A Maryland Italian Table With Pizza, Crab Dip and Seafood Platters

A seafood pizza with shrimp, crab, white sauce and a serious garlic presence tells you quickly that this is not a narrowly focused red-sauce-and-spaghetti stop. The Double Twin pizza takes a familiar Italian-American format and gives it a Maryland-minded turn, with a choice of thick or thin crust.

That same broad-minded approach runs across the menu. You can settle into chicken Parmesan and lasagna, order a ribeye or filet mignon, or build an entire meal around salmon, catfish, shrimp, crab and seafood combinations. It is a generous menu for a table where one person wants pasta, another wants steak, and someone else has already decided on crab.

The crab dip is a natural opening move, served with visible lump crabmeat and substantial enough to stand out amid a large menu. It makes sense before a seafood-heavy dinner, but it would be just as welcome at a table headed toward pizza and pasta.

Mozzarella sticks provide the more classic Italian-American appetizer route, with marinara that has a fresh-tomato character. Old Bay wings add another local-flavor detour. This is not a menu that insists everybody begin in the same place.

There is room for the uncomplicated pleasure of a pepperoni pie or a meat lovers' pizza. But the seafood selections are where the pizza list becomes more distinctive, especially for diners who prefer crab and shrimp to the usual sausage-and-pepperoni routine.

The Double Twin combines shrimp and crab with white sauce rather than tomato sauce, and the garlic flavor is pronounced. Choosing between a thick or thin crust gives the pie another useful bit of flexibility: a sturdier base for a loaded seafood dinner, or a crisper direction for sharing around the table.

Seafood pizza works especially well here because it is not treated as a novelty item stranded on an otherwise conventional menu. It belongs alongside crab dip, salmon, fried shrimp and crab-based platters.

Classic Italian-American comfort food still has a strong place on the table. Chicken Parmesan arrives with a slightly sweet sauce, while lasagna, ravioli Florentina, spaghetti with meat sauce, fettuccine, tortellini and chicken Alfredo cover the familiar favorites.

Linguine with sausage, peppers, onions and meat sauce is a particularly full-bodied pasta choice, built for someone who wants a little more going on than a straightforward bowl of spaghetti. Ravioli Florentina offers another route for a pasta-centered dinner without repeating the same red-sauce formula.

Cheese and garlic bread can make the opening minutes of the meal pleasantly old-school. It is the right sort of thing to reach for while the main dishes are still on their way and conversation is already moving around the table.

Seafood here is not limited to one token entrée. Blackened salmon with shrimp, grilled salmon, fried catfish, shrimp dishes and a seafood trio give diners several ways to make the meal more coastal than Italian.

The fried catfish is seasoned and fried and can appear as its own order or in a larger combination. It is joined on seafood platter combinations by crab cake, fried shrimp and angel hair pasta with Topolino sauce, making the plate more of a mixed dinner than a single-note fried-seafood basket.

The Topolino Trio goes in a more elaborate direction, with grilled shrimp, grilled salmon and a stuffed lobster tail with crab meat. A steak version is available as well, another sign that the kitchen is comfortable crossing from pasta-house standards into surf-and-turf territory.

A 16-ounce ribeye gives steak-minded diners a clear answer, while filet mignon with grilled shrimp pushes toward surf and turf. There is also a steak salad for a lighter-format steak dinner.

Chicken Marsala, grilled chicken primavera and veal Parmesan keep the menu from being divided into only pasta and seafood camps. Sides such as corn, baked potato, fries and fresh salads help complete the larger steak and seafood plates without making every meal revolve around noodles.

This variety is useful at a mixed-age family table. One person can order a familiar chicken Alfredo, another can go after catfish and crab cake, and a third can split a pizza without anyone having to compromise too much.

The room has a vintage Italian look paired with an energetic, social atmosphere. It can be crowded and conversational, with enough activity to suit a birthday dinner, a family gathering or a casual meal that runs longer than expected.

It is not presented as a hushed, formal steakhouse. The mood is more comfortable and animated, the sort of dining room where a large menu and a full table of plates fit naturally together.

Couples, families with children and larger groups all have a place here. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner, and its free parking lot has plentiful parking.

Friendly, prompt table service helps manage a menu with this many directions. Servers check in regularly, keep drinks filled and bring a welcoming tone to a room that can be busy.

There is also some personality in the service style. A server once handled a four-person order accurately without writing it down, a small flourish that suggests the kind of attentive rhythm diners appreciate when appetizers, pizzas, pasta and seafood platters begin arriving in succession.

With crab dip at the start, an entrée or two in the middle and coconut cake available for dessert, it is easy for a casual dinner to become a takeout-box meal.