About

My name is Justin. I am a professional soup eater based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Since October 2018, I have eaten and scored 850 bowls of cream of crab soup at 40 establishments across the state of Maryland and, occasionally, beyond its borders — the registry travels; its standards do not.

The purpose of this work is to identify the best bowl of cream of crab soup in Maryland. The work is ongoing.

But the soup is also the excuse. Behind most great bowls is a family-owned kitchen — a corner spot that's been ladling the same recipe for thirty years, run by people who work too hard to advertise. Some of my favorites closed their doors during COVID and never came back, and nobody wrote anything down. That doesn't happen on my watch anymore. Every small, hard-working establishment in the DMV that earns its place in the spreadsheet gets a permanent record here — the score, the story, and the reason to go while you still can.

— Justin
Professional Soup Eater