Let's talk crab [NJ]

Our conversation at my mixed grill food challenge turned towards Drews and I was not alone in my feelings Drews has been dissapointing my last couple trips there. Apps are still excellent but some problems with a few different entrees on more than one visit.

Gotta be honest with you, I have yet to find a good eastern shore style crab cake around here.

I have to get in a kitchen down there and see how they make them.

Down there they are light and soft and delicately seasoned.

Around here all I seem to get are old bay flavored hockey pucks.

And when I make them at home, even tho I chill them down, they still fall apart all the time.

http://travelhag.com/2013/02/08/fishermans-inn-best-crab-cake/

Oh man…where do they have old bay cakes around here? Everything I come across comes with remoulade sauce and and quite a bit of filler.

I think you know this, but almost every crab cake around here is made with Asian blue meat. To process blue claws is extremely expensive here with our minimum wage. The labor doesn’t pay off when local Asians here will pay top dollar for live crab. Indo and Filipina women will shell crab for under a buck an hour so you can see why those crabs make their way here into crab cakes. They still are delicious.

Well they comment on that in the article. Asian crab does not taste the same. So that could be a big part of the problem.

I didn’t even see that article. I was posting as you wrote that. Let me check it out…

Yeah I’m sure there are polyphosphates and other crap in that Asian crab meat that messes up the moisture ratio and means you have to add extra filler to bind it.

I tried last night but the wind was cranking. Skunked. I gave it like ten minutes and quit. conditions were terrible but a nice stiff north ocean breeze was feeling nice. It switched from afternoon south to north in the evening. Fall is coming

Ps…cool article

Nothing last night…tried scooping. I think the season is almost done :confused: two stripers and one bluefish though.

Does anyone have any recommendations on store bought crab cakes? I like the Philips cakes. With a pad of butter melted on top and a tad bit of old bay I think they are decent. I get the Costco package.

It’s been blowing pretty hard the last couple days, you must have balls of steel.

crabbing will end but bass, tog, flounder and clamming will be soon

@NotJrvedivici sorry to hear about your loss buddy. Merry Christmas!

So I went to char recently. ONE stone crab claw 19 dollars lol. Yeah I’m serious. I didn’t get any but I should have had a few now that I think of it. I love those things.

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Thank you

This past summer was an off year for local crabbing. Went down to Baltimore’s Lexington Market for some steamed crabs and crab cakes. Found some of the biggest oysters I have ever seen. $2 a piece for slipper sized and not chewy or tough at all. Joe’s Crab Shack in Eatontown had a temporary sign out front “Crabs-all-U -can eat” a few months ago. I don’t think it was going to be blue crabs since they don’t normally serve them. Nothing on their website indicated the what the special was.

I picked up more dredged crabs from Belford for Christmas. Some nice sized jimmies that were loaded with meat. Some were scooped from mud and others were not. The gills were muddied but rinsed off easily and did not affect the taste. I think they will continue dredging for another month or so.

Alright folks it is almost time. Has anyone been out yet? 3 weeks ago in Bayville we got the first keeper. It has been really slow and all have been let go to grow up. @VikingKaj

My uncle Mike and my gramps with the first keeper of the season. So far it has been a lot of small crabs but it is early. I havent hit the navesink, my home turf.

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You got me thinking. Should be soft shell season. Didn’t that start a couple weeks ago?

They’re certainly on menus of late…

March 15th it opens but obviously no one is catching anything in march and April. I got one soft and she went back to lay some eggs

Has anyone been to bum rodgers? I hear commercials for that spot on the radio.

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Ever, or lately? I was there in March and usually are there once a year around that time. Seems like your average bar/pub/restaurant type thing. Burgers are good, I’ve only really been there to have a few drinks with friends. Think of it like Broadway in Point a little further south. At least foodwise.

Nothing on our docks in Monmouth Beach yet.

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