Not the nicest thing to name a restaurant, but in Pacific Grove, CA, it’s fitting.
First of all, the lay of the land is important. Debbie and I were in Pacific Grove for two extra days before the annual Clergy/Spouse retreat program at Asilomar. Debbie got Friday off and we jumped at the chance to get some serious relaxation in somewhere between Christmas and the coming Lenten season.
After a fairly leisurely drive down from Santa Rosa, stopping off at Pezzini’s for some deep fried Artichoke hearts (part of the ritual, don’t you know) we took a little snooze and then thought about where we should go for dinner.
I’d always been curious about Fishwife, after all, it sits at the entrance to Asilomar and I’ve driven past it dozens of times. I heard the woman at the registration desk saying that it was one of the two seafood restaurants that she recommended, so what the heck?
Unfortunately the ATT Pro-Am was at Pebble beach around the corner (okay, only if you consider the point at Spanish Bay to be the “corner”) and so there was a 45 minute wait in the lobby with a dozen or so of my closest friends and neighbors, each of them wearing enough golfing gear to make Jack Nicklaus blush. But the bar was open and the staff was friendly and attentive.
We sat and got started with the Calamari wedges “golden fried” according to the menu. Let me take a moment to wax eloquent about my love of calamari and my oft-felt disappointment at the way that it is served in many places. It should be tender to the point of being undercooked when at all possible; if fried, then certainly in the hottest oil and for less that two minutes, 90 seconds seems about right.
These were spectacular. I mean that is the truest sense of the word, they were magnificent and wonderful and thoroughly tender and succulent and the breading was light and interfered not at all, serving the purpose of keeping the oil off of the delicate flesh itself. The “Caribbean-style tartar sauce” left a little to be desired, but in truth I could have eaten the wedges of squid with no sauce at all. With the Klinker Brick Zinfandel we had at the opening, it was a very welcome beginning after our sojourn in the lobby.
I decided on one of the signature dishes, the “bowls” of differing varieties. These are fresh-caught whatever, prepared appropriately according to what’s in them, served in a large bowl over black beans, rice and cabbage which itself has a wonderful vinaigrette over it. Garnished with fresh vegetables and “tortilla spears” they sounded good from the menu. I picked the Baja Fisherman’s Bowl which was shrimp, scallops and crab sauteed in lobster sauce.
There was a sweet delicacy to the lobster sauce, itself silky and rich, which truly complimented the other ingredients, by which I mean it said nice things about them. The seafood was perfectly cooked, with discernible though small shrimp and scallops as well as goodly-sized pieces of crab.
The thing about it was that when you managed to get a fork-full of the full thali, with cabbage, vinaigrette, black beans (with some mystery white sauce) the seafood melange with lobster sauce something truly magnificent happens in your mouth and all of the air hisses out of your nose but you don’t care, all that matters is chewing. Sweet meets salty meets earthy meets creamy and as it blends there is something new emerging that is really quite good.
Frankly, I could live without the tortilla spears.
The bowl is a meal-of-a-piece and as such it satisfies.
Dessert was the Creme Brulee served with Navan alongside. This was my first taste of Navan, a vanilla infused cognac from the makers of Grand Marnier, and the two of them together were very yummy. The Creme Brulee was delicate and the sugar crust was crust and not armor. Dissolved with a sip of Navan, it vanished into your mouth.
Debbie had the Shrimp Veneto, which she enjoyed rather a lot, though I didn’t have any.
The bar is good, the service is terrific (thanks Whitney!) and the food is top notch. We’ll certainly be stopping by the Fishwife the next time we’re in Monterey. For the record, there is no rating system here, if you can’t tell if I liked it from the text, you’ll just have to go elsewhere for your advice.
dinner for two with five drinks (2 wine, 3 cocktails), dessert and coffee was $111 plus tip.
TFG
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