December 31, 2011 Lunch - South Shore Bar and Tavern; Dinner – Humphrey’s

December 31, 2011 Lunch - South Shore Bar and Tavern; Dinner – Humphrey’s

This was a day spent doing a lot of things on and around a narrow spit of land located in the San Diego Bay called Shelter Island.  We are staying at the Island Palms in a lovely large room overlooking the Shelter Island Marina.   We started the morning with a continental breakfast in our room with two fresh flaky croissants and tea and coffee and a coup of fresh fruit.  Then at 9:15 a.m. we walked to the entrance of the Shelter Island Marina and were met by Mike our boat captain, who showed us to Sail San Diego’s boat moored in the Marina.  We then took a three hour sail and cruise by motor around and out to the edge of San Diego harbor.  We saw dolphins and sea lions swimming and the two large aircraft carriers moored in the harbor, the Midway, which is now a tourist attraction, and the Ronald Reagan, which is moored at the Naval docks.  We also went by the submarine docks and saw five submarines, four of which were nuclear subs and the seal and dolphin training facility.  As we returned to the Marina we asked Mike where he went for fish tacos and he said South Share Bar and Tavern and gave us the directions on how to get there.  South Shore Bar and Tavern is located in a building at the end of

Newport Blvd.

in Ocean Beach.  When we turned onto

Newport Blvd.

I recognized it as the street on which I had purchased two Chinese ink paintings on a prior trip to San Diego with Suzette about ten years ago.  The South Shore Bar and Tavern was a really bustling place with every table full and a large busy kitchen, so I knew I was in the right place for some great seafood.  When I looked at the menu, I immediately saw steamers, so my mind was made up instantly.  I ordered two dozen steamers ($17.95) and a wahoo fish taco ($3.25) and a Strauss Brown Ale.  Suzette ordered an Ahi tuna taco ($2.75) and a beer.  Cameron ordered a chicken breast with BBQ sauce and Debbie and Jeff each ordered fish tacos.  When the food came our small table was covered with food.  The clams were served in a large steel bowl in the boiling hot water, wine, garlic, and butter mixture in which they were steamed with a side plate of fresh garlic bread made from a Poor Boy sandwich loaf.  It took Suzette and me about an hour to eat the food and beer, even with Debbie’s help.  It was slow going with the hot clams and broth but worth every minute.  The clams were geoducks and rather large and tough, not the small tender manilas of the Washington coast or  the tender long necks of the east coast but the hot broth brought back old memories of other pots of steamers that were just as gratifying. The wahoo taco was delicious, a large stick of grilled tender white meat garnished with a tomato and red cabbage slaw and laid on a corn tortilla.

We then parted ways with and Debbie, Jeff and Cameron went back to the hotel to rest up for the night’s event.

Suzette and I walked three blocks up

Newport Blvd.

to several of the antique stores, including the one I had bought my Chinese ink paintings at previously, and found nothing of interest and then drove north to La Jolla to tour the Contemporary Museum.

Suzette’s navigation app on her telephone routed us onto Prospect Street that is the heart of La Jolla’s prime shopping and restaurant zone, but has a terrible traffic pattern and it took us about fifteen minutes to go one block, but we finally arrived at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  The La Jolla Contemporary is one of my favorite U.S. museums because it has one of my favorite gallery rooms that is glass on three sides with a view of the ocean and no obvious joints at each of the two corners where the glass walls meet; a glass room with an open view of the ocean in front of it.  But this time after we walked through a room with 9 beautiful Larry Bell vapor etched glass boxes and a Bruce Nauman narrow corridor illuminated by green fluorescent light and a     Orr installation called Zero Mass that was fantastic (a room encircled with a scrim of plastic behind which was a luminescent black light through the scrim into the scrimmed area, which caused everyone inside the scrimmed area to look like ghosts; thus zero mass), we came to my favorite gallery and found that Robert Irwin had tinted the glass walls and cut square sections of glass out of each of the two corners and the side of the gallery facing the ocean.  I was devastated.  The thing I liked best about my favorite gallery room in the U.S., the uninterrupted sweep of three walls of glass, was cut up and gone.  I must admit that the conceptual mix of open air and tinted glass was interesting but not as beautiful as the original beauty of those three walls of magically joined glass.

Anyway, we went on and saw many resin pieces and cartoons and working sketches for several of the pieces in the museum. Finally we asked if the four or five rooms were everything in the museum and the attendant said that there was a sculpture garden behind the museum, so we went down the stairs and out to the sculpture garden, where we discovered our favorite piece at the museum.  It was called “Displaced Person” by an Italian artist.  The piece was actually created by cutting out a section of the garden and stone covered retaining wall on one side of the sculpture garden pathway in the shape of a person and coating the resulting cut out section with concrete.  But instead of throwing the cut out piece in the shape of the person away, it was also coated with concrete and laid on the surface of the ground on the other side of the pathway, thus creating a “displaced person”.  Very clever and thoughtful.   

The sculpture garden was planted with a profusion of succulent plants that were in bloom.  They seemed to thrive in the temperate cool wet winter air of La Jolla.

We returned to the hotel for a nap and met Debbie, Jeff, Cameron and Tory at Humprhey’s at 8:15 p.m. for diner and dancing.  We were shown to a table for six in one of the two large dining rooms that must have held a total of over 250 seats with an adjoining room with a band stand and dance floor. Humphreys is an entertainment venue with a bar and dance floor and outdoor amphitheater, in addition to restaurant area were we were seated, that is the located several blocks from our hotel on Shelter Island.

The dinner menu was great with two appetizers; one was, three large fresh Glazed Carlsbad oysters baked in their shells and then garnished with black lumpfish caviar and fennel foam and the other a chanterelle Mushroom and sliced Anjou pear tart with a goat cheese and tarragon cream sauce.  The oysters were baked to just tender with their juices and tender flaps of skin wet with oyster flavor; wonderful.  

Then two excellent salads were served: one combined organic golden beets and Serrano ham bits, shavings of Pètit Basque with organic greens dressed with a hazelnut dressing and the other was a Rocket Arugula salad with a lightly sweet Maple syrup dressing with baby arugula, sliced grape tomatoes, shavings of Romano and kernels of organic corn.  The Serrano ham was fried until crisp, like bacon, but quite delicious, and the tiny leaves of Rocket Arugula were a delight.

Everyone ordered drinks.  Suzette and I order a bottle of Lost Canyon (Sara Lee Vineyard) Pinot Noir and a bottle of Murphy Goode Russian River Sauvignon Blanc.  After graciously trying the Sauvignon Blanc, Debbie ordered a glass of her favorite wine, a chardonnay, and Tori was not drinking because she was three months pregnant (the big news of the evening) and Jeff drank beer.  Cameron did drink a little pinot and some other drinks and Suzette dank a glass of Sauvignon Blanc with her Oyster appetizer, so we did not finish the Murphy Goode white.    

Suzette and I danced between courses to the music of a black jazz/rock band that mixed in a lot of Sly and the Family Stone funk hits with mostly jazz. 

There were four entrees, so it was hard to pick one.  Suzette decided on the tournedos of Cedar River Natural Beef (filet mignon) sauced with a thyme demi-glace, haricot verts and roasted, sautéed cipollini onions, but instead of the Maytag Potatoes au gratin, she asked for substitution of the smoked ham and fig souffleand I decided upon the half Maine Lobster with saffron risotto and vanilla bean butter  after our excellent waitress, Allison, promised to bring me a fig and smoked ham soufflé also that was the featured vegetable with the baked chicken entrée and further assured me that the risotto was soft.  When the entrees arrived we were all pleasantly surprised.  All five of us had ordered either the lobster or the beef.  The beef was so tender it literally melted in one’s mouth.  Allison was right; the lobster was tender and served on a mound of creamy risotto that was soft; unfortunately to the point of being mushy.  Alas, its softness creaminess went well with the firm rich lobster.  The fig and smoked ham soufflé was heavenly soft with a round of fried Serrano ham on the bottom to form a contrasting texture and saltiness to the fluffy slightly sweet fig soufflé.

Finally, at around 11:30 a.m. plates with three dessert selections (a Tahitian Vanilla and Pear pot au crème (a pear mousse garnished with a dollop of chocolate sauce), a lemon soufflé cake with a layer of gelled lemon aspic on top and a chocolate cake with a soft whipped chocolate butter icing were served with coffee. No one finished the dessert because shortly before midnight Allison served us each a glass of Wycliffe champagne, which we grabbed and trotted over to the dance area where the music and dancing was reaching a crescendo as the last 100 or so people crowded onto the dance floor with the band playing Let Me Take You “Higher”’ and the band leaders counted down the time to midnight. 

I was pleased that our small group all made it to midnight in good spirits, and felt reassured that we had a few more pleasant New Year Eves in us when I saw how many others had departed before midnight.

So the evening went along pleasantly with alternating food and dancing until after midnight when the band played a wonderful up beat jazz rendition of O Aung Sian.

We paid for our drinks and went home happy and full and ready to return to San Diego and Humprey’s for another New Year Eve.

I love the way the dinner was presented over a three and one-half hour stretch with wine like in France.  The addition of live music and dancing made the evening even more enjoyable.  As pleasant as any we have celebrated in years.

Good friends, good food, good service, good wine, good music.  What could be better?

The only negative in our whole stay was the distraction caused by the thin walls between the rooms in our motel unit that was accentuated by the snoring of man in the adjoining room.  His snoring was so loud and the wall so thin that I could not tell whether the snoring sounds I was hearing were coming from him through the wall or from Suzette in the bed next to me.

Bon Appètit