The one food trend that Maryland does better than anyone else is the crabcake. I have yet to have one anywhere else in the world that rivals an authentic crabcake that I have when I'm at home. That's why I usually don't eat them outside of MD. While I usually go to the same few places around home, I recently saw a bit on the Travel Channel about this place up in Baltimore that has been around for centuries and called the "best crabcake in Maryland". It's located in the old historic Lexington Market and it had been a while since I had been to Baltimore so I figured it was worth the 45 min trek up there. But before I went, I made the mistake of reading Yelp and people had really terrible things to say about the market - most described it as "seedy", gross and full of homeless people and drug users. While I usually take everything I read on there with a grain of salt, it did scare me off a bit because so many people had said to stay away.
I decided to still go anyways and I'm glad I went. After entering the market, I immediately became incensed at what people were saying about it. If you're going expecting something like the Chelsea Market in NYC or Union Market in DC, you'll be sorely disappointed. But that's the point of this place - not everything in this world is a nice bougie artisanal wonderland. This is Baltimore people - did you see The Wire? It's still very blue collar/working class. You can't expect to bring in some snotty yuppie-fied market where they sell $10 cups of broth (I'm looking at you Chelsea Market - but I still love you!) to a neighborhood like this. This is a market for the locals and the locals here aren't rich. Yes, the place is a bit of the rough side but that's totally fine. To say in your Yelp review that the place is crawling with drug addicts and homeless people and that you feared for your life is an unfair depiction of a working class neighborhood where clearly people are on hard times. If anything, Faidley has a separate entrance where you don't even have to really walk through most of the market if you didn't want.
It's clear that Faidley is the star of the market. It's still pretty old school - the matriarchy still works in the kitchen and you see her hand making all the crabcakes. It's kind of cafeteria style where you order in line, get your food on a tray and then pay the cashier at the end. There are no sit down tables, only stand up tables for you to eat your food. Of course you come here for the crabcakes but they also have a raw bar station and another station where you can order steamed seafood. I got the crabcake platter ($20.95) which comes with a jumbo lump crabcake and 2 sides - I got the mac and cheese and potato salad. The crabcake is as advertised - full of delicious lump crabmeat and nothing else. It's nicely broiled on the outside with a hint of sear and crunch to it but soft on the inside. I love that it was a straight-up crabcake and not a sandwich because then you can really focus on the crab. Would I say that it's the best crabcake in the world? I'm not sure, but it is pretty damn good. The sides were totally fine - you probably actually don't need them and could just get the crabcake for $14 and focus on getting more food at the raw bar instead. The raw bar serves 2 things oysters and clams - I opted for the cherrystone clams (6 for $6.30) because they are meatier and you don't see them in a ton of raw bars. They were fantastic. At first I was a bit hesitant because I saw the shucker just pull the clams out of a storage bag but they were plump, clean, and fresh with a hint of ocean water taste to it. They weren't as large as the ones at Maison Premiere but those are actually almost too big to handle - these were nice mouthfuls of clam-y goodness.
I'm really glad that I didn't listen to the Yelp reviews and avoid this place. While I would agree and say that the market itself is not necessarily a foodie destination, it's definitely not the scary place that it's made out to be. If you can handle a slightly down on your luck crowd and ignore all the riff raff, you'll be fine. It's definitely authentic and where the locals go and if you're nice to them, they'll be nice to you right back. If you're really not down with that kind of crowd, you can easily use the Faidley side entrance to avoid all of it and stay in the bubble of the stall. Total bill: $75 for 3 platters and a clam chowder, $9 for the 9 clams
Photo Credit: Yelp
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