Koco’s Pub, Baltimore, Maryland

One of the joys of blogging has been meeting fellow-blogger Barry Zuckerman, the genius behind BZMaestroEats. Barry blogs about Philadelphia food, with excursions into sports, music, and foreign policy, and his cheesesteak research — bookmark his top 20 list — is the stuff of legend. Nancy and I got together with Barry for a cheesesteak at Cafe Carmela while on a trip to check Trenton off our state capitals list. It was great fun, and Barry and I have begun getting together midway between our homes to try various dishes. This was our second crabcake meeting, the first having been at Box Hill.

We met at Koco’s Pub. It sits at 430 Hartford Road, and you can’t miss it. You couldn’t if you tried.

Both of us liked it as soon as we walked in. Koco’s is famous for crabcakes, justly as you will see, but it’s just one of those lovable neighborhood spots where you can grab a beer or a burger and run into some friends. The service is as friendly as can be, and I got the sense that after two more visits we’d be greeted by name.

But the food is the star. We took a perfunctory look at the menu and ordered with a tight focus on crab. No fries or other distractions. Barry chose a cup of half and half soup — half Mom’s Maryland Crab Soup, a blend of crab, vegetables, and Old Bay or JO’s in a tomato base, and half Cream of Crab, crab, cream, and broth.

It always reminds me of the Chumbo at Rockefeller’s. For the uninitiated, you mix the two together and enjoy the blend of spicy and rich flavors.

Barry followed with Koco’s standard crabcake — an 11-ounce beauty.

Ah! Usually when you get a Maryland crab cake, it’s four or five ounces (at about $30), and it will have a good bit of filler. There are spots like Jerry’s Place in Prince Frederick that offer no-filler full pound crab cakes and home equity loans so you can pay for one. Koco’s offers a platter with two 11-ounce crabcakes with sides for, I think, $79..

I’ll just say that Barry loved his meal and I’ll refer you to his report for the full details. And I loved mine. I’ve eaten a lot of crabcakes in the last five years, since we started going down to Southern Maryland, which is full of watermen and waterside crab houses. You can search “Calvert County” and “St. Mary’s County” for details. When there, we largely live on crabcakes, softshells, and rockfish.

I was between overeating extravaganzas so settled for a six-ounce crab cake ($24),

which Koco’s offers occasionally. To reward myself for my dietary discretion, I also got a full bowl of cream of crab soup with a lovely stripe of Maryland seasoning.

The crabcake was delicious. Take a look inside.

I see a touch of filler in there, but only a very gentle touch, and it didn’t interfere at all with the favor, which was delicious. Koco’s definitely is among the very best.

The thing that really wowed me though was the cream of crab soup. I have never seen anywhere near the amount of crab that was in that bowl of soup. Every spoonful seemed to bring up a jumbo lump. It must have been a full crabcake in itself! And the broth underlying the cream was first rate. This is a cream of crab soup for the ages.

Koco’s is great at so many levels. The setting, the people, and, most of all, the crab. It’s well worth a trip to Baltimore, certainly from Philadelphia or Washington, and from a lot of places beyond. Take a bus, take a train, go and hop an airplane, but there’s no place like Koko’s for the crabcakes. And if you can’t get there, they ship. Find a way or make one.

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