Decided out of the blue to treat my wife to her favorite: crab cakes. We have lived near Angelina's for 5 years, and seen "For Sale"; "For Public Auction" but never much in the way of people going in and out. Inspired by these encouraging signs, I chose Angelina's, buoyed by the history of their crab cakes. The interior of the restaurant is clean and quite cheerful. The night we were there it was chilly inside, and half of the guests were eating with their jackets on. The waitress eventually fiddled with the thermostat, and after that it was reasonable. The waitress was polite and affable, but did not offer to take our coats, which, given the chill was not such a bad thing. The menu is sensibly limited, given some places' affinity for putting 150 dishes on it. A frayed basket of cheap supermarket bread did nothing to spark our taste buds and went untouched. We both ordered a cup of cream of crab soup which was good: very hot and contained plenty of crab. Unfortunately both cups had plenty of the soup running down the side which was messy and careless. The crab cakes arrived, and were delicious (we had ours broiled, not fried): almost no filler, nicely seasoned and worth the trip. We did not have dessert. The check for two sodas; 2 soups; a single 5oz crabcake platter (with 2 sides); a single 8oz platter and 2 coffees came to $70 with tip. While there were some cheaper entrees, plenty of other items on the menu ran well into the upper $30 range. Not bad if you're used to New York or Chicago prices, but in Baltimore $35 will put you in a similar pricepoint to powerhouses like Black Olive; Kali's Court or Pazo, and above quality and service like Helmand, all reachable without the grim trek up Harford Road. 2 last quibbles. Guests paying $70 for dinner should have clean, well-stocked bathrooms and not salvage from a Hopkins-area rehabber's dumpster, and Baltimore nightmares like apple rings and mac'n'cheese are not, and never will be vegetables.
Pros: Crabcakes are worth the hype
Cons: Bleak, expensive, bad parking, 1920's bathrooms, nasty bread
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