A walk along Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco gives you much the same experience. But, in this case, the barkers aren’t encouraging you to see the Fat Lady or the Snake Charmer or to come in and buy
Had it not been for a recommendation from our cousin Barbara Pauly, we may have succumbed to these appeals. But we knew better. We were looking for Scoma’s.
“Steeped with a family tradition of quality and service, Scoma’s opened in 1965, when brothers Al and Joe Scoma took over a six-table fishermen coffee shop serving fishermen on the wharf.
In charge of the kitchen is Steven Scarabosio, a native San Franciscan and a 1982 graduate of the Hotel and Restaurant program at San Francisco’s City College.
Scoma’s is by no means “budget eats” although the prix fixe lunch for less than $25.00 is a bargain.
This is a restaurant where you could close your eyes and point to the menu and know you’ll be getting something great. For cold appetizers you can chose from: the mixed shellfish platter for two or four with
Our hot sampler plate come to the table with a generous serving of calamari strips mixed with some tentacle pieces, a small bowl of scampi, and two mini crab cakes. With the plate came a small dish of Louie dressing for the crab cakes, a dish of tartar sauce, and a dish of horseradish catsup cocktail sauce. All three were delicious and obviously made in-house, but the cocktail sauce was a particular surprise.
But as wonderful as the sauces were, you almost didn’t want to use them. As Chef Scarabosio said: “Let the food speak for itself.” The mini Dungeness crab cakes contained virtually no filler other than some minced onion or scallion and were lightly flavored with seafood seasoning. The scampi was an unusual version (or at least to me) in that it contained diced tomatoes along with the traditional oil, garlic, and lemon; the sauce had an underlying sweetness from the wine. (We liked the sauce so much that we used our bread to finish every drop.)
Bay shrimp are small shrimp and so are easily overcooked. Not so here.
But the star of the plate was the calamari fritti. I was a little concerned when I saw the plate arrive on the table. Chuck likes his calamari as rings and the smaller the rings the better. This was the split tubes variety and I wasn’t sure if he would eat or enjoy it. (Of course, if he did neither, that would mean more for me.) One bite and a look of euphoria crossed his face, and he declared that this was “melt in your mouth” calamari. And it was. Prepared simply – just lightly tossed in flour and then fried – this was the best calamari ever. And I thought that honor went to Andreoli in Scottsdale.
As we were finishing our hot sampler, the cold sampler had not yet arrived. I wondered if our waitress (Lillian) had understood that we wanted the both hot and cold. When we caught her attention, we realized that she had not, but would have the kitchen prepare one without delay. “Just a minute,” says Chuck looking across the table at me. I knew immediately what he was thinking. He’d eat everything on the hot sampler, but not on the cold.
Scorma’s is an old-fashioned white tablecloth white napkin restaurant with old-fashioned service.
Just as we were ready to order dessert, I realized that we had about twenty minutes to catch our ferry back to Vallejo. The special chocolate torte will have to wait until another day. But Chef Scarabosio’s food spoke to us that day, and we award Scorma’s a 5.0 Addie rating—and award Barb Pauly 5.0 Addies for her recommendation.
*The cable car comes down the left set of tracks (photo #1) onto the circle (#2). While on the circle, it is then pushed counterclockwise about 350 degrees (#3) so that it can be driven off the circle (#4, #5, #6) on the right set of tracks to the boarding area (#7). Before or after riding the cable car, a stop is in order at the Buena Vista Cafe (#8) for an Irish coffee which was created here over 50 years ago.
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