We had a lovely summery spell last weekend and Sam had a bad case of cabin fever so we drove up to Hog Island Oyster Farm on Saturday. Maybe he was treating me to a nice day trip since I’ve been cooking all these dinners lately. 😉
We drove through SF and had the windows down/sunroof open, music blasting. We stopped by Mel’s Diner for lunch and sadly to say, my diner experience consists of Denny’s and Ihop. Mel’s was pretty decent.
They have cool little music jukebox controls at the booths:
And their milkshakes were awesome. So awesome that it has inspired me to buy ice cream and make milkshakes at home. Needless to say, we’re increasing our pantsizes quite quickly.
I might add.. Mmmm. wedding band. 😉
I ordered two sliders, some breakfast egg one that was scrambled with pastrami topped with jack cheese and a turkey slider. I think it was obvious which one was better:
We went on our merry way up the coast after indulging in some good ol’ American diner food. My only complaint: their service was ridiculously slow. Like. slow. like. molasses.
Hog Island has changed quite a bit from the first time Sam brought me up here. They used to be a super industrial-y oyster farm, no nonsense, no frills shuck it yourself and bbq joint. This time we got there, there was valet parking and a oyster bar! Needless to say, the prices did go up, but the quality and experience was still there. I think we’d still make our annual trek up there to slurp down a few of these suckers.
6 oyters for $15!? Screw that! I’ve always had a blast shucking my own oysters here so I stuck my hand down in their smelly glove (rings and all!) since shucking your own was $8 per person to use the picnic area + cost of oysters. I shucked 50 kumamotos in a row and Sam and I were happy as a clam.
It was gratifying getting these suckers out… I could almost hear them cry. Almost.
I bought two dozen of the small Sweetwater oysters and shucked those to take home… Why?
Cause I had lovely ideas of making an oyster chowder… MMMMMMmmmm…. I saved all the oyster liqueur too… *drool*
