yustyoking

        Truth can be stranger than fiction.

        In 2007, NBC’s Today Show voted the Sam’s Chowder House lobster roll “one of America’s five best sandwiches.” I know this because the info is posted on the side of the restaurant at 4210 Cabrillo Highway North in Half Moon Bay, California. With a thrilling panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean, Sam’s Chowder House receives top culinary reviews, is mentioned in news articles and becomes chaotically jammed with California diners on any give Sunday.

         On this particular Sunday, we call to make a 6 o’clock reservation for two. We are told the first available table for two will be at 8 p.m. “Fine,” I tell the young lady on the phone. My mother and I arrange our day accordingly. I have driven past Sam’s four times today on my way to and from the J V Fitzgerald Marine Reserve at Moss Beach. I could see that the parking lot at Sam’s was a total madhouse.

         Seated at 8 p.m., we discover on the menu a “Sam’s Seafood for Two” item that sounds divine:

                              Sam’s Lobster Clambake for Two 59.95

Try a taste of Cape Cod, with 1-1/2 lb. fresh Maine lobster, fresh corn-on-the-cob, mussels, clams, savory Andouille sausage and red potatoes. Served with clam chowder and coleslaw.

          Wow! Here is everything mom and I admire on the menu: lobster, mussels, clams and clam chowder. Gotta have it!

           So “Jim” (I’ll call him that), our 30-something server, decides at that moment to tell us, “We’re out of steamed lobster and Dungeness crabs.”

            “What do you mean ‘out’ ? How so ‘out’ ? In what way are you out ?” I ask.

            “We’re sold out. I should have told you that when you sat down.”

            “Uh, wait a miniute, Jim. We wanted to come at 6 p.m. but you couldn’t seat us until 8 p.m. and now it’s 8 p.m. and you are sold out of lobster and crab? Don’t you see where we might find this unacceptable?”

            “I’ll have you speak with the manager,” says Jim.

            A seafood restaurant that runs out of seafood needs to find itself another definition. Sometimes seafood ? Occasional seafood ? Supply side seafood ?

             The 30-something lady manager is very nice. She gives us a free bowl of clam chowder and free blue crab cakes, but neither can compete with what we get back on the east coast. The food here at Sam’s is pedestrian, mundane, bland.

              I order Prince Edward Island mussels. I get them all the time back home. Here at Sam’s Chowder House, they come swimming in a firy red pepper sauce that either Jim has served us as a joke or indicates culinary misanthropy among the chefs!

              Mom gets prawns wrapped in bacon, which at least taste like prawns wrapped in bacon, not something else.

              I’m sure– being in the San Francisco Bay area– Sam’s Chowder House has been featured on The Food Channel . I’m just not sure which program. The celebrity chef cook-off or the show about eateries that have great potential but still need a lot more work?

               We’ve been in California three days. Until now, we’ve managed to remain blissfully unaware of the famous manifestation called “California dumb.” Sam’s Chowder House has got it in spades, a gift shop and a well-meaning cluelessness that presupposes that any behavior is acceptable because– after all— we are popular! Lindsay Lohan can use drugs because, after all, she is popular. Arnold Schwarzenegger can, politically, act like a jerk because, after all, he’s married into the Shriver clan and he is popular. Everybody can run around all year long wrapped up in beach towels and themselves because, after all, they are Californians. They are popular. 

                “I’m popular, I must be doing something right,” doesn’t begin to apply. Watching all the excited, satisfied customers leaving the premises, I realize that by Cal standards, Sam’s is the best! But what are California standards?