Barbara's Fish Trap

Yesterday’s icy cold San Francisco take on late May lead us to consider pretty much any activity that would get us out of the city. Looking out into the fog, John came up with the idea for a drive down to Half Moon Bay to Barbara’s Fish Trap, a pleasure I had not yet experienced. The dreariness really didn’t let up as we drove south (often just getting outside of San Francisco proper yields blue skies) but it’s almost how I appreciate Half Moon Bay most. Memories of driving over 92 with the dog or just to escape to the water were always overcast but in that pleasant, cozy way.

Barbara’s Fish Trap is a whole experience. The first sign that greets hungry customers among painted fish and nets hanging from the ceiling reads: if you have a reservation, you’re in the wrong place. Barbara’s daughter, happily informing us her mother was enjoying a Tuscan vacation, promised us the best table in the house if we could hang on a few minutes. Sure enough, we sat inside up against the window, looking out at the gray sea, fishing boats bobbing in the harbor.

While the entire menu had our mouths watering, we decided it wouldn’t be right to order anything else but the cioppino. A favorite on the menus at numerous restaurants, I’ve eaten some pretty fabulous cioppinos. We started out with tempura fried calamari with some excellent, spicy horseradish cocktail sauce. Before the cioppino came out, our waitress dutifully tied plastic bibs around our necks, which still didn’t prepare me for the feast to come: a bowl overflowing with crab legs, mussels, steamer clams, and white fish in a thick, tomato stew with half a loaf of garlic bread balanced on top. Starving, there was probably a period of about 15 minutes of silence that ensued as we both dove into it, concentrating on crab picking and carefully combining elements onto our spoon to savor.