Camden Yards Food Battle – Camden Giant Burger vs. Crab Mac N’ Cheese Dog

I’ve been a regular attender at Orioles games my entire life and like many: I’ve always ranked Camden Yards as one of the best sporting venues I’ve ever been to.  After spending the day at the Yard on Saturday and seeing the various enhancements, Wilkes and I (he was with me) walked away having never been more proud of Camden Yards and the Orioles.

You can read Wilkes run-down of the new enhancements, including a cool video of the new rooftop coming later today.

The moment I left my house that morning, I was focused on the food additions, two in particular: the new Camden Giant Burger from Gino’s and the new Crab Mac N’ Cheese Dogs from Stuggy’s.  These two items are the main features at the two new food vendors located in centerfield, I needed to see first-hand if the hype was real!

The battle was on, lets see what wins: 

1) Gino’s Camden Giant Burger:

The Camden Giant Burger is a full crabcake (my guess is around 4 ozs) that sits atop a burger (in between 4 & 8 ounces).  They layer a nice slice of provolone cheese (or white american cheese) hard to tell since it had been melted on the burger as the chef classically put the cheese on the burger as it was still on the grill bringing the cheese and the burger together.  They then put some shredded lettuce on the crab cake and drizzled the bun with a special tarter, thousand island sauce concotion (my guess on the special recipe that I couldn’t get the recipe details for).

For $16 I got the burger with fries.  Although, some may think that’s expensive, I don’t.  First off, its a ballpark, so expect the inflation.  Secondly, your getting a burger and a crabcake sandwich PLUS fries.  I had no issues with the price.

I hadn’t eaten since the morning (cereal and a granola bar) so I was starving, which I needed to take into consideration, to avoid any variables from influencing my judging.

I immediately took my burger and put some ketchup on it because I am one of those guys who puts ketchup on everything.  Apparently that wasn’t a good idea, at least according to this guy who I’ve never met:

We made our way back up to the roofdeck and as my buddies made their way to the ledge to catch the action, I stayed back at the bar, found a spot to sit by myself.  I wanted to be able to eat this masterpiece sitting down while I soaked in all the goodness.  It was glorious!  The burger had tremendous flavor, the crab cake on top blended beautifully with the burger and the sauce (now mixed with my ketchup) was understandably designed for this burger and this burger exactly!

Does this top a Five Guys burger or an In-and-Out burger?  Hard to compare, they’re two completely different styles of burgers.  Nonetheless, I give this burger a 9 out of 10, even though I have no idea what I’d add to make it any burger, I just have a hard time giving anything a 10 out of 10.

_______________

2) Stuggy’s Crab Mac N’ Cheese Dog: 

As I discussed the variables influencing my Camden Burger (not having eaten all day and being starving) there were variables that existed on this Stuggy’s dog as well.  I had been drinking.  Nothing over the top but a couple beers during the game which made my end of the game visit to Stuggy’s a very exciting trip.  I wasn’t going to go home without trying the new Crab Mac N’Cheese Hot Dog.  Just hearing the description of this hot dog sound  awesome.

The dog is what it says it is.  It’s a hot dog, topped with Mac N’Cheese, then topped again with fresh lump crab meat.  For $8 (no sides) I thought that was a great deal when you think about adding crab meat to anything.  Let’s talk about the crab meat.  Fresh lump is an understatement, this crab meat appeared to be the best of the best.  It wasn’t plain crab meat either, it looked and tasted as if it had been lightly tossed in classic Baltimore Old Bay seasoning adding a nice enhancement to the dog.

I can’t express enough, how much crab meat was on this hot dog (scroll back up and check out the picture), I was blown away then as much as I’m currently blown away 48-hours later.  I needed a plate to catch all the crab meat falling off the side of the dog as I was attempting to eat.  As I’m sure you could imagine, the crab meat and mac n’ cheese combination was unreal, leaving you in disgust that this simple recipe hasn’t been experimented at every cookout I’ve hosted or attended since I was 10.

I know the various friends on Twitter loved it, after getting dozens of replys like this:

I had zero complaints about this hot dog except that I left roughly 2-3 ozs of crab meat on the roofdeck floor.  I wasn’t able to utilize the 5-second rule because I had about 25-people watching me eat this (true story) as they marveled at the hot dog and I didn’t want to embarrass myself, otherwise, crab meat should never be wasted.  At the end of my eating experience, I rated this hot dog as a 9.7 out of 10.

- The Winner -

(Photo courtesy of @KTKirby13)

______________

It was a tough competition between the two but at the end of the day and 2-days later, all I can think about was the Crab Mac N’ Cheese Hot Dog from Stuggy’s.  The presentation and overflow of food was just too much to top.

Give us your pick:

Tags: Baltimore Orioles, Camden Yards, Crab Mac N' Cheese Dog, Giant Camden Burger, Gino's, Orioles, Slider, Stuggy's

Category: Orioles, Uncategorized