"There aren 't a lot of legit sit down eating options in this area, but I had a good feeling about this one in the day leading up to our visit. I saw several vehicles with bumper stickers for Mud City, and our taciturn Uber driver to the restaurant brightened up the minute we pulled into the parking lot, exclaiming, This is my favorite place in the area. It 's clearly very popular amongst tourists and locals, and I can understand why. I came here with my top tier chums on the 4th of July for dinner around 4:30pm. (That was partially because we wanted to have plenty of time to get back to our Airbnb for fireworks, but also because we have the sleeping schedules of 90 year olds. No shame. Despite the slightly off hour, Mud City was hopping both inside and out, and we had a short wait of less than 10 minutes before we were seated. If memory serves, we were told the wait was roughly 20 or 25 minutes, but it was dramatically shorter than that love a solid overestimate. While we waited, we grabbed drinks at the makeshift Airstream bar outside super cool setup. There 's also a decent sized firepit right next to the Airstream that would have been a perfect place to hang out for a while if it wasn 't occupied the entire time we were there. Solid viewpoint of the nearby marshlands as well (we were right by the causeway that goes onto LBI , which will always remind me of Dawson 's Creek. I got the Honey Palmer, which was basically a boozy Arnold Palmer. Very much a Shore drink; you 're not getting edgy mixology or anything like that, but it 's a sweeter, refreshing beverage. Definitely hit the spot. We secured a table close to the entrance and right near an obligatory lobster tank. Morally, I didn 't see a choice here I went with the Jumbo Lump Crab Cake entree, touted as the best in NJ. Delicious and I think safe to say the best crab cakes I 've ever had. With my texture based palate, I tend to shy away from the crab cakes that have crunchy shizzle in them like celery, so having ones like this that have tons of crab and a bit of breading is perfect for me. It came with both tartar and cocktail sauce (which I thought was a subtle flex as well usually it 's one or the other and my preferred cocktail sauce is on the backburner , but honestly didn 't need either. The only downside was that it was so filling I barely went after my sides, corn and a baked potato, respectively. One of my chums got an a la carte crabcake as well. She wasn 't quite as over the moon about it as I was. What was strange though about that situation was that her crabcake came on an extremely small plate there was literally no room to move the food around on said plate, and it was awkward to cut up and consume. I would definitely serve that on a medium sized plate, even if you don 't really have any accompanying sides to fill it up odd optic. The service was okay, but ultimately uneven. Our waitress was around more often at the beginning of the meal and was professional/efficient, but as the experience went on was harder and harder to track down. We weren 't in a hurry shore time is slow time but some of the waits were very noticeable and caused delays in ordering, getting the check, etc. But again, if you 're staring impatiently at your watch on vacation, you 're not doing this right. One of the better places we ended up at, and would definitely go back to at the very least hang out at the edgy fire pit. And the crabcakes are worth it."
