I liked your review of Riptide. A crab cake sandwich with bacon?? Cool! I'll have to get down there next time I'm in town.
I'll make sure we stick with the "if it goes with beer" caveat.

how does one read your articles in the sunday magazine section
thanks

Unfortunately, there is no longer a Sunday magazine. My review appears in the Arts & Life Today section. EL

I'm curious to see what's memorable about it. The menu is incredibly boring with not one thing that intrigues me. They'd have to do an amazing job at old-time standards to get me in there.

It may not be your kind of restaurant, but I try to judge a place on how well it succeeds at what it's trying to do. EL

Crab cake sandwich with bacon? Calling Bacon Girl! I can't put the Owl Signal in the sky because it's daylight, but if you truly are out there lurking for us, I hope you will chime in. Mmmm... bacon. Mmmm... girls (and by that I mean adult women for which this is a diminuitive nickname that in no way way demeans the weaker sex,). Mmmm... sexual equality.

EL wrote I try to judge a place on how well it succeeds at what it's trying to do.

Sometimes that's not so easy to figure out!

I have been trying to get my head around the bacon and crabcake thing all day.

One can *never* go wrong with bacon, but I wonder how a crab cake (which can be kind of squishy for lack of a better word) can physically hold up to applewood bacon slices (oooh i'm getting all tingle-y just thinking about those) without it all kind of falling apart in a big mess (not that I'm necessarily against that).

As for the dressing, I don't think you should do that to a crab cake or to bacon. But who knows? I haven't tried it.

(my verification letter is "b" - how cool is that?)

Guess where I'm going for lunch tomorrow?

EL - is the remoulade a necessary component of the bacon crabcake sandwich? I'm seriously thinking about asking them to hold the sauce when I go.

I think that wouldn't be a bad idea. EL

It may not be your kind of restaurant, but I try to judge a place on how well it succeeds at what it's trying to do. EL

I'm of a couple of minds on this. Your point is valid, and that's one reason that I've always appreciated Ebert's movie reviews -- he does not attempt to compare Spiderman to Casablanca, but reviews based on relative criteria.

But there is also the more vague question of whether or not what is being attempted is worth doing in the first place. I have a hard time believing that another steak / grilled fish / ubiquitous crabcake joint is going to be interesting, the same way I feel about yet another silly teen comedy. But I'm willing to be convinced.

I don't think you should be convinced. I think for people who want this kind of food, Fin does it well. A lot of places don't. EL

Bacon and crab sounds fantastic together! and when one says "I try to judge a place on how well it succeeds at what it's trying to do." I believe good food is the main criterion at the end of the day, regardless of price and serving size.

Don't know about bacon and crab, but Smithfield ham, really finely chopped, makes an occasional appearance in my crabcakes -- especially after trips to the Virginia Eastern Shore. That big restaurant in the shopping center on the bay side of Chincoteague does a nice Crab Norfolk, which is lump meat, Smithfield ham and butter.

I was thinking about this last night ... bacon and crab sounds plausibly good, but what about .... lightly smoked crab? It's always been my contention that crab is a supporting player, not a star, and that's it needs all that crap like Old Bay. How about adding a little smoky flavor? I don't know, maybe that just crazy.

Crab Norfolk - That's exactly what I was thinking of while reading about crab/bacon. Mmmmm to both of them!

Nancy Longo used to serve tasty smoked crabcakes at Pierpoint (and maybe still does...I haven't been there in years).

Hmm--I used to make one version of Crab Norfolk, but I don't remember any ham, Smithfield or otherwise. Was I committing culinary heresy?

Dahlink,

What is your version of CN. My experience has always been with some kind of good ham,i.e. not boiled and real ham flavor.

LEC, I used the very simple recipe from The Shellfish Cookbook by Marian Tracy. It called for one pound of the very freshest lump crab meat, divided into four individual small casseroles (we used large scallop shells). You melted one stick of butter and mixed that with one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, plus salt and cayenne pepper. Pour that over the crab and heat in the broiler just until it sizzles. This is more filling than it sounds.

Most recipes that turned up in a Google search for "Crab Norfolk" tracked Dahlink's recipe, except that most use vinegar instead of lemon juice. (Some even use beer instead of lemon juice.) A few recipes add ham.

Correct as usual, hmpstd. My cookbook says to use either vinegar or lemon juice. I just prefer to use the juice.

Sounds good, Dahlink! I'm going to try this very soon.