’s Den.

As a Philly novice, I headed directly toward the most famous sandwich joint in town: Geno’s Steaks. The cheesesteak vendor is controversial. It has sign informing patrons: “This Is America: When ordering please speak English” (it’s in a largely Latino neighborhood) and is covered in police paraphernalia. It serves zenophobic attitude along with its tasty meat and cheese-wiz sandwich.

Some Philly natives, however, who sat beside us at our picnic table (the restaurant has no indoor seating), said that neighboring Pat’s King of Steaks was better. Indeed, the line a Geno’s was nearly all out-of-towners: half visiting businessmen and half teenagers at Jesus summer camp.

The bill: $16 for two sandwiches. No drinks.

New Haven Pizza

A few months ago, I watched a Travel Channel special on the US’s best pizza. They hit the standards: New York, Chicago and some organic, California hippy pies. But the country’s best pizza, known as “apizza,” was in New Haven, Connecticut. I scoffed: “New Haven? When will I ever go there?”

The answer: last week.

New Haven, most famously home to Yale, also has two storied pizza restaurants: Pepe’s and Sally’s. Both serve the thin, mozzarella-less pie. Their specialty is the white clam pizza; it’s thin crust, garlic, oil, clams and a hard cheese, such as asiago.

Sally’s was closed for the 4th. That left us with Pepe’s, the original New Haven pizzeria, which promised a crunchier crust. At 1:30 pm, the line for a table was out the door. However, it was fast-moving and we had a seat within 15 minutes.

The pie was great – and huge. A medium is plenty for three people. It was covered in fresh clams and garlic (two of my favorites). The crust was chewy and light. The staff, however, was grumpy and brought us drinks in minuscule glasses. You can’t have everything.

The bill: $29. One Medium pizza. Two soft drinks. And one Sam Adams in a Pepe’s pint glass.

Boston Clam Chowder

Apparently, Boston is a popular destination on July 4th weekend. The downtown was unbearably crowded with tourists like ourselves. So, on the hunt for the city’s most famous chowder, we had to settle for Quincy Market, a touristy corridor of food stands in the middle of downtown.

The definition of “clam chowder” is a matter of opinion and geography. Here’s a quick lesson: Manhattan chowder (a name that actually came about as a way of insulting Rhode Island clam chowder) is traditionally made with a clear broth and a generous portion of tomatoes. Boston Clam Chowder uses cream or milk based broth, butter, potatoes, and onions. You may have also heard people talk about San Francisco clam chowder, which is really nothing more than Boston clam chowder served in an edible sourdough bowl.

Many locals rave that Boston & Maine Fish Company has the best chowder (I’m saying ‘chowda’ in my head) in the city.  It didn’t disappoint. We squeezed up to the bar and sipped our soup as swarms of visiting families bumbled through the market. The soup was creamy, hot and chock full of clams and potatoes. What more could you ask for?

The bill: $7.50 for clam chowder in a bread bowl. Or get a lobster roll and chowder for $16.