Yes, Sorrento of Arbutus has a crab cake and it’s delicious

Everyone knows that if you’re going to have a crab cake on the menu in this town, you gotta make it great! Longtime Baltimore restauranteur Henry Pertman tells Nestor the legend of Sorrento of Arbutus and how a joint with pizza and cheesesteaks upped it game – and its crab cake – when new ownership took over six years ago. This is what the Maryland Crab Cake Tour is all about!

Nestor Aparicio visits Sorrento of Arbutus, a restaurant that has evolved from a cheese steak and pizza joint to a scratch kitchen with an extensive menu. Henry Pertman, the Director of Operations, discusses the restaurant’s transformation over 61 years, emphasizing the use of fresh ingredients and the introduction of a new executive chef. They highlight the popularity of their crab cakes, which are made with high-quality crab meat and are a significant part of their growth. Nestor also mentions the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, sponsored by the Maryland Lottery, and shares his personal crab cake preferences, including a fried crab cake style.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Fix the headset so the other person can hear clearly through both ears during the recording.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Order a shrimp cheesesteak from Sorrento of Arbutus when leaving the restaurant.

Outline

Sorrento of Arbutus Introduction and Menu Overview

• Nestor Aparicio introduces himself and mentions his excitement about visiting Sorrento of Arbutus for the first time.
• Nestor describes his meal plans, including pizza, Greek salad, crab cakes, crab soup, and a cheese steak.
• Henry Pertman, the Director of Operations for Harold XC Comminos, is introduced as the proprietor and chief cook.
• Nestor shares a message from Super Bowl champion Jim Schwartz, who fondly remembers eating pizza at Sorrento’s.

History and Evolution of Sorrento of Arbutus

• Henry explains that Sorrento started as a cheese steak and pizza joint 61 years ago and evolved over the years.
• The new owner, with a good restaurant background, hired Henry as a consultant to grow the business based on its reputation.
• The restaurant transitioned to using fresh ingredients, opening a scratch kitchen, and hiring an executive chef and sous chefs.
• Nestor mentions the Maryland Crab Cake Tour and the popularity of crab cakes in the area, despite the competition from other food items.

Challenges and Growth of the Crab Cake Menu

• Henry discusses the challenges of introducing crab cakes, given the competition with pizza and burger prices.
• The restaurant’s crab cakes are made with fresh crab meat and prepared by a chef who knows the craft.
• The crab cakes have gained popularity, with many people willing to pay more for a high-quality product.
• The restaurant has also expanded its seafood offerings, including shrimp and fettuccine alfredo, which have become popular items.

Community and Local Influence

• Nestor talks about the community aspect of the Maryland Crab Cake Tour and the importance of bringing people together.
• Henry mentions the Arbutus Arts Festival, which attracts 30,000 people and takes place in front of the restaurant.
• Nestor shares his personal connection to the area, mentioning his childhood experiences and the local community.
• The conversation touches on the importance of local support and the restaurant’s role in the community.

Henry Pertman’s Background and Restaurant Philosophy

• Henry shares his extensive background in the restaurant industry, spanning 52 years.
• He emphasizes the importance of quality in every dish, regardless of the item ordered.
• The restaurant takes pride in every dish, ensuring that even fast-casual items are made with care.
• Nestor and Henry discuss the differences between Sorrento’s and other restaurants, highlighting the unique aspects of Sorrento’s offerings.

Crab Cake Preparation and Customer Experience

• Henry explains the simplicity of their crab cake recipe, focusing on quality ingredients.
• The restaurant avoids using excessive bread to keep the crab meat the main ingredient.
• Nestor shares his personal preference for fried crab cakes and the unique preparation at Sorrento’s.
• The conversation highlights the importance of customer satisfaction and the restaurant’s commitment to quality.

Special Menu Items and Customer Requests

• Nestor is intrigued by the shrimp cheese steak, a unique item on the menu that combines grilled shrimp with cheese steak.
• Henry explains that the restaurant accommodates customer requests, making exceptions to the menu items.
• The conversation touches on the flexibility of the kitchen staff and their ability to create custom dishes.
• Nestor expresses his interest in trying the shrimp cheese steak and other unique items on the menu.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor reflects on his experience at Sorrento of Arbutus, praising the quality of the crab cake and the overall experience.
• Henry shares his vision for the future, including potential new menu items and community events.
• The conversation ends with Nestor expressing his appreciation for the hospitality and the unique aspects of Sorrento of Arbutus.
• Nestor mentions his plans to visit other restaurants on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour and his commitment to promoting local businesses.

Nestor Aparicio 0:00
Five. Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore Positive. We are positively here, not just doing a lottery emporium, but it is my this is my Virgin Voyage here. My debut in Arbutus. We’re here at Sorrento Barbudas. I’m already a slice of pizza, half a Greek salad with chicken. I’m going to be getting some crab cakes. I’m going to be getting some crab soup, and I’m probably going to take home something that looks like a cheese steak, because I’m seeing him coming out of the kitchen. Here, Harry Perman’s here. He is manager, proprietor, friend of the proprietor, Director

Henry Pertman 0:38
of Operations for Harold XC Comminos, the owner of Sorrento of Arbutus,

Nestor Aparicio 0:44
Chief Cook and Bottle Wash,

8

Henry Pertman 0:45
that’s

Nestor Aparicio 0:46
it. Well, I’ve already spilled, I’ve already made a mess. You’ve already shown me the incredible Arbutus hospitality that Super Bowl champion Jim Schwartz of Arbutus, who’s checked in with me. He says he’s had a lot of post Little League game pizza at Sorrento’s, of which I just enjoyed a slice. He said he can’t imagine them doing crab cakes. I guess they didn’t do crab cakes here 3540 years ago, when he was a kid.

Henry Pertman 1:08
Well, it’s been here 61 years. So it started as just a cheese steak and pizza joint, and for its first, you know, few decades, that’s what people came here for. Like most pizzerias, there was an accommodation of pasta and all sorts of crap that they really shouldn’t have been making, and everyone who tried it went back to the pizza and subs, and they were, they were good. About five years ago, a new owner came in, he had a good restaurant background, he hired me as a consultant at that time, I had a consulting firm, and we discussed where we could grow this thing based on its wonderful reputation. Frankly, with all the bad food it served for so long, it still had a great reputation and a great name. So we leveraged that, made sure that we use fresh ingredients. We now have a scratch kitchen. We now have an executive chef. We have two sous chefs. You

Nestor Aparicio 2:05
have a really extensive menu. And when you asked me what I wanted to eat, I looked at it. I’m gonna have some fun. By the way, I gotta fix your headset. We’re out here at Sorrento of Arbutus. I’ll make sure you can hear me through both ears. I looked at the menu, and I, before I even came, and I guess it comes to me that this is the Maryland Crab Cake Tour presented by the Maryland Lottery. I’ve been given some lottery tickets out here, we’ll have those in a couple minutes as well. GBMC in front of Durham, and I come out about seven years ago, I was going to run for mayor, I wanted to get out in the community, I want to get out and meet people all over the area, and I thought, what, what would be, especially during Covid, what would be the thing that would bring people together that everybody serves, and a crab cake is something like most places in this area, in let’s say around the Beltway, in and around our Beltway. If you have a restaurant, crab’s a weird lane to get into, but people come in and, like, want a crab cake. Every pizza shopping in Dundalk, every Sorrento’s of Dundalk, which I can mention 15 or 20 places as a kid, every sub shop in every neighbor in Dundalk had a crab cake, and they were all different, and I thought to myself that,

Henry Pertman 3:12
well, we had a crab cake as well, it just wasn’t good.

Nestor Aparicio 3:15
Okay,

Henry Pertman 3:16
you know, so the difference between having a crab cake and trying to compete with pizza prices and burger prices, because a good crab cake’s going to cost you a lot more money, especially these days. Sure, and especially these days, but having a scratch kitchen with, you know, fresh crab meat with a chef who knows what they’re doing is different than what, quote unquote, everyone has, everyone does have it. In fact, many, many people have Maryland’s best crab cake tattooed on their watch. It’s

8

Nestor Aparicio 3:48
right out here, you got it tattooed,

Henry Pertman 3:50
including us. But the proof is in the pudding. When this place used to sell crab cakes, a people knew the difference, and then they would, they’d rather pay $40 for a great crab cakes than $20 for a shitty crab, no question

Nestor Aparicio 4:06
about

Henry Pertman 4:06
it. And so we have to be on the great side, and we are, and it’s been an area of growth, along with a lot of other seafood that has come to morph into, you know, commonality here, where people come in and get lots of shrimp, fettuccine, alfredo, which, again, you may not think of Sorrento as having something like that versus pizza and cheese steaks, but the people who get it get it again and again and again, and it’s a real growth model for us, having all those seafood items.

Nestor Aparicio 4:39
Well, the growth model is when you get people when you bring them back, right? If I don’t bring them

Henry Pertman 4:42
back, it doesn’t matter.

Nestor Aparicio 4:43
Well, I think when you purchase a place as sort of a new entity coming in and say we’re going to make it better, some people would like, well, I liked it the way it was. It’s a little different. I’m sure you got a little bit of that in the beginning part, especially I’m from Dundalk. We don’t like change in Dundalk and Arbutus, but for Schwartz. Even say I can’t imagine a crab cake. There is a thought for you to say, well, then come in, come in and see it, right? And I think that was part of me seeing it on my timeline, is I talk about crab cakes, the algorithm knows that I, you know, and it showed up, and I’m like, people have been telling me I need to come over here, and they’ve mentioned Sorrento’s West, the other, the other ways, right? So, I mean, I know the name, and I passed them both, and you asked me if I had been in here. I was in here in the late 90s, because I always carried a briefcase and did business with small business owners. Bill Cole from Cole Roofing, his business is based on this side of town, and he said he’s in here at least once a week, and he was thrilled that I was coming in here, thrilled that I was getting your crab cake, because he knew it was a good one, and so I think in this segment the Maryland Crab Cake Tour is going to extend to one more crab cake, because I was adding a lot of them there for a long time. I don’t know the last time I’ve had a crab cake I haven’t had in a while, so this is going to be fun. I’m

8

Henry Pertman 5:54
sure you’ll enjoy it. I’m sure I

Nestor Aparicio 5:56
will. Well, the restaurant background you mentioned with Harold, give me a little background about bringing a crab cake here, and where that’s from, because we’re about to eat it. I just want to hear a little bit of the background about, because everybody has a story about their crab cake, right?

Henry Pertman 6:08
Well, we only have a story because we needed to have a good crab cake. If you’re in Maryland, then you want to profess to be a good restaurant in Maryland, then if you say, well, we hang our hat on a cheese steak, yeah, us and 2000 other people who are listening, you know, at this very moment, it doesn’t set you apart. It’s not going

Nestor Aparicio 6:30
to stop me from getting it today. I saw your cheese steak, that’s what I wanted. We

Henry Pertman 6:34
sell just a crazy amount of cheesesteak, so that’s why I should get that. And we’re, we sell a crazy amount of pizza that hasn’t changed. When the new owner came in and revamped everything, we didn’t change those two things. Okay. All right, we changed literally everything else, because nothing was made from scratch. And the difference between our restaurant, even though it’s fast casual and not table service is that we take pride in every dish that comes in, and if you interviewed the 3000 people were in here a week, and that’s about right, the mix is amazing, but people come here as a destination for their specific love, which could be anything from a chicken alfredo to the pasta dishes, to we had ribs on special a couple weeks ago. We couldn’t, we couldn’t hold on to them, we couldn’t, because when they make it, they make it right, and you would pay $10 more for that entree if you went to a table service restaurant. I don’t want to drop a name, but Lynn Woods is across the street from where I live, and I’ve had their crab cake, and it’s just not better than ours, it’s just $20 more, you know. So, when we say we have a quality food, we don’t care what you order, it’s got to be outstanding, or we don’t do it, and that’s a different Phillis difference philosophically than the previous owner, who said it doesn’t matter, we’ll just sell more cheese steaks.

Nestor Aparicio 8:05
Henry Perman’s here. We are at Sorrento of Arbutus, a beautiful, lovely Arbutus, where I have.. I’m embarrassed. I’ve never done the show in Arbutus. I don’t know why. I, you know, I did live shows from the barn signs that

Henry Pertman 8:20
said you aren’t allowed in Arbutus. There was

8

Nestor Aparicio 8:22
a thing about East Side, West Side, and Schwartz, and I got over that 30 years ago. Said Don Muller, too, in Catonsville and Paradise and Lansdowne, Halethorpe. I’ve gotten it all. I mean, Linthicum Heights, I, you know, I don’t know where all the intersections are. I don’t know where Arbutus begins and ends. When I was a little boy, the man who got custody of me in America, was in a man, you’re, you’re, you’re a year too old, just a little bit. Do you remember John Cool, a hand, the lion of Halethorpe? He was a councilman, no estate senator, a million years ago, 50 years ago, he got custody, but he was from Halethorpe, and when I was a little boy, I would go to Halethorpe, you know, and it was like a day trip to go to Halethorpe on the bus, number 23 bus, when I lived in Dundalk, but like Arbutus was never one of those places that when you’re from Dundalk, you just don’t go through Arbutus, right? Know

Henry Pertman 9:13
about the Arbutus Arts Festival.

Nestor Aparicio 9:15
Tell me about the Arbutus Arts Festival. Last

Henry Pertman 9:18
month, right in front of our rest, this happens

Nestor Aparicio 9:21
in May.

Henry Pertman 9:21
Yeah, in May, and every year, and there are 30,000 people in front of our door. Where do

Nestor Aparicio 9:28
they park?

8

Henry Pertman 9:29
I have no idea. I don’t know where they park, but there’s 100 plus vendors, and it is nobody’s secret.

Nestor Aparicio 9:37
Is Preakness weekend or what weekend is a Mother’s Day, Preakness, or week,

Henry Pertman 9:42
it’s not Mother’s Day, that’s for sure, it’s in April, it’s in April, my bad, April for sure, a, it’s like the third Sunday in April, but you can’t literally every street here is blocked, I don’t know where you park, but there’s 1000. 10s of 1000s. I want to come next

Nestor Aparicio 10:02
year. Can I come? My lad, you don’t need to get a ticket, right? You don’t

Henry Pertman 10:04
need a ticket, just show up. Yeah, it’s like

Nestor Aparicio 10:06
a song. People get ready, so even though,

Henry Pertman 10:09
yeah, hop on,

8

Nestor Aparicio 10:11
people get ready.

Henry Pertman 10:12
Yeah, I’m

Nestor Aparicio 10:12
getting ready for this crab cake here, and you haven’t given me any secret ingredients or what’s in it, or whatever. I just know it showed up on my timeline, and I’m the crab cake tour guy, and I threw the secret to

Henry Pertman 10:25
crab cakes – is keep it simple. Our ingredients are probably the same as most of the great crab cakes in Maryland. Okay, the ones that sell for 20 bucks, they got a lot of bread in them,

Nestor Aparicio 10:37
right?

Henry Pertman 10:38
Because bread is cheap and crab meat is not so it can taste good, but you’re not going to send your best friend there or take your family out to a special Mother’s Day dinner to buy a crappy crab cake, even if it’s cheap, so you know the difference is if you go to Box Hill Pizza or you go to Angelina’s or you go to G and m if you ask for the list of ingredients, there are the proportions, may be a little different, you and this one may be a little more old bay, and this one may be J O, and, and, but at the end of the day, you want to taste that beautiful lumps of crab meat, and that’s what we provide, and it’s, it’s, is it better than the top 10 in Maryland? It’s right up there. I don’t know. We’re never ranked, and a lot of the ones you like that are terrific aren’t ranked, but it doesn’t rank people

Nestor Aparicio 11:31
always. When I started this thing, a lot of the proprietors were concerned that I was going to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, like Siskel and Ebert, and I’m like, no, I want to promote business, and I want to promote your crab cake, because you sell hundreds of them, people like them. It doesn’t mean that they don’t like Coco’s, or they won’t like Fateh Lee’s, or they’re not going to go to the Fishmonger’s daughter, where I’m going tomorrow night, or I’m not going over to Costa’s. I mean, I, but I would tell people they really, really are different. You have a fade-lease crab cake, it’s gonna be mustard forward, it’s unlike any other crab cake. So, the

8

Henry Pertman 12:05
ingredients saying, but the amount of ingredient is where it really varies. The

Nestor Aparicio 12:10
quality of your crab meat and how you’re treating it, and then how you’re presenting it, too. Lot of butter, lot of this, lot of that. I mean, I’m a fried crab cake guy, to your point, you’ve already disparaged breading in a crab cake. I grew up poor. My parents had special meat and Dundalk. My mom pan-fried them like griddle cakes. And when I get that style of crab cake, that fried little hockey puck, I love that thing. And it’s not

Henry Pertman 12:35
surfing. You should come here 10 years ago, you would have loved at

Nestor Aparicio 12:39
a price. It’s fine, I every crab cake doesn’t need to be a big bougie $60 softball, although you can get that over Coco’s, and not 60 bucks, but, but if you want an 11 ounce giant crab cake, little ones, but I like little crab balls that are fried. When I little six pack of crab balls, that

Henry Pertman 12:57
crazy big 12 ounce crab cake, I mean, we, we, we don’t sell a lot of them. People want a sandwich, they don’t want, right, the bougie part.

Nestor Aparicio 13:06
I always tell Marcella Coco’s, when I take her crab meat home raw, and she knows this, I get English muffins, and I get some sharp, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and I take her delicious coleslaw home, and I know I’m talking to you now, Berks, Berks had a crab melt, and the Burks, I see. I knew I would get that out of you, Henry, because you’re old school like me, and

Henry Pertman 13:27
had this place called Henry and Jeff’s that was right up the street from Burke. I did

8

Nestor Aparicio 13:31
not know that. Tell me about your background. Did you, you were a restaurant, tour for sure? You speak like one, for sure.

Henry Pertman 13:38
It’s all I’ve done all my life. Well, right,

Nestor Aparicio 13:40
I speak like a radio guy. No, I’m

Henry Pertman 13:42
52 years into this industry, so this is what I know.

Nestor Aparicio 13:46
Well, I Berks had a crab melt back when I was a young reporter, and it was open face English muffin, you know, not a lot of crab meat, just enough to make it like a tuna melt, and then that cheese, or just more like a imperial crab, really, and oh man, I was craving it for years after it closed down, and now I just make my own. Now I take all of my, my clients and sponsors, crab me, all of them, and I could put it on an English muffin, put some sharp, extra sharp, not extra sharp, not that Cooper nonsense at Bradley Cooper, this extra sharp cheddar cheese, and I melt it over in my little oasterizer, and I don’t need a big crab cake, I don’t need a little crab cake, I don’t need a fried broiled, I just need it appropriate to me, it’s always you,

Henry Pertman 14:31
for you, you’re making it for an audience of one,

Nestor Aparicio 14:34
every place I go, Pete over Casas, when I come and he looks at me, he’s like one broiled, one fried, I know how you want it, and that’s to me, best of both worlds. I’m a 31 flavor guy. No, Pete,

8

Henry Pertman 14:45
very well. Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 14:46
well, Henry Perms here. We are at Sorrento of Arbutus. Six years in, you and narrow.. I’m

Henry Pertman 14:52
four years in. The first two and a half were as a consultant. I did consulting for a long, long time, I. And then when I semi retired, I came. You don’t

Nestor Aparicio 15:03
look even remotely semi retired. What the hell does that mean? I have no retired. It

Henry Pertman 15:09
means I don’t have 19 clients, I only have one.

Nestor Aparicio 15:12
All right. Well, no, you got 1000s, because you’re here at Sorrento. I’ve watched your act, but those are

Henry Pertman 15:17
guests. Well, I’ve seen what you’re

8

Nestor Aparicio 15:18
doing here. So I looked at the menu, and you’ve already.. there was a beautiful lady here. I got in her way, putting my cord in, and she was eating.. I think she was having, like, a breakfast thing going on. So, I got here about noon. Looks like she was having some eggs and bacon. She had French fries. And then I saw these two fellas over here. They were clearly on their lunch break. They were construction-looking fellas, and they had an open-faced turkey. oh man, was like Thanksgiving, and they had French fries and gravy, which GBMC sponsors the crab cake tour, and I had.. I gave my blood, which I don’t like doing. It came back, I didn’t like that at all. Doctor told me, ‘Dude, cut back on the fried, so I had to tell Pete this, give me the broad, so I’ve been trying. I haven’t had a French fry in about three weeks, maybe three and a half. I did the show at Pizza John’s, and I did not get a French fry, and I love crinkle cut French. And I came in, this lady had French fries, they had French fries, I didn’t add any French fries. How the hell am I gonna do that in Creature? If I ordered for you, you’re gonna bring me a bowl. Yeah, I ordered a small salad. He brought me a large salad. I told him I didn’t want any pizza, he brought me pizza. Get, I ate it. I told him I wanted one crab cake, he brought me two crab cakes. So, and I know you already, you started on the desserts before I even got to order my set. Tell my wife and tell my doctor that I ordered a salad with grilled chicken. Tell him he’s

Henry Pertman 16:45
a liar. No,

Nestor Aparicio 16:46
I ordered.. where’s my.. where’s my leftovers? I already knocked. He

Henry Pertman 16:51
ordered a salad. You

Nestor Aparicio 16:52
put it in the refrigerator for me, which.. and

Henry Pertman 16:54
I put the other half for your wife, so she would enjoy these bread

Nestor Aparicio 16:57
sticks are glistening with goodness.

8

Henry Pertman 17:00
They are. there’s no

Nestor Aparicio 17:01
way that crab cake’s not going to be delicious. I mean, come on, look at it.

Henry Pertman 17:06
Well, it’s not going to be delicious because you don’t have a fork and you’re going to eat it with your hands,

Nestor Aparicio 17:10
spinach and mushrooms and a little bit of cheese. You got me some cold slaw here. Can we have a talk? You’re a real restaurant here. Tell me about your original restaurant downtown. He says, right down the street from Berks. Where was it?

Henry Pertman 17:23
It was in Mount Vernon.

Nestor Aparicio 17:25
Mount Vernon, okay? Charles on Charles, Henry

Henry Pertman 17:27
and Jeff’s.

8

Nestor Aparicio 17:28
All right, sit down.

Henry Pertman 17:30
It was, it was sit down. It was a very large restaurant. Did you

Nestor Aparicio 17:34
serve a crab cake there?

Henry Pertman 17:35
We did.

Nestor Aparicio 17:36
All right. And I’ve had this problem, but we were making Mexican

Henry Pertman 17:39
food. We were ahead of our time, yeah. Okay,

Nestor Aparicio 17:41
all right. What years was this?

8

Henry Pertman 17:43
89 to 97

Nestor Aparicio 17:44
All right, I’m thinking about, like, Gampies was in the neighborhood. We were right,

Henry Pertman 17:48
we were four blocks from Gambies.

Nestor Aparicio 17:50
Okay, so I’m

Henry Pertman 17:51
straight up Charles Street,

Nestor Aparicio 17:52
okay, up toward Grand Central, toward the hippo’s on the left,

Henry Pertman 17:56
past Grand Central, past the elephant, not

8

Nestor Aparicio 17:59
the, uh, the elephant, but Brass Elephant,

Henry Pertman 18:01
now you’re so Brass Elephant was next block after Gampies. Okay, we’re three more. I’m going between Preston and driving

Nestor Aparicio 18:09
north on Charles’s near

Henry Pertman 18:10
the Meyerhoff, and okay, closer. So this

Nestor Aparicio 18:13
is an area of when I talk to real chefs, and I haven’t done this shtick in a long time, but I did it almost every day, serving a crab cake with tartar sauce in Dundalk, it would always call them a cocktail, cocktail, right? And I welcome

Henry Pertman 18:30
to Arbutus.

Nestor Aparicio 18:31
Well, welcome to Maryland. And this is what I was going to get at. I went all over the state, I’m talking Oakland to Ocean City, which is why the crab cake tour sponsor bought a Maryland lottery. By the way. You’re a great purveyor here. I see you selling tickets, but everywhere I went, I was shocked that most places do not serve cocktail sauce, and wouldn’t think of putting cocktail sauce on this style of crab yuck. Right, you’re right, like a fried shrimp. I do that out at Costa’s all the time. Fried shrimp and cocktail over at Coco’s, they do a coconut shrimp with a raspberry. I mean, I can be bougie, but as my childhood tartar sauce was only for fish sticks as a kid in Dundalk. You’re letting your.. I’m being honest with you, Gordon’s

8

Henry Pertman 19:14
fish sticks, the

Nestor Aparicio 19:15
best kind. You’re crying, crunchy. My mom put them in there, had no fish, you had to get the grease off them a little bit, but I don’t really like mayonnaise things, and it’s like I’ll have pretty

Henry Pertman 19:27
damn mayonnaise. I’m gonna

Nestor Aparicio 19:28
get mayonnaise on the cheesesteak I would get here like a thin layer. I always get it on my own because people blop it all up and it’s not my thing, but I like a little bit of mayo. This to me, I, and I’ve asked a lot of chefs, and they’re like, “What’s the way we do it? It’s way people want to do on the Eastern Shore, especially. They’ll bring you this – no offense to your crap – this luscious thing where these giant lumps are hanging out, it looks like a lump crab bowl, and then they bring me like mayonnaise and little pickles and tell me. Put it on it, and I’m like,

Henry Pertman 20:01
why would I ruin that? This

Nestor Aparicio 20:02
is not going on a Sorrento of Arbutus crab, not in my witness, but I don’t understand the tartar thing. Would have you ever put tartar on a crab cake?

Henry Pertman 20:13
I will eat it, but I like cocktail,

8

Nestor Aparicio 20:16
that’s my man. So that’s why I’m here.

Henry Pertman 20:18
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 20:19
well, I, that’s what I’m saying about with tartar, so what I would ask, and this is me being a little bit of a jerk that always gets served in these little plastic things that I wanted to ask the servers, like it cost this one, that how many of these you throw away, how many of these just come and you just, because to me it is, I love it with fish sticks, like if like a McDonald’s, my dad, during Lent, you know, we get the McFish sandwich or the Finnie, and this comes on it, and like it’s tasty to me with fish, I’ll eat it that way, but it’s not going on, I’m not desecrating this crab cake with that, so I’ll take a break, I’ll get a fork, and you want to come back and do more, sit in with Andy and I, or you got, you got people to serve.

Henry Pertman 21:02
Um, that’s it’s your call, not mine.

Nestor Aparicio 21:06
Well, I just want to say this, I’m eating the crap. Well, if I get a fork, you make me eat with my hands.

Henry Pertman 21:12
No, I’m not going to make it with.. well, that I

Nestor Aparicio 21:14
don’t want to do that and be the wrong kind of guy on the air. So, anyone can eat

8

Henry Pertman 21:18
that bread stick.

Nestor Aparicio 21:19
I want to tear into these French fries, and I want some. Can I excuse

Henry Pertman 21:22
myself and get a four?

Nestor Aparicio 21:23
Okay, we are at Sorrento of Arbutus here. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Maryland Lottery. It is the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, and our friends at GBMC, Doc, I have not had a French fry yet. I want to point this out, make sure everybody knows that I haven’t done that, the crazy thing like getting in on that, but I do have two crab cakes here. Henry Perman’s here. Harold will be here a little bit later on. What did Harold own before? Am I crazy? Loafers, loafers. Okay, so for a long time, you, for a

Henry Pertman 21:52
long time, he

Nestor Aparicio 21:53
had bands there, right? He rocked, he rocked.

Henry Pertman 21:55
Yeah,

8

Nestor Aparicio 21:56
great food, man. I had lunch in there, 40 West. We have his chef. Well, he had a great little sports bar out there. I would go out there and have a beer. I’d watch games out there. Absolutely. So, crab cake is here. It is the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, also presented by Friends of Farm to German. I just wanted to have a bite of this with you all. Before I do this, I want to say I’ve never been anywhere where I looked at the cheese steak menu and seen, first off I’m going to get the Cooper cheese, I’m going to get lettuce and tomato, because I’m gringo that way, and you serve it with sweet peppers and fried onions, and then I looked at it, and below it there’s a shrimp cheese steak,

Henry Pertman 22:33
yeah, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 22:34
that’s weird, Henry, that’s weird, I don’t,

Henry Pertman 22:36
you ain’t with when Dixie, but people enjoy it, I wouldn’t think

Nestor Aparicio 22:42
grilled shrimp, is that like a garlic?

Henry Pertman 22:45
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 22:46
like a scampi shrimp,

8

Henry Pertman 22:47
yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 22:48
Do you put a scampi shrimp on your pizza?

Henry Pertman 22:52
So the answer is, if you want it that way, yes. But I think shrimp alfredo is the menu item, but since everything’s made to order, we don’t care what we put on anything. If you want to make exceptions, you want to create your own food. Chef knows how to cook. We just, yeah, we, the answer is yes to whatever request people.

Nestor Aparicio 23:12
I am really, really intrigued, so much so I think I’m going to order a shrimp cheese steak from you when I leave here.

Henry Pertman 23:22
Fine,

Nestor Aparicio 23:23
Bill Cole and I are going to have a conversation, and maybe a beverage before we leave as well later in the day, and it’s going to feel like eight hours from now for everybody listening. But I would feel like I really missed out if I don’t order the shrimp cheesesteak, because I can take the shrimp off.

Henry Pertman 23:36
You can take, and I know I like

8

Nestor Aparicio 23:38
shrimp, and I know I like cheese steak, right?

Henry Pertman 23:40
I don’t know that I would like them together, but people enjoy it,

Nestor Aparicio 23:43
do they? You don’t stick the shrimp into the cheesesteak, right? You grill it together, like, like at Benihana,

Henry Pertman 23:49
together, so you really get a shrimp cheese steak. The people who like it love

Nestor Aparicio 23:58
it. I don’t want to not love it. I want to love this crab cake, right? You love the Harry Perman’s here. They have invited me out on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, presented by the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, and Farnham and Dermer to have the crab cake. And look, you were gonna bring this out to me in the cocktail

Henry Pertman 24:10
sauce?

Nestor Aparicio 24:10
No, hell no, just wait. Is if it was fried, I’d go crocktail sauce, and if fried shrimp, for sure, I’m weird like that. But anyway, you invited me out, do a

8

Henry Pertman 24:20
killer fried shrimp, but that’s fine when you go get a taste, six sub, and fried. How many of me are going

Nestor Aparicio 24:26
to be eating here today? You’ve already fed me pizza, you lied about the Greek salad and the chickens. I’ve already eaten half of it, and now I’m having.. I lie a

Henry Pertman 24:35
lot.

Nestor Aparicio 24:36
Well, if I was done a show with this in the beginning of the segment, the whole segment would sound like this, and this is not a good way to do it, but your

Henry Pertman 24:44
listeners would appreciate that.

Nestor Aparicio 24:46
Delicious, it’s a hell of a crap thing with my mouth full on here. Delicious, like a radio guy, could you handle the segment if I put too much in my mouth with this?

Henry Pertman 24:54
I’m hoping, why don’t you just put all, put it all in your mouth and see what happens?

8

Nestor Aparicio 24:57
Now I’m going to say something now. That is my crab cake thing that you have done here impeccably, that I love about a crab cake. And I didn’t even know this until I went out on the road doing the first crab cake tour, about five years ago. I went to Ocean City, place down there called Blue Embers fan, that’s a Baltimore, it’s a the old Pimlico, yeah, I mean legitimate, right on 28th street, around south of 28th street, 20 something, 21st street, blue on the inlet, beautiful. And he came on, did the show me, the mayor was there, and a bunch of people there, and he brought me scrap cakes, and it was the first time I noticed on the crab cake tour, and I’d been out on the tour maybe a couple, two, three weeks, had a dozen crab cakes, or whatever, it’s the first time somebody brought me where the bottom of the crab cake has that crispy, yeah, like a fried crab cake, you see that there, that is the fried part. So it’s sort of like

Henry Pertman 25:51
business on top, it’s on a sizzle pen, pleasure on the

Nestor Aparicio 25:55
bottom, you know, but some places they steam it underneath, so it comes a little bit more wet, they put a

Henry Pertman 26:01
little water, so it doesn’t stick to the pan, and that prevents it from getting across.

Nestor Aparicio 26:06
I want a crust. See, that’s what I’m saying. I get it. So, and especially if that crust had a little bit of butter, because butter makes it better. So, I’ve had this style of crab cake, where it’s crispy on the bottom, that’s to me like a little bonus, you know what I mean. That’s what.. Congratulations,

Henry Pertman 26:23
you won the lottery.

Nestor Aparicio 26:25
Sorrento Barbuda’s delicious crab gate. Well, I got my mouth full. You, my break. Humming Persia. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland Live. So, why don’t do the show with my mouth full? But if I weren’t eating, much to the

8

Henry Pertman 26:37
chagrin of your fans,

Nestor Aparicio 26:38
well, you wouldn’t know why. Shut up, they like it a lot. We’re back for more from Arbutus with my mouth full. And this is a memo to Jim Schwartz, the son of Arbutus. You can trust the Arbutus crab cake, Schwartzy. Get in here, and for all Schwartz’s relatives too – all 400

Henry Pertman 26:57
May the Schwartz be with you. The

Nestor Aparicio 26:59
Schwartz is with me right now. We’re in Arbutus. Stay with us. It’s a Maryland Craft Gate tour,

Unknown Speaker 27:02
you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai