Richard's Fish & Crabs — Restaurant in Maryland

Tl,dr: Great hole in the wall type of place with tasty seafood that's only a bit on the pricy side. Get the crab cakes and the soup.

So I had been long overdue for a weekend getaway and when the opportunity came up, I picked Maryland to be The state I poke around in. Being from Philly, it was about an hour and a half to Bel Air, right over the Delaware border, but I have to say that this place got my trip off to a great start!

I ordered a crab cake sandwich with coleslaw ($13.50), an oyster sandwich ($11.50), a clam strip basket with fries ($6.50) and a bowl of their creamy crab soup ($7.50). I was expecting to eat parts of everything and save some for the evening, but I ended up eating most of it on the first sitting :)

The crab cake was cooked perfectly. Great crisp on the outside, flavorful moist and sweet. The coleslaw paired with it nicely and was light on the mayo, which I appreciated.

The oyster po boy was delicious! The oysters were fresh and had that great brininess that you crave in fresh seafood. The breading wasn't too heavy. I probably would have liked it even more if it were a little more crunchy.

The clam basket was tasty as well. The clams were a little bit forward on the breading and there weren't that many of them, which was a bit disappointing. They did give a very generous portion of fries though.

The soup was wonderful! Creamy, sweet, and rich in flavor, this soup, if paired with the crab cake sandwich and cole slaw probably would have been a complete meal for me had I not been starving :)

Overall, I'd come here again and recommend it as a hidden gem, but being from an hour and a half away, I might not make the trip back unless we were heading down...

Found Richard's on my epicurean tour of Maryland this spring. The crabcake was only middle of the road. It wasn't bad, but wasn't a "jumbo lump" cake. HOWEVER, at $11.99 for a 4 oz crabcake, with seasoned fries, I will order it again.

The fish and chips were a pleasant surprise. No frozen Mrs. Paul's here. Freshly breaded flaky white fish fillets (3) served atop seasoned fries satisfied a long running "jones" for that meal, which had gone unfulfilled until our stop there.

The Maryland Crab soup was good, not great but good. I probably would have rated it higher had I not just eaten the amazing crab soup at the Bayou in Havre de Grace only days before. Again, I'll order this soup again.

I really liked that I was able to order crabs in any quantity I wanted; I didn't want a full dozen so they sold me six. And I got them on special that day for $2 each. Score!

Here's a cool special. Every Sunday evening beginning at 5, certain sized get prices slashed. It varies every week depending on what they have lots of. If you can wait until Sunday, score some big discounts. But be prepared. This is no Old Bay they are using. It's a really spicy crab spice they use. Have plenty to drink standing by.

They also have a pretty decent seafood market inside this converted gas station. Yes. Gas station. Interesting reuse of unused real estate which is normally tough to sell.

Plenty of parking, easy to find (look for the BRIGHT yellow signage), and a friendly, helpful young staff.

Richard's. Worth the trip (and we came over...

Oh my goodness all the years Richards has been there I've never been till last week and we got the fried clams basket (I've been trying to find a place that sells them since I moved back home) and oh boy the were AMAZING!! We also got a few fried oysters and the shrimp basket. Everything was SOOOOO good!! So mad at myself for never going there all my life!! There prices are awesome service is GREAT and all around a great place!! Only thing I can complain about is when we went the other day I was very confused and quite frankly a lil upset that, well let me just say first that rite now is oyster season so if anything they should be cheaper and not only did they raise the price on there oysters but they raised they A LOT but by a few dollars!! 6 fried oysters were 5.99 and now there almost 9 bucks for 6!! That's crazy!!! But other than that everything this is awesome!! Oh last Wednesday we stopped by so I could get a friend clams basket but my husband wanted to get a couple cold crabs (already cooked) and they were only a dollar a piece! Yup 1$ a crab!!! And not only that we could get them on food stamps!! Which was mind blowing and just AWESOME!!!! They were very VERY good!! So I recommend Richards on the highest level!! Also almost every day of the week they have some type of sale. Oh and lastly there shrimp salad is to die for it's soooo...