Choptank

Posted by bellastraniera - 25/01/10 at 04:01 pm

Has there ever been a real Maryland-style seafood restaurant in New York? You can find Philly cheese steak, Southern food, Austrian food, Cuban food, even Malaysian food faster than you can find a decent crab cake in this town. And the attempts of New York chefs to appropriate Maryland seafood are often bungled, such as the “crab boil.” As the folks at the Hideaway know, you should never, ever boil the delicate blue crab. They should be steamed.

Choptank, backed by several Maryland natives including food and cocktail consultant (and friend of mine) Kevin Patricio, has boldly gone where no New York restaurant has gone in recent memory: into the wilds of Baltimore, land of “The Wire.” There are Old Bay potato chips on the menu and pictures of tall ships on the walls—just like home, hon.

The menu is varied enough that you could avoid Maryland food—or even seafood—altogether, but we wanted to test the Maryland classics. Peel ‘n’ eat shrimp ($12) is a faithful rendition of the Baltimore dish you can find at Cross Street Market in Federal Hill or John Steven’s in Fells Point. Ours arrived a tad on the hot side, so that Deens termed it “peel-and-check-yourself-into-the-burn-unit shrimp,” but if you can wait for it to stop steaming, you’ve got yourself some meaty, spicy shrimp.

Anyone who’s eaten Utz’s Crab Chips will recognize the Old Bay chips and crab dip here ($5), which are basically a gourmet, homemade version of the store-bought kind. The crab dip needs to lighten up a little, however: right now it’s hard to budge with a chip.

Choptank’s crab chowder ($12) is unorthodox: it’s made with a cream base rather than the beef stock and tomato base of a typical Maryland crab soup. But the velvety texture, large chunks of crab, and wonderfully flavorful minced bacon make it worth your while anyway.

Why do American chefs go all the way to Spain for jamon when we have such excellent ham right here? That’s the question that came to mind with Choptank’s salty-sweet Virginia ham ($8), sliced paper thin and served with bacony, dense biscuits, butter and honey. Good Virginia ham is an important part of Maryland and Southern dining—it deserves to be in the spotlight more often.

Twann, who threatened to drive his Camaro through the window when he learned there was no Natty Boh beer at Choptank (they don’t distribute in New York), said of the cocktail menu: “I don’t know no Trappist ales.” Indeed, we ain’t got that in Balmer, hon. But the bourbon cider cocktail ($12) has nice fall flavor—and bourbon is the other nearly-official drink of Maryland.

Any of Twann’s misgivings about the place were dispelled when he bit into the light but savory rock shrimp taco appetizer ($6), a great combination of mid-Atlantic fried shrimp and Mexican-style spices and “lime slaw.”

Most people associate fried chicken with the Deep South, but we have plenty of it in Maryland, home of the Perdue chicken empire. Choptank’s fried chicken ($20) has a crunchy, slightly spicy crust and a juicy interior and is served alongside an interesting black pepper honey that really takes the whole fried chicken concept up a notch.

I cannot report on the crispy oyster po’ boy ($15) because someone ate it all before I got to taste it, though this is generally a good sign. This is obviously more New Orleans than anything, but closer to home base are the boardwalk-style fries ($5) are thick cut, salty and vinegary, just like we remember them from the beach towns dotting the Delaware and Maryland shore.

Then the moment of truth: the crab cake ($24). As noted, many New York restaurants totally butcher this Maryland specialty. The key is to keep it simple, and Choptank does just that: the crab is left in pristine, jumbo-lump form, lightly gathered together in a big round ball and seared on each side. There’s a little bit of lemon, a little bit of mustard, and a millepois of celery in the mix, but little else to distract from the star ingredient: excellent-quality crab. In fact the cafeteria-style iceberg salad and saltines served alongside may be a little too bare bones, but they’re still tweaking the menu here.

The interior of Choptank is buzzy and pleasant, with spacious seating and two bars (one of which is manned by a Gilman grad). Somehow they hit on the exact right shade of green for the walls—the same dark green of old wooden shutters on red brick factory buildings along the railroad tracks between Philadelphia and Baltimore, and the same green that once graced the interior of the Polo Grill across from Johns Hopkins. The design is upscale but casual, with brass fixtures and vintage nautical prints on the walls.

We only questioned why owners Bobby Werhane and Joshua Morgan felt the need to include such New York-y dishes as braised octopus, arctic char, and baked gigante beans on the menu. It would be better if Choptank just doubled down on mid-Atlantic food and said, “Let them eat crab cakes.” But the other fallout of this cuisine is a type of Maryland food that’s more nuanced and sophisticated than almost anything you’ll find in Maryland, and for that, we are  grateful.

Choptank
308-310 Bleecker Street, between Grove and Barrow Streets
New York, NY
212-675-2009
choptanknyc.com

Full disclosure: As mentioned, Mr. Patricio is a friend of mine, but he didn’t know I was there that night until the very end. I came in disguise.

Related posts:

• Choptank: Maryland-Style Seafood in New York?
• Choptank: The Menu
• Cantler’s Crab Shack, Maryland
• Blue Crab Mondays at the Hideaway
• Hecho en Dumbo

Posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Tags: bars, New York, restaurants, seafood.
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