This year our restaurant decided to take the most popular item on our menu, Maryland Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes and make them available online for all of our loyal customers from all over the United States. Well, it seems many other restaurants are taking their signature items and doing the same exact thing.

In a recent article posted on Restaurant Hospitality, many restaurants are now finding a strong customer base online. Gift cards and certificates have always been big sellers on the Internet but it is now signature food items that restaurants are famous for that are becoming the stars. For example, Peter Luger Steak House of Brooklyn is now selling their famous prime dry-aged steaks online. The joint that invented the Buffalo chicken wing, The Anchor Bar is now selling fifty suicide wings online for over a hundred dollars. Even Lou Malnati's out of Chicago, are now selling their signature deep dish pizza pies online.

Our Maryland Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes have always brought a smile to our customer’s faces. We love it when our guests say, "This is the best crab cake that we’ve ever tasted" because it makes all the long hours of working in the restaurant business really worth it. In the upcoming year, we will be launching a separate section of our website to sell our Maryland Crab Cakes along some of the other menu items that our patrons have grown to love like our Luna Del Sea crab dip, oysters Rockefeller, Black Angus NY strip steak or Black Angus filet mignon just to mention a few. So stay tuned to see what Luna Del Sea will be bringing to your table and I think it’s time to order a few of those Chicago deep dish pizza pies for my staff. To read the full article about signature food items now being sold online, visit http://restaurant-hospitality.com/marketing/how-restaurants-can-sell-signature-items-online.

This week we are sharing with the entire world our famous Maryland Jumbo Lump Crab Cake recipe. We have held these ingredients, our preparation and our cooking procedures very closely to our chest for many years but now realize that the public is ready to try and duplicate our most prized entree here in Baltimore. The holidays are the perfect time to spend with family and friends, so why not spend time seeing if you can create these crab cakes in your own kitchen at home.

Here at Luna, we have made the bold decision to develop an entire website to selling our famous Maryland delicacies to you. We have also decided to put together some easy to prepare romantic dinners that will include our marinated hand cut Certified Angus steaks with delicious homemade side dishes and our most popular appetizers like crab dip and jumbo lump crab cocktail if you are planning to entertain.

So, stay tuned to see everything that we have in store for you in 2014 and good luck preparing our customer's favorite item on the menu.

Ingredients

• 1 pound of jumbo lump crab meat (makes 4 - 4 ounce crab cakes)
• 2 crushed Saltine crackers
• 4 teaspoons of melted butter
• 1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
• Sprinkle of paprika
• 6 ounces of imperial sauce (makes 4 - 4 ounce crab cakes)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 lemon juiced
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

Preparation and Cooking Instructions

1. Crack 2 large eggs into a bowl and add the mayonnaise, lemon juice, yellow mustard, worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and Old Bay seasoning and mix.
2. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan.
3. Pre-heat oven on Broil for 350 degrees.
4. Add the chopped parsley and the crushed Saltine crackers to the crab meat and toss in a large boil until mixed evenly.Toss the ingredients carefully with your hands and do not break up the crab meat.
5. Add the imperial sauce to the dry crab cake mix. Again toss careful with your hands and do not break up the crab meat.
6. Form the wet crab cake mixture into 4 large round balls.
7. Place crab cakes on greased sheet pan and top each crab cake with 1 teaspoon of melted butter and a sprinkle of a paprika.
8. Cook crab cakes for 10-15 minutes until they are light brown in color.
9. Remove from the oven and enjoy.

For this week's blog, we've decided to spotlight one of our favorite beers here at Luna Del Sea, Heavy Seas Gold. We're not bragging when we say "we broil the best crab cakes in Baltimore" but we also serve some pretty incredible local beers. In fact, we usually aren't the ones making that statement, it's usually one of our customers. Whether it's a Baltimore local or a guest from out of town, we live to to hear the words: "That was the best crab cake I've ever tasted!" come out of our customer's mouths.

Heavy Seas Gold is the beer that we most often pair with our Maryland crab cakes. Some people like a nice glass of French Sancere with seafood but we are a bit more traditional around here and always suggest cracking open a nice cold beer with our crab cakes. The entire story of Heavy Seas is a great one because it all started here in Maryland. A guy named Herb was all set to embark to on a career in the theatre in New York City. Just before he was going to leave, his father Albert asked his son to come work part-time at the local tavern that he had just purchased. Once Herb entered the bar on the first day, his father tossed him the keys to the bar, cussed some words of encouragement and walked out the door. So now Herb was the proud owner of a local tavern. This tavern was called Sisson's and it was without a doubt, Maryland's original Brewpub.

As years went on, Herb had his heart set on expanding the production of his brewpub and created the Clipper City Brewing Company. Here he started brewing Heavy Seas Gold. Luna Del Sea is a family owned and operated restaurant and bar, so we love the fact that this beer has a strong family ties to Baltimore. We also love the way that this beer tastes with almost everyone of our seafood dishes. On their website, Heavy Seas Gold is described as:

"An easy-drinking session beer that pours a deep golden color. It smells slightly floral and herbal, thanks to a hopback full of Cascade and Centennial hops. Gold is tasty and refreshing, with a round mouthfeel."

All we know is that we love the way it washes down a jumbo lump crab cake. Heavy Seas Gold is brewed locally year round and has won distinguished awards at both the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup in 2010. So the next time you join us for a romantic dinner or belly up to the bar for our awesome happy hour, order a Heavy Seas Gold to see what we are talking about.

Luna Del Sea in downtown Baltimore is launching a brand new online store to sell our Maryland jumbo lump crab cakes! We have been serving our famous crab cakes for over ten years now. Locals and visitors alike have constantly expressed an interest in being able to indulge in our delicious crab cakes at home. We have now made the requests of our valued customers a reality.

To celebrate our new online store, Luna Del Sea will be throwing a happy hour party on Thursday October 17th from 4pm until 6pm. We will be serving complimentary samples of our Maryland jumbo lump crab cakes to tempt your taste buds. Our wait staff will be pouring complimentary glasses of Martin Codax Albariño 2010. A crisp, elegant and dry white wine that has aromas and flavors of pear, passion fruit and apple with bright acidity. This refreshing wine is the perfect compliment to our famous Luna Del Sea crab cakes. Reservations for this event are highly recommended as seating is limited. To reserve your spot, call 410-752-8383 or reserve online.

As part of the new online store launch we are running a Luna Del Sea pre-holiday promotion for a limited time. You can order 3 Luna Del Maryland jumbo lump crab cakes for only $50!

So order your crab cakes now and enjoy them at home!