Personal Review :
To be honest, it has been so long since we've been to A1 that things may have
changed, but one thing I recall about our visit is that our primary nemesis,
cigarette smoke, was very noticeable. Our experience with A1 was within a
year or two of arriving in Maryland and I believe we tried crab dishes like
the crab cakes, etc., but not the whole crabs themselves. Eating hot crabs
covered with all manner of spices simply wasn't the way crabs were supposed to
be eaten based on our upbringing on the west coast where really good Alaskan
King crab was eaten (cooked) on ice. They are so much better, in our opinion,
and there is so much more to them, that, even though we've tried, we just
haven't been able to get into the Maryland crab habit. As I recall, the food
was good, but given the cigarette smoke and general atmosphere, we opted not
to return. You may consider that our loss, but at least we can breathe and
enjoy more the true non-smokey taste of food elsewhere at non-smoking
restaurants.
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Baltimore Magazine, July 1998 -- "Hot Crabs! Fifteen the hard way: We go in
search of the best crab houses in Baltimore." Written and researched by Linda
Delibero, David Dudley, Cynthia Glover, Georgia Hurff, Catherine Pierre, and
Max Weiss
{Reprinted with permission of Baltimore Magazine}
Among the many delightful oddities of this Essex stalwart, the first thing you might notice about A-1 Crab Haven would be the clowns. Hundreds of clown paintings, figurines, busts, dolls, and other clown-related decorative items peer down at you from the dim and eccentric bar area. The second thing you might notice is the size of the "small" Greek salad. Mixed at the table and loaded with a shocking amount of feta, hard-boiled eggs, salami, stuffed grape leaves, and whatever else they can think of, it could easily serve four when combined with the butter-drizzled, fresh-baked bread that appears at every table. The third and final thing you will notice is the crabs. They are big--the largest of ours nosed eight inches point-to-point. A-1's black-pepper-and-mustard-based spice mix resembles the Obrycki's formula, but it might be even pepperier. And the consistency is that of a moist, gritty paste that sticks to everything it touches. Incredibly messy, and worth every sloppy bite. Our Texas-bred jumbos were fresh from the steamer, fairly heavy (a few were a touch waterlogged), and spicy enough to make a clown cry.