Baltimore: Obrycki's

For our final dinner together in Baltimore, my dad wanted Baltimore crabs. I'd looked up a few crab places and the place closest to Inner Harbor (where we'd hung out all afternoon taking pictures) was Obrycki's:

We didn't really understand street parking in Baltimore, so to play it safe we parked in a parking lot across from the restaurant. We paid $10 up front and got $5 back after we got our ticket validated. Sigh. Turns out street parking is completely okay, so if you ever make the trek out to Baltimore, take advantage of it and don't get sucked into the parking lot.

Anyway, we were lucky to get the sweetest server ever. She lined our table with butcher paper and laid out our utensils:



Eating crab at my house usually requires...teeth. So seeing the mallet got us quite excited and perhaps we were a little overzealous with it, but isn't that the point?

First came the cream of crab soup:

I think the server was a little surprised when we said we only wanted one bowl for the four of us. Besides the tiny clump of crab meat on top, there wasn't much crab meat in the soup. Despite that, the creaminess was delicious.

Our server explained to us how there are two sizes of hard shell blue crab to choose from: medium and large. A dozen medium crabs cost about $50 while a dozen large cost about $70.

We asked how big the large crabs were and our server motioned with her hands. Right when my dad commented on how that was comparable to crab sizes in SF, my sister asked whether the indicated size included the legs. Apparently it did. The shock on my dad's face was priceless.

Our server then asked if we wanted to start with three crabs each. The look on her face when we said we wanted three total just about made my day.

Unlike other more traditional crab places in Baltimore, Obrycki's crabs come with their own special peppery seasoning:



The crab flesh was tasty...but there wasn't much of it. The fun part was smashing at the tiny legs with the mallet.

To get a taste of everything Obrycki's has to offer, we ordered the broiled seafood combination:

It came with crab cake, crab imperial, broiled topped shrimp, flounder, sea scallops, green beans, and fries. I particularly enjoyed the flounder and sea scallops. The crab cake was pretty good too:

...but not as great as what we had at G&M the night before. It was a lot smaller and the exterior not as crunchy.

After a tearful family talk (in which the rest of my family cried and I took photos), my dad suggested we get some dessert. We were recommended to try the eclair supreme:

That had to be the worst eclair in the world! It was hard and just nasty. The best part of the entire dessert had to be either the ice cream and the fudge.

So if you want to go to Obrycki's, park on the street, order the large crabs, order the seafood combination only if you don't know what you like and want to try a bit of everything (otherwise $34 is a little expensive for that platter), and STAY AWAY from the eclair!

Obrycki's

1727 E Pratt St

Baltimore, MD 21231

(410) 732-6399

http://www.obryckis.com/