Ricky, Kat and I all won at poker Friday night which was a good thing because we had another big foodie Saturday planned. We started by meeting up with Kat’s co-worker at noon at Setagaya for a ramen lunch. Setagaya is still getting a nice line of customers before they open, still almost all Japanese people, except for us of course. It’s certainly well deserved as this return visit has shown that they are definitely consistent. Still that same delicious but not overbearing soup, the perfect noodles, the beautifully soft cooked egg and those wonderful accents of seaweed, green onion and bamboo shoots. It really is the perfect lunch and light enough to not drag you down when you have a long drive ahead of you…for more eating.

Our featured destination for the day was Bo Brooks crab house in Baltimore, right on the harbor in the marina. Traffic was bad in a few spots on the turnpike, but we left plenty early and still got there an hour early for our 6:30p reservation. Dawg and The Family Boon were meeting us there and they were running late so we just grabbed a beer and suffered through a torturous hour of watching other customers eat while the alluring aroma of old bay seasoning drove us crazy with anticipation and hunger.

They finally arrived and we were lucky enough to get seated outdoors on the little deck overlooking the marina. The weather was perfect for this sort of thing and we’d get the chance to see the sun go down to boot. Although in reality, I think I actually ended up missing the sunset because I had something more enthralling right in front of me:

We ordered two dozen crabs (extra large because they were out of Jumbo and Colossal), crab cakes, crab fluff, two orders of onion rings, two orders of fried oysters, crab dip, crab soup, corn on the cob and cole slaw. The crab soup was the least impressive app, tasting like thin minestrone with crab meat and old bay. Everything else I thought was great. The crab cakes were mainly crab and seasoned with old bay, almost identical to the ones I make except these were about five times bigger. The crab fluff was a battered version of crab cakes and while I didn’t think the batter really lent all that much to the dish, it was still delicious because the crab meat and seasoning were the same as the crab cakes. The crab dip was served in a bread bowl and it was incredibly rich and cheesy, the kind of thing that immediatlely makes you think about how bad it must be for you yet it doesn’t stop you from eating more. I loved the fried oysters too. They were big and encased in a crispy fried batter that seems to have jacked the eleven herbs and spices from the Colonel’s original recipe, and really, what red-blooded American doesn’t love that flavor? The highly touted o-rings were colossal and very respectable although not something I would consider a must have, especially with all the other fried stuff on our table. The terrific cole slaw was of the finely minced variety and was the perfect thing to cut the richness of all the other stuff we were eating. I passed on the corn on the cob so I can’t comment on that. But the crab, oh the crab… The meat in those beauties was plentiful and had an extra fresh plumpness to them compared to the little blue crabs I’m used to getting in NY’s chinatown. Delicately sweet and yet very well seasoned from the crab boil, they were an absolute pleasure to eat. It made us giddy every time we managed to crack the body just right and expose an entire perfect giant lump of crab meat. And even when we couldn’t keep the whole lumps intact, the individal shreds of crab meat were still pretty big and plump. It was messy good fun. What a great meal.

After dinner we made our way over to Baltimore’s Little Italy for dessert at Vaccaro’s Italian Pastries. When we got there, there was a long line which started at there corner entrance and ran straight out, literally into the middle of the intersection. I have no clue why Baltimoreans would choose to line up out into the middle of the street like that. Sure the door is positioned right on the corner, but there was plenty of sidewalk to use if they simply wrapped the line around to the side. Does Maryland custom dictate that all lines must form perfectly perpendicular to the door? Strange. But I figured they must have some damn good dessert in there if people are willing to stand in traffic in the middle of a four way intersection for it. Fortunately for us, the majority of the line was waiting to get take out. We were promptly seated in the air conditioned upstairs dining room. Not wanting anything too heavy before the long drive home, I just opted for a double espresso and a scoop of their lemon granita. And I must say, I made an excellent choice. While the espresso was not that strong, its flavor and aroma were really pleasant. The real star of the show though, was the granita. It was a scoop of gently sweet, mildly lemony soft snow, exactly like the Italian Ices I had when I was a kid in Queens, except here it was served in a big elegant glass dish instead of one of those little pleated paper cups. I totally had a brief Anton Ego moment there, as the flavor swept me back to memories of being 14 years old, hanging out at the old pizzeria on Austin St. where I used to play Centipede, treat myself to a pepperoni slice and follow it up with an Italian Ice on hot summer days. Having gone to Baltimore just for crabs, happening upon this granita was an unexpected pleasure; a real treat and a wonderful surprise ending to cap off our foodie road trip.