Abner's crab house knows how to steam 'em

Friday, Nov. 14, 2008

When I opened the door someone in Abner's immediately shouted, "We open at 4!"

As of Nov. 1, Abner's began its winter hours. The 43-year-old family-run restaurant is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, opens at 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and then at noon Friday through Sunday.

While I would have to return in several hours, I was pleased to find out that I had come to Chesapeake Beach on a good day: Wednesday at Abner's is the all-you-can-eat crab feast night.

Had I come on Thursday, the special would have been an oyster feast during which one can receive six or so oysters on the half shell, 10 fried and 10 steamed for "a certain amount of money," said the owner Bob Abner, during a phone interview.

Abner's did not have to-go menus available when I visited the restaurant, and the staff was unable to fax its new menu to my office prior to press time.

When he was a child, Abner said he would go to the pier in Chesapeake Beach with a handline and catch a bushel of crabs. His mother would help him cook the crabs and his father would take a side trip from his day job to sell them in Washington, D.C. "It helped us pay for school clothes," he said.

Crabbing also helped Abner pay his tuition at the University of Maryland. After graduation he took a job with the federal government only to learn the office life was not for him.

Abner wound up opening a crab shack by the marina in Chesapeake Beach. His father owned the property, and Abner's has not moved since. These days his crabbing business supplies about 75 percent of the restaurant's crabs.

What makes Abner's crabs world famous?

"We ship crabs all over the world," he said. "We ship crabs to Asia, Tel Aviv. We ship crabs to Canada."

Back in the crab house, which is large enough to host about 350 people, some of the servers wear T-shirts which read "Where it's OK to have some crabs."

Brown paper-lined tables are set with napkins and shakers of Old Bay seasoning. On the night of my visit, common cutlery was a knife and wooden mallet.

I asked to see a menu, but did so mainly to confirm two things: One, that it existed, and secondly, to see that Abner's, in spite of its designation as a crab house, also has a diverse seafood menu.

But to order on Wednesday, one only needed to take a cue from the families, groups of friends and couples gathered around crab wreckage, cups of butter and seasoning, baskets of hush puppies, cold beer and cafeteria trays piled high with steamed hard shell blue crabs doused with seasoning.

All-you-can-eat is $24.99 per person, although that price is cut in half for children. One is asked to abide by a two-hour time limit.

Abner's interior appearance might improve some during daylight hours. Nightfall, however, erases the view of the charter boats in the marina, and in such times there is no escaping its purely utilitarian features.

Must your restaurant be spic-and-span? If so, stay home or go somewhere else. Mind you, who really considers ideas of decor once one settles into that focused and practically machine-like groove of tearing through a mountain of crabs?

One last question: Will you accept nothing less than fast, orderly, efficient service? The experience here might be categorized under do-it-yourself. Unless you ask, I think you are a more likely candidate than the server to haul your tray of crab parts over to an industrial-sized garbage can.

You may have to wait a little while to put your order in, and you will have to wait again to get your crabs, as receiving them too quickly would be a bad sign.

So, if you are still reading, perhaps you should put on a bib and take a seat.

People go to Abner's for the crabs and the casual, familial atmosphere. One online reviewer described what I saw quite well: "great crabs and no silly fancy stuff."

Eating crabs is a uniquely physical dining experience. It can also be a highly social one.

Here is one of the few meals that can easily last for more than an hour that does not involve either several courses (beyond a fresh tray) or lots of post-meal chit chat.

And depending upon how much of a natural you are at removing the claw and legs, pulling up the tab, removing the shell and scooping out the good meat (although there are some who see no reason to pass up "Devils Fingers"), fatigue can even set in before one's appetite is satiated.

The tray I received was two and three crabs high. These creatures were enormous, and steam rose out of the first couple I cracked open, the meat hot enough to burn my fingers. This was a good time to break out the mallet and start cracking.

No, I did not make it through the entire tray; I came pretty close. These were great crabs. And the hush puppies, made from a fresh batter and served with a cup of honey, were the best I've tasted in Southern Maryland.