By Barbara Ruben
Special to The Washington Post
January 10, 2002

Fingers & Claws Restaurant and Sports Bar in Gaithersburg is a family affair. Father-son team Jerry and Andrew Bender own the place, and part of the 571-pound marlin caught by their mother and grandmother is mounted prominently on the wall, along with a prize-winning swordfish she caught.

Seafood gets top billing ion the menu, too, from an 8-ounce crab cake on a toasted Kaiser roll to sea scallops sautéed in white wine and garlic. Patrons can create their own seafood platters, choosing among jumbo or spiced shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, cod, crab cakes and Alaskan crab legs for a three-item entrée ($16.99, $18.99 with crab legs). The Key Largo seafood marinara, and St. Michael's linguini tops the pasta with a white clam sauce and fresh steamed clams.

But there's a lot more than seafood. The eight-page menu runs the gamut of salads, such as the chicken garden Ceasar with lots of tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms and garlic croutons, to burgers, including a triple-decker cheeseburger "club" sandwich served on white, rye or pumpernickel.