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The taste passport
Twelve things to eat and drink in Ocean City. Not the best twelve — nobody here ranks a kitchen — but twelve the menus we read can point at, with what each one is and who makes it.
The kitchens under each item come out of the 40 Ocean City menus we have read, not out of a list somebody typed — how they were read. 32 kitchens are named below; every item links to all of them.
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Where: Barn 34, Marlin Moon, Sneaky Pete's · all 16
Whole blue crabs steamed in Old Bay, sold by the dozen or all-you-can-eat, eaten with a mallet. More
Where: Marlin Moon, Sneaky Pete's, The Bonfire · all 16
Fresh-squeezed citrus, vodka, soda, over crushed ice. Credited to a Delaware bar in the 1990s. More
Where: Fager's Island, Ropewalk, Sunset Grille · all 4
Boardwalk fries in a paper bucket, salted, no ketchup on the counter. Vinegar is the condiment. More
Where: Thrasher's French Fries · what we read
The cream-based crab soup, thick and pale. The other Maryland crab soup is the tomato one. More
Where: Fager's Island, Marlin Moon, Sneaky Pete's · all 9
The tomato one: vegetables, crab, Old Bay, and often a beef stock underneath. More
Where: Fager's Island, The Bonfire, BLU Crabhouse & Raw Bar (read by script) · all 6
The celery-salt-and-paprika spice blend, made in Baltimore since 1939. On crabs, fries, and rims. More
Where: Barn 34, Fager's Island, Layton's Family Restaurant · all 15
Poached egg and hollandaise over something — the something is what each kitchen puts its name on. More
Where: Barn 34, Captain's Table, Layton's Family Restaurant · all 5
Cornmeal batter, dropped in the fryer and served alongside. Sweet in some kitchens, oniony in others. More
Where: The Bonfire, The Crab Bag, Assateague Crab House (read by script) · all 4
Pork scraps and cornmeal set into a loaf, sliced and fried. A Delmarva breakfast meat. More
Where: Barn 34, Happy Jack Pancake House, Layton's Family Restaurant · all 4
Striped bass, as Maryland names it. The state fish, and a regulated catch. More
Where: Assateague Crab House (read by script), Blacksmith Bar & Restaurant (read by script), Bull on the Beach (94th St) (read by script) · all 7
Where: Bad Monkey · what we read
Where all this comes from
Every word above is read off the menus themselves — 1226 dishes from 40 of the town’s 66 kitchens. Follow any item to its own page and you get every kitchen that makes it, how each one cooks it, and what we are unsure of.
Taste Ocean City