Notable Nosh: Crab cakes | Sybaritica

For most of my life, I have always been a little ambivalent when it comes to either fishcakes or crab cakes. Mostly, my disinterest stems from the fact that I find fish, and especially shellfish, to lose its richer tastes and sweetness when it is chopped or minced to finely before cooking. In the Northeastern US, they take their crab cakes very seriously and I have recently seen quite a few television cooking shows discussing the various types in loving and graphic detail. Many looked really good and I decided that maybe I should give the dish another try.

I recently sampled the ones you see pictured above at Vineyards Restaurant in Ottawa and, while I wasn’t exactly blown away by the experience, I did find them better than I expected.

The menu described the cakes as being herbed, but, while I could see green flecks in the center, I couldn’t actually pin-point any particular flavor other than, perhaps, parsley. The Garlic-Lemon Aioli that came on the side was actually quite tasty but it was bit too robust for the dish and tended to mask the delicate taste of the cakes. Just plain lemon juice might have been better. As for the cakes themselves, while somewhat tasty, the meat was ground much too finely which not only gave them a rather textureless, paste-like consistency, it also robbed them, as I have often found, of the natural sweetness. Many of the ones I saw on the aforementioned cooking shoes used much chunkier pieces of crab and I am sure this is the way to go…

Anyway, I should like to try making these myself sometime but before that I would be very interested to hear from my readers as to what particular qualities and techniques they think are essential for a top-quality crab cake…

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