Suicide Bridge Restaurant

6304 Suicide Bridge Rd., Hurlock, MD - (410) 943-4689

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Posted By Michael Stern on 12/1/2009 9:20:00 AM

Here is a treasure trove of mid-Atlantic seafood, including broiled rockfish, fried oysters, spicy or creamy crab soup, and major-league crab cakes. The cakes come in two different formations: made with backfin meat, their fine and wispy body humming with a devilish pepper glow (fried or broiled); and more deluxe jumbo lump cakes, listed on the menu as "Kool's Deluxe Crab Cakes" and available only broiled. (Frying lump crab meat would be a sin.) Kool's cakes are sumptuous, the opalescent hunks of sweet meat seasoned with zest and speckled with herbs. Another crustaceous choice is crab balls – peppery little orbs of crabmeat that get deep-fried to become a crunchy pop-in-the-mouth bar snack or hors d'oeuvre.

The menu is extensive, including such luxuries as crab imperial or au gratin. You also can get steaks, ribs, or chicken, but given the preciousness of good crab cakes, crab soup, and rockfish to those of us just passing through, we've never tested the non-seafood waters.

As for the discomforting name of the restaurant, it indeed is located next to a bridge where on two occasions men shot and killed themselves and where a third man took a fatal drive straight into the water. Another time, according to the Suicide Bridge placemat, a jumper's body was fished from the creek and laid out on the bridge, where his blood soaked into the wooden boards and was visible for five years. Fatalities notwithstanding, the restaurant is warm and welcoming and its setting is lovely. Broad windows look out on an Eastern Shore inlet from which paddlewheel boats glide into the Choptank River for dinner cruises.

Scorecard

Overall: One of the Best - Worth a Trip

Jumbo Lump Crab Cake	Crab Balls

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"We put the Suicide Bridge crab cake on the short list of Maryland's best."
Michael Stern

"Crab balls, which are as much about crunch as sweet-meat flavor, make a fine hors d'oeuvre or companion for drinks at the bar."
Michael Stern

"Life is worth living when you have a meal at this restaurant, despite its inauspicious name, taken from the bridge just outside."
Michael Stern

"A lovely rural setting and full-bore Maryland menu make Suicide Bridge a worthy destination restaurant."
Michael Stern