Anchor and Hope

I didn't expect much from my Thursday night. I had plans to meet Cambria and Bryce at MOMA for The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art. It was tons of fun drinking Pacifico as we looked at pieces from the 1000 Journals Project and made our own contributions.

After the museum, Cambria and I met up with Carlo to have dinner at Anchor and Hope. I had no idea what this place was but Carlo was intent on eating there. We parked our car under the freeway and across the street from several homeless men. It seemed sketchy but there were other people out, and I knew Varnish and John Collins were on the same street as Carlo's car so, somehow, that made it seem less sketch.

We found Anchor and Hope in this cute gray building, and the inside was equally as charming, with high ceilings, a long bar, and servers in white shirts with gray, striped aprons. The hostess told us that the wait would be about an hour and that we were welcome to wait at the bar, where we could also get full service. With no open spaces at the bar, we stood at the corner, hovering over the loaves of Acme bread. The bartender was very nice and accommodating and took our order for a bottle of Proseco, shrimp cocktail (large), and calamari.

The three of us toasted to a new year, promising to hang out more often (the last time I saw them both was at my birthday dance party at Annie's Social Club in October), and enjoyed the sweet, crisp bubbly wine. When our food came, we spied two open seats at the middle of the bar. We asked the bartender if we could move down there, instead of standing tightly at the corner of the crowded bar, and he generously obliged, moving our food for us as we took our drinks. More settled and seated (Cambria opted to stand), we dug in. The shrimp were large and beautiful and tender. The calamari was tasty, fried goodness, with soft loops of squid and a light batter that we dipped in a slightly spicy soy-like sauce. We also asked for some bread, since we still had a long wait ahead of us, and that too was good with the soft, salty butter that I just scraped out of the small dish with pieces of bread (we didn't get knives, but that was okay). Carlo ordered us a bottle of a nice, clean and not too sweet Pinot Bianco too.

Finally, we were seated, more than an hour later at the communal table, though, by this time, the restaurant was half empty. Cambria and Carlo noticed throughout our time at the bar that the kitchen wasn't busy at all (there were no pots or pans on the burners) and that many tables didn't have food on them. Not a real problem for us though, since we weren't in any sort of rush and waiting just meant that we would have more time chatting and catching up.

When our server came by to take our orders, we knew what we wanted and that we would share everything: the lobster roll, the paella with a half shell-still-on crab, and the fisherman's stew. She was impressed at our quick decisiveness, but we reminded her how we had plenty of time to peruse the menu as we waited at the bar. She was also impressed at what we had polished off at the bar too. True, we were an impressive trio.

Our food came out fairly quickly and all at once. The lobster roll came split in two, the paella was impressive with this huge piece of crab sticking out from the iron dish, and the stew was loaded up with all types of seafood. I scooted all my different utensils (fork, knife, spoon, crab cracker thing, crab scooper thing), my two glasses, my small plate, and my small bowl out of the way (trying to avoid the large crack in the middle of the table) to make room for all the food.

I stuck my spoon into the soup. It was good but once Cambria added a squeeze of lemon it was great. The salmon in it was perfect, just barely cooked and silkily rich. They didn't skimp on the seafood in it either; there were shrimp, squid, mussels, and some type of white fish too. Carlo served us up the paella. The rice at the bottom was crunchy and stuck to my teeth in a good way. The crab in it was sweet and tender. I cared little about etiquette and manners, and went at it with my fingers. The lobster roll was good too, with large chunks of lobster just barely dressed in a creamy sauce, though I enjoyed the buttery brioche dipped into the fisherman's stew more than the lobster bits.

By the time we finished up, it was almost 11pm and I was yawning. It was time to call it a night. Carlo took us home and we promised to hang out more often in 2009.