The sweet, briny taste of Faidley's bulging crabcake was still fresh on my tongue as we hopped off the train at Penn Station and zoomed downtown to check out Choptank. Located in Baltimore's historic Lexington Market, Faidley's is famous for fabricating that city's best and biggest crabcakes. Choptank, located in the West Village, seeks to give those crabcakes a run for their money, on a menu that focuses primarily on the cuisine of Maryland. One rarely has the opportunity to make a direct comparison between an authentic product and its upstart imitator, so I'd spent a weekend in Baltimore re-familiarizing myself with the local chow before diving into Choptank.
Named after a river that flows into the Chesapeake Bay, the restaurant occupies a double storefront that was once Anita Lo's Bar Q, a place intended as a small-plate Asian-fusion gastropub—which may have been one concept too many. Without moving much around, the U-shaped space has been renovated so that it seems much larger. The sight lines have been opened up, and nautical prints hung on walls painted deep green and yellowing ivory. "This looks like an old men's club," my date murmured as we studied the menu, sitting on high stools at a raised table that our waitress had to stand on tiptoe to reach. And then we set about ordering things we'd just eaten in Baltimore.
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