Visiting the Local Watering Hole

For this week’s review, I decided to visit one of my favorite local watering holes. Located at 145 Mayo Road in Edgewater, MD, Waterman’s Tavern is a small restaurant in an unassuming building. Half liquore store, half restaurant, Waterman’s is a local secret. Great food at fantastic prices, it’s a place where the wait staff will know your name and have your drink ready for you upon entrance.

Waterman’s opened last summer, shortly before I moved down here. My roommates are huge fans of this place and convinced me to go one day. Needless to say, I’ve been going back ever since. In the past year that Waterman’s has been open, their menu has expanded to include more seafood items and their restaurant has recently expanded to include booth seating. When I frequent Waterman’s, I typically get a burger, which in this critic’s humble opinion is one of their top menu items. This time, I decided to order a cup of their Waterman’s Crab Soup and an order of their Maryland Crab Cake Sliders. 

Waterman's Crab Soup

First, let’s talk about the soup. For only $3.95 for a cup of soup, you can expect a large coffee mug filled with delicious, spicy tomato broth and fresh vegetables with oyster crackers served on the side. I had expected a small cup for the price and had thought they had mixed up my order and given me a bowl instead. Come to find out, they just serve large portions for reasonable prices.

Rustic in appearance and clearly homemade, the soup is filled with peas, corn, lima beans, carrots and onions. Backfin crab is also present in the soup (hence it’s name), but in all honesty although I could see pieces of the crab, the taste was missing. The soup had a great spicy heat to it, and this ended up being the dominating flavor. A nice aesthetic touch is the crab claw that is included in the soup. While this looks nice and is a fun presentation, here’s my issue: how do you expect me to eat the claw? With no mallet or other claw cracking devices provided to me, I simply couldn’t eat the claw and it sat there in my soup…taunting me. 

Maryland Crab Cake Sliders

Next up was my order of Maryland Crab Cake Sliders. The order comes with two sliders and a side of homemade potato chips. Made with jumbo lump crab meat, folded with house made imperial and pan seared golden brown, the cakes are then topped with a house made tartar, lettuce and tomato and nestled in between two butter toasted slider rolls. My initial thoughts were “wow, those are some small crab cakes.” I understand that the premise of sliders is to be a miniature version of the larger sandwich, but for $10.95 I was expecting them to be slightly bigger, a little fuller.

While small in appearance, the cakes were big on flavor. More meat and less filler, with a light citrus taste and fresh herbs throughout, the pan searing of the cakes gave them a great, crunchy crust. The buttery rolls were a nice complement to the cakes, although at times I felt the bread swallowed up the cake and left it nowhere to be found. The home made tartar provided a great creamy contrast to the crispness of the cake’s crust. While the outside of the crab cake was crunchy, the inside remained tender and moist.

  

Four Claws Decision:  

Waterman’s Crab Soup
Crab Meat Quality:
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Maryland Crab Cake Sliders
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I love Waterman’s Tavern. It’s comfy, it’s cozy and it’s where everybody knows your name. I just don’t completely love their crab soup and sliders. While they were good, they weren’t the best and I don’t think I’ll get either again. I certainly will be back to Waterman’s, but I think I’ll stick to my Sunday brunches and burgers from here on out.

A Hawaiian Paradise in Edgewater, MD

Last week the humidity that has been plaguing the Mid-Atlantic region finally broke. I love summer. I love heat. That’s why I moved here from New England; but when the humidity and temperature are hovering at 98 degrees for over a month, a girl needs a break. That’s why when the humidity broke last week and you could finally sit outside during the day light without instantly turning into a puddle of sweat, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and enjoy some crabs deck side. 

My boyfriend and I jumped in our car and traveled down Route 2 to go to Coconut Joe’s Hawaiian Bar & Grill in Edgewater, MD. With their doors open for less than a year, they’ve received a lot of buzz. Settled upon what has been deemed a “cursed location” of failed restaurants past, it seems Coconut Joe’s may have found their stride and could be the one to break the trend. 

The location is gorgeous. Nestled next to the Route 2 bridge, the outside seating area overlooks the South River and neighboring marinas. We went on a Friday night…on a night when the humidity had finally broken…so needless to say, the place was packed. After waiting for only fifteen minutes, we were quickly seated outside at a picnic table near the children’s play area – a giant jungle gym in the shape of a pirate ship settled gently into sand.

Our waitress came up to us and was friendly and pleasant. We placed our orders – a broiled crab cake sandwich with sweet potato fries for me, shrimp scampi for the bf and crab dip for our friend who decided to join us on that fine evening. I must admit it did take awhile for our food to be served to us, somewhere close to about 25-30 minutes; however, with the gorgeous night and the good people I was with, the time fortunately passed quickly.

Coconut Joe's Crab Cake Sandwich

As soon as my plate was placed before me I knew I was going to enjoy my meal. A heaping serving of fresh lump crab meat with barely any filler, I quickly dived in. The bread, lettuce and tomato were completely unnecessary as the delicate flavors of the crab and the savory spice mixture that lightly dusted the entire crab cake were all I needed. I quickly discarded the trappings of the sandwich and focused on my prize: the giant crab cake that sat before me, begging to be eaten. The cake gently crumbled as I dipped my fork in through the layers of crab, scooping the sweet meat up to my mouth. My God, was this good. The sweet potato fries served as a delicious sweet counterpoint to the slightly spicy crab cake. I also enjoyed the diced fresh herbs that found their way into the layers of the delicate meat.

Coconut Joe's Crab Dip

Our friend offered me a few bites of his crab dip and this did not disappoint either. Gooey, creamy and crab filled, the dip hit all the right notes. Dusted with fresh herbs and served in a large, lightly toasted bread boule with what appeared to be half a sleeve of crackers on the side, the dip makes a perfect appetizer for a crowd of two or more. Or, for my friend, an entire meal for himself. Served at the perfect temperature, the dip is just cheesy enough, but maintains the delicate texture and taste of the crab meat. Again, you can tell the crab meat was fresh and the dip batch recently made.

If I had to find a draw back, it would be this: if you’re on a budget, don’t go here. While the food is delicious and fresh, the prices are high. My crab cake sandwich cost $17, while a double crab cake entrée costs almost $30. With a million dollar renovation (so I’ve been told), I guess Coconut Joe’s stands to make some of that back by way of charging high prices. But with the care they take in their food and the location they have, prices don’t appear to keep the crowds away as the restaurant remained pack from the happy hour crowd late into the evening bar crowd.

The other drawback I found was this: in the six hour period we were there (yes, dinner turned into drinks which turned into night caps), on two occasions we were plagued with a slight stench of ode de sewer. The first time it happened we thought perhaps a child on the pirate ship next to us had had an accident, but as the smell re-emerged its ugly (and smelly) head once the little ones had gone home for the night, we realized there must have been a sewer pipe somewhere near the establishment that on a few occasions decided to share its perfume with the dining crowd of Coconut Joes. This is not what you want to smell when you are enjoying a delicious, fresh crab cake.

Four Claws Decision: 

Crab Cake 
Crab Meat Quality:
Taste:
Texture:
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Crab Dip
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Despite the high prices and occasional odiferous neighbor, I would recommend dining on Coconut Joe’s crab cakes and crab dip. While the prices will keep me from coming back as often as I’d like to, the fresh crab meat and spice blend mixture that coats the cakes will bring me back to Coconut Joe’s for a special occasion, or just maybe on another beautiful night when the humidity happens to break.