Santa Monica Seafood-Grand Opening Night
And now, the chilling finale to my Santa Monica Seafood saga. Dun-dun-dun!
To a blogger, internet capabilities are as important as a working faucet/Brita filter/gin and tonic is to proper hydration. Imagine my surprise(rather, feigned surprise as I have Time Warner cable) when come Wednesday, the day of my promised continuation of SM Seafood coverage, I was a victim of an interwebz fail. Little did I know that it would progress into epic proportions as the downtime dragged on through Saturday night hogtying my writing ambition with it.
Here I was subjected to WiFi coffeehouses where I attempted to strangle my focus back from neighboring conversations about the lucky number 8 and it’s possible effects on karma and your life. Oh wait, that’s right now. For some crazy wild reason, I *think* I get more done outside of my house.
Monday night last week I kidnapped a cohort to Santa Monica to partake in more seafood ingestion. First, I tried the oysters. Mind you, I’m not an “oyster” person. I am not a master of the scrape and suck. However, I felt it pure blasphemy to be once again seated at an oyster bar as all the main dining tables were taken and NOT eat oysters. As I was poised to take a Fatal Frame shot of my meal, I realized that my battery was 100% drained. Thank God for friends with Nokia N95s. I quickly made a Malpeque oyster my latest esophageal victim. It was “the yum”.
My dining companion chose to partake in the New England Clam Chowder which was slopped up into a mug as mine earlier sans saucer, but with two bonus packs of oyster crackers. Score.
I was drooling over a mental picture of the salmon crudo all afternoon and ordered it up with glee. It arrived looking just as good as expected, topped with thinly sliced shallots and juicy shreds of ruby grapefruit. Yes, it’s raw. Mmmff. And it was so very soft and delicious, the tart citrus complementing the supple flesh in a way that could only end in mouth melting perfection.
My friend evidently couldn’t get enough of the salmon and went for the cooked salmon(totally not the correct name-where’s my togo menu?) which was excellently prepared with a touch of pink flesh full of juicy goodness permeating the center filet.
And of course, I ordered the cioppino. This was some damn good cioppino which I was hoping it would be after about a 45 minute wait for my dish. The stew base had some serious “BAM!” going on which I happily soaked up with my accompanying grilled ciabatta slice. A variety of seastuffs(clams, mussels, fish) and several huge shrimp were crammed into the shallow bowl, all cooked to a point of easy separation from their exoskeleton. I love cioppino, but I don’t love wearing it. Thank you SM Seafood for making a delicious cioppino that I can eat like a lady.
Oh yeah, the SM Seafood staff were seriously backed up and frazzled by the end of the night. I’m actually even more happy that we ended up being seated at the bar again, as our bartender/server Mike handled the roller coaster of a night like a champ. Not only was he responsible for all bartending duties for the rest of the restaurant, he was assisting at the oyster bar, tracking down my very tardy order, and still maintaining a surprising amount of composure come 9pm. Even though our meal took about an hour and a half, it was seriously worth it, although I wouldn’t mind if the next time I go takes considerable less to eat.
I can not write in coffee houses. It’s just not possible. I can edit the heck outta a whole lot of photos, though. =)
Ditto on the editing of photos. There’s just too much background noise to come up with quality material most of time. At least that’s my excuse. Heh.
Thanks a lot for the report! It looks and sounds so good, definitely will check it out soon!
Hopefully by now the crowds have died down a bit. Looking forward to reading your future post!