Breakfast, lunch and dinner at The Captain's Table

Around town

Friday, July 3, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DARWIN WEIGEL Bob and Jeannie Massaro, owners of the The Captain's Table in Solomons, show their crab imperial-stuffed shrimp with a baked potato and vegetables, left, and two fried crab cakes with coleslaw and french fries. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Crab imperial-stuffed shrimp with a baked potato and vegetables, front, and two fried crab cakes with coleslaw and french fries.

In Southern Maryland, in a place known for waterside seafood spots serving filler-free crab cakes, The Captain's Table is yet another place that seems unlikely to disappoint.

While servers sport pirate T-shirts, I doubt Captain Hook will show up on the back porch for orange roughy parmesan ($18) or stuffed lobster tail ($28) anytime soon. The cozy, relaxing restaurant faces Solomons' small harbor, and the house is in a stone parking lot at the end of Lore Road.

The Captain's Table starts each day at 7 a.m. Breakfast items are more expensive than at a diner but still less than $10.

For lunch, diners can have a sandwich — everything from broiled rockfish to a triple-decker club — or a "small plate" for between $10 and $17. Small plates are not small, exactly, but they are indeed smaller than typical $20-plus seafood meals: Think of it, perhaps, as a way to test the chefs before moving on to larger things, or as a more sensible portion size, particularly for lunch. It might even leave you with room for dessert, the list for which is long but not yet official.

Lunch, by the way, was the meal for me, when I recently took something of a first bite out of The Captain's Table's big menu.

There are salads, like sliced mozzarella, tomato, red onions and lettuce with vinaigrette dressing and French bread ($8). And pasta dishes, three out of the four with a seafood twist.

A shaded wooden deck faces the marina. Tables and chairs are plastic, and a condiment holder in the middle of the table has the restaurant's list of wines and beach cocktails. While online reviews list the restaurant's service as its weak spot, nothing about my experience would substantiate such claims.

Indoors, the dining area is split into two sections. One has casual booths while the other has smaller tables, and watercolors by a local artist fill the walls. Meanwhile, across from a narrow window into the kitchen, one finds a Cheers-like bar and a Keno machine that exist outside the general flow of the family-oriented restaurant.

Shrimp gumbo was slightly thin on "gumbo" yet heavy on shrimp. Tomato was the second most active ingredient, and it made me regret steering away from the usual cream of crab.

The small crab cake plate ($15) came with a choice of two sides, and I made out quite well here. Lightly fried hush puppies were more airy, and perhaps sweeter, than most in the region. The macaroni and cheese, in turn, was quite simply the best I've tried (barbecue joints included) since taking over this beat. The homemade recipe involved pasta shells, way-creamy American cheese and pepper for flavor. What's more, a spongy slice of corn bread came out as well, as if to provide additional proof of the Captain's skill in the hush puppy department.

The crab cake was placed on the plate beside a slice of lemon dusted with Old Bay, and the only thing this jumbo specimen needed was a small twist to bring out the flavor.

Diners choose between tartar and cocktails sauces and can have it broiled, fried or sautéed. The product itself was on par with the region's best, larger than most, flavorful and filled almost entirely with lump meat.

The Captain's Table. 275 Lore Road, Solomons. Hours: Sunday-Thursday 7 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday-Saturday 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Entrée prices: $7-$28. Credit cards: V, MC, D. Carryout: 410-326-2772. Go to www.captainstableinsolomons.com