Phillip’s Seafood was an excellent experience from start to finish. First off, though I did not drive there, from what I could tell there was not very much available parking, so walking or taking an uber or taxi is most likely the best option. The restaurant is off a walking path near the harbor, however it is only about 100 feet down the path from the main street, so the walk is not terribly long. The restaurant is in a perfect location, right on the harbor within view of the World Trade Center. It is within walking distance of the Baltimore Aquarium and vessels from every decade, including The USS Constellation, a civil war era sail ship with a fully functional cannon that fires several times throughout the day. Phillip’s is also within a short car ride of Oriole Park. Although there is a little bit of a fishy smell from the harbor, if you can get past that there is a beautiful view of both the harbor and the rest of the city, and had an overall excellent dining experience. 

As the restaurant serves mainly freshly caught crabs, dining there is fairly messy between cracking the crabs and extracting the meat. Additionally, due to the large mess, most seating is outside in picnic benches, with paper on top the contain any mess, though there is an indoor portion that caters more to prepared dishes rather than boiled crabs. The fresh crab portions of the menu mostly cater to those with the intent of sharing one dish between two or three people. Because of this, most menu items are relatively expensive. For example, on the crab deck (outdoors) most items were $30, with the most expensive being a $120 feast of 12 crabs and a variety of other foods. Inside the restaurant most menu items were about $40 due to the more extensive preparation of the food. All of the options are extremely filling. When I went to the restaurant, I had the Crab Feast, which was shared between my brother, my dad and I. The plate contained 6 crabs, a half pound of fresh shrimp, two sausages, corn, potatoes, and watermelon. This proved to be the perfect amount of food for the three of us, as all the food was gone but it did not leave us with much room for more. The crabs were boiled in large batches in the same pot as the corn and sausages. All the food was delicious, to say the least. The crabs were perfectly cooked to the point where the meat comes right out of the shell. At first the process was slow, but the waiters were very helpful and demonstrated how to get the maximum amount of meat out of each crab. Everything on the plate except for the watermelon, which was served as dessert after you were finished with the rest of the food, was topped with their crab seasoning which gave everything the perfect amount of flavor. With menu items ranging from chicken to lobster, with dozens of different sandwiches for around $20, including lobster rolls, fish tacos, and burgers, as well as pastas and meat entrees. 

Overall, Eating at Phillip’s was an excellent experience with incredible food, scenery, and convenience to many of the other wonderful sites the city of Baltimore has to offer.