Yesterday we sailed across the choppy waters of Elliott Bay on the water taxi. We alighted in West Seattle by a rocky beach where divers were practicing. I thought this was totally cool. Iris was not so interested. She was busy “skipping rocks”–that is, throwing them into the water. We found a cool rock with four barnacles on it. Iris wanted to throw it in. I wanted to take it home. I prevailed, but only after promising that next time we came to this beach, we could bring the rock back with us and throw it in.
Incidentally, this beach is a gold mine of skipping rocks.
Laurie, who had read a review in the Seattle Times, suggested we have lunch at the restaurant just off the pier where you disembark the water taxi. It’s called Alki Crab and Fish, and it looks like a terrible place. See, here it is:
It’s that flat building that you can see through the bars of the boat. Here’s what it doesn’t have going for it:
* It has a gift shop.
* It has a great view.
* They advertise on the water taxi.
* It specializes in fried seafood combos, the kind where they fry up a cross-section of sea life.
If I owned a place like this, I’d put up a combo of fried things that aren’t actually edible, just to see who would order it. The #4: Fried nudibranch, sea squirt, anemone, and coral. With french fries.
You can see the punchline coming here: Alki Crab and Fish is not bad at all. We did get a fried combo, with shrimp, clams, calamari, halibut, and fries. The halibut is fresh. The rest isn’t, but with the exception of the overly processed calamari, everything was tasty and well fried. Iris actually liked the clam strips better than the french fries. We also had a cup of clam chowder (good, but I like homestyle chowder better than thick restaurant chowder) and an insanely meaty crab cocktail.
They also have ice cream, including “new and improved” Dreyer’s Butterfinger flavor, which really was good–not as good as Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter and Chocolate, but close.
I did have some ill effects from our outing, but it had nothing to do with the seafood. My arm is sore from skipping rocks. Iris said, “You could put that arm in my bath and it’ll feel better in ONE MINUTE.”
**Alki Crab and Fish**
1660 Harbor Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98146
(206) 953-0237
Hey – this sounds suspiciously like a restaurant REVIEW. I knew you couldn’t just give it up cold turkey. Maybe they make some kind of patch or gum?
This is not a restaurant review, it’s the kind of semi-informed crap some guy would post on his blog.
Well sure, if this was just any old Internet dilettante’s blog… but given your personal history and habits, you’ll forgive me for suspecting some recidivism.
I am a new man.
Hey! My wife is a fanatic for Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter and Chocolate also. Here in SE Michigan, it’s a staple, but last winter in Florida we had trouble finding it for some reason.
We went to that Korean restaurant in Federal Way again, and the ‘8 kinds of seafood stew’ had a seemingly inedible thing that the waiter informed us was a “shellfish, where you eat the shell”. Since it did indeed have the texture and firmness of a shellfish with a shell, none of us managed to eat it…
It was a soft-shell barnacle.