39. Johnny’s Half Shell
The last time I ate at Johnny’s Half Shell, it was actually La Colline. And it was my pre-prom dinner my senior year of high school. And no, it was not also a fundraiser for my eventual run for Congress. Needless to say the place has drastically improved. (I do have to give a shout out to La Colline, where I went for my 8th birthday when they wrote out in chocolate on my dessert plate “Happy 8th Birthday Ashley!” and the waiter kissed my hand. I have nothing but fondness in my heart for you, but alas, the food left something to be desired.) Okay, enough of the time warp.
Now that I’m a professional and way post prom, I went for a power lunch with, uh, my dad. It was nice outside, so we were hoping to sit on the shady (in a no-sun way) patio, but on account of the torrential rains earlier in the day there was no patio sitting to be had. The dining room was only about half full, which I thought was a little sad for a restaurant with good food in such a great Hill-adjacent location. Whatever, more crab for me. I started with the spinach salad, which was deconstructed—pile of spinach, pile of radishes, pile of beets and a chunk of Maytag blue cheese. The beets seemed a little out of place, but I slathered them in blue cheese and I wasn’t so concerned anymore. My dad had the special salad—hothouse tomatoes, olives and feta cheese—which he said was pretty good, though I thought the fact that all the olives had pits in them was pretty gross. Not exactly power-player activity. For my main course, I actually had the appetizer crab cake. It was less than half the price of the entree crab cakes, and though half the cakes (one instead of two), it was otherwise pretty much the same. The crab was lump and flavorful though I didn’t see too much difference between it and the crab cakes at the Nats games. The vinegar-based coleslaw served alongside was tangy and delicious though. My dad had the soft-shell crabs, which were huge and meaty. We agreed that our soft-shell pet peeve is when they are so battered and fried that it’s about 90% crust and 10% crab. Not the case with these, the outside was crisp but the crab was the real star. They got the two thumbs up from my dad; though he was quick to point out they were not as good as my mom’s.
So here are my recommendations to Johnny’s: 1) open your patio when it’s sunny outside; 2) get some butts in the seats. Nothing says mediocre restaurant like an empty one. The truth is that it’s NOT mediocre, it’s very good, and when you’re dealing with a father-daughter team intimately acquainted with the Eastern Shore and its crabby goodness, we’re a hard duo to please.
