Best Maryland Crabs

This post contains affiliate links. You do not pay additional by making a purchase through an affiliate link, which helps to support this blog’s livelihood. 

How do you like these bite-size Maryland crabs?

Maryland crabs are famous. They’re tossed with Old Bay and you can find them all the over the Mid-Atlantic states in seafood restaurants. It’s easy to find them along the Atlantic Ocean Coast, and these are from Havre de Grace, Maryland. 🦀 They are the real mouth-watering deal!

And if you want to check out the landmark lighthouse waterfront festival in the heart of town, they showcase famous local seafood and blue crabs. It’s a small town so you can’t get lost.

You can also find an abundance of Maryland crabs around the Memorial Bay Bridge on the Eastern Shores. Take a drive over the Bay Bridge and you’ll find Kent Island, the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay.

And you can find these blue crabs served up in Annapolis, the capital of Maryland (along the Chesapeake Bay). Annapolis is a great vacation getaway with room water views and modern leather features and farm door design character.

Annapolis restaurants love to serve the Maryland king crabs straight up raw for your entertainment… in meaty male crabcakes… or sometimes paired with Alaskan King Crab claws… proving crabs on both sides of the coast can get along. 😉

You can also find Maryland crabs in best DC restaurants along marina towns like this one in Old Town Alexandria along the Potomac River.

It’s in the water (the foodie water that is… where they import in tasty oysters from around the world!). Are you a fan? I like them straight up, with lemon, horseradish, or red sauce.

And year-round, you can find a seafood lovers smorgasboard variety of orange-color seafood: lobster, crabs, and shrimp. 🍤

Seafood Maryland Crab Salad

While Maryland crabs are close to home 🧡, on the east coast you don’t have to go far to find them. You can find all kinds of crabs and seafood at your local seafood market or many grocery stores. One of my memories is the Waterfront fish market in DC that’s now an adult hangout spot!

I also like the Fish Market on King Street where you can buy prepared seafood that you can take on a waterfront picnic to the Oronoco Bay Park steps away.

This is a Dunedin, Florida seafood market that serves steamers and Floridian stone crabs with no MD crabs in sight.

Washington Dulles Airport Hilton (My Hotel Story Start)

This post contains affiliate links. You do not pay additional by making a purchase through an affiliate link, which helps to support this blog’s livelihood. 

Dulles Airport – designed by Architect Eero Saarinen (designed like an Eero-plane) ✈️

This is a great time to tell you about a Washington Dulles Airport Hilton hotel I worked in that started as a Renaissance (and is now the Washington Dulles Hilton hotel).

Airport shuttle close to the airport, the hotel has great character with a circular building and lobby design. It has and had a restaurant and a lounge next to the Lobby where guests checked-in. More on DC metro local restaurant options below.

Airport hotels are very different than other and city-center hotels. Airport guests are often trying to catch a flight or have “flying somewhere” else on the mind. And some of those guests are distressed passengers where the airlines put the guests in a hotel. …You probably know what I’m talkin’ about in your travels!

Back in my college days, I remember serving fast-paced breakfasts to these guests. And then at night, the same hotel restaurant transformed into a fine-dining restaurant Olives with daily special dishes and flamed creme brulee dessert on the menu.

The music and light mood changed to dim and slow, and the dark wood tables turned into white tablecloth tables often with orchid flowers, and usually multiple courses served with wine. The built-in crescent round banquettes stood out as the romantic seats in the house for the occasional local couples coming out that way (along with the hotel guests who were often dining by themselves).

And, Olives had the best Easter brunches (…and FYI, Hilton’s had been known for weekend brunches).

And then on the other side of the lobby was the cozy retro Zodiac Club night lounge with bright 70s silver rainbow shape patterned wallpaper that glimmered in the dark moody lighting. There was a disco ball at one point. 🪩

It was cool back then and would be even cooler now (since wallpaper and retro is in!). The clubby space only had about 30 dark metal chairs. I knew that space intimately. And even though guests were flying off to their next destination, it was fun to serve the visitors who enjoyed the lounge-y experience.

That cushy hospitality setting set me on my hotel journey into catering management. I got the 360- experience at that eye-opening hotel 👀, that’s now a Washington Dulles Airport Hilton. You can check in digitally if you’re a Hilton Honors reward guest. And today’s mega outdoor Reston Town Center is an Uber ride away. Now that you’re keyed in on the history, you may want to stay. 😉 It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from DC metro area restaurants.

Reston Town Center