The Wharf

Last weekend I hitched a ride with my friends Jerry and Shawna down to Washington D.C. and crashed at their place for the first time. Their house is really comfy and spacious... I call house party at the Chantemsins!!! Wooooo~~

We bounced dinner suggestions off one another when we got close to D.C. One popular choice was Chipotle, since I haven't had any since getting back to the States. Shawna and I love Chipotle, but just between me and my readers, it's only because I could seriously just eat all their condiments (sour cream, corn salsa, guacamole) by themselves. Gross, I know, but at least I don't squirt whipped cream into my mouth. Anyway, so that brilliant idea was nixed by Our Great Leader and then I said I wanted to go to The Wharf. He grumbled something about your hands getting all smelly but gave in to our pleading chimes. What is The Wharf, you say? Well, I hadn't really the slightest clue since I've never been there before, but I knew there were fresh oysters and that's pretty much all I cared about.

Live freshly shucked oysters are one of my three culinary sins, the other two being foie gras (torturing geese) and otoro (endangered species?). Generally speaking, I shun killing anything, meaning I will not eat fish/shrimp that has been plucked out of the tank for my personal consumption, I usually do not eat live crab/lobster, I will not squish a fly. But, I will eat oysters and I'm ashamed to say that I haven't the slightest inclination to wean myself off this evil desire. I tell myself that oysters aren't really alive... I mean LOOK at them. They're just lazy lumps. Delicious creamy briny lumps. No, they certainly are not alive... practically vegetables, I say.

Food stamp cards accepted.

I don't know how I feel about people on welfare dining on freshly shucked clams and oysters when they should be buying bread and fruit... ah well, just another government loophole.

When we got to The Wharf, it was a bit smaller and smellier than I had expected, but it had all the proper goods. People were lined up for all types of seafood, but mainly crustaceans. And by people I meant Black people and Asian people. I was a bit surprised by the homogeneity of the crowd, but you can interpret it as you will.

They were very very good. And I'm an expert.

There was no sitting room at The Wharf, only messy eating stations where you stood with platefuls (or boxfuls) of seafood. I bought half a dozen oysters for $7, and a batch of snow crab legs for also $7. It was cheap and delicious, if you didn't mind eating like a Neanderthal. Soon after attempting to tackle my snow crab, I realized that I couldn't rip open its carapace with my teeth and nails, and so I bought a handy dandy wooden mallet for $1. That was a dollar well-spent, and I happily bashed my way through the rest of dinner. [Disclaimer: the crab was already split and steamed when I bought it, so it's exempt from my no killing rule since I didn't kill it. I know, it's a shifting of guilt/responsibility but I haven't reached saint status quite yet!]