Shell We Eat?

A few years back, a colleague took me to a tony restaurant where he was a regular diner. Crab cakes were on the menu that day, so he ordered them. When they arrived, they resembled no crab cakes either of us had ever seen. The meat was vegetable-studded and heaped into small mounds, topped with slivers of pimento, a cherry tomato and something green that could have been kiwi fruit for all we knew.

"What are these?" my colleague demanded.

"They are your crab cakes, sir," said the waiter.

"They don't look like anything like your regular crab cakes."

"We have a new chef, sir. He's trying to make his mark."

My colleague's voice turned icy. "Tell him to make his mark on someone else," he said. "And bring me some regular crab cakes."