Crawdads, a.k.a. crayfish, crawfish, or mudbugs, are tiny freshwater crustaceans built on the plan of lobsters. In the U.S. they are most associated with the Mississippi River delta, in Louisiana. 90% of the world’s crawdads come from Louisiana, but they are eaten worldwide, with Scandinavians especially fond of them. Not so many people know that California has a delta, but the crawdads know it. We traveled to Isleton in the heart of the Sacramento River Delta to sample a bucket of them.

The West Coast is big on “total dining experience.” Surely we all agree that there is more to dining than food. A restaurant may offer a romantic atmosphere, a waterfront vista, or even a singing waiter. I saw a guidebook for San Francisco where restaurants were grouped by cuisine, with one category being gay. Somehow, however, California fails to represent a certain type of ambiance that’s common in New York, the East Coast diner style. We are talking real food for real people.

Moylan’s Brewery and Restaurant is in Novato, just off the freeway less than an hour north pf San Francisco. My excuse for not having stopped there before is that it blends into the confusion of a large shopping center. We happened upon it around Christmastime. Who could resist bangers and mash with a tasty pomegranate wheat ale? No one I know.

I once asked my young nieces, who had recently moved to California, what their favorite foods were. Once said “pizza.” The other said “artichokes.” Clever girl. I still do not understand why there is no nationwide chain of artichoke restaurants. We recently revisited Castroville, the heart of artichoke culture in the US, as part of a regular program of reacquaintace with the vegetable.

The Loco Moco is a Hawaiian breakfast dish of a hamburger patty on rice topped with fried eggs and brown gravy. There are many substitutes for the hamburger, but there is no know low calorie version. Wikipedia says the Loco Moco originated in Hilo, Hawaii in 1949 at the request of some local boys who were after some quick cheap eats. Loco, Spanish for crazy, was a nickname of one of the boys, and moco was picked to rhyme.

I hate to have to select an ice cream flavor under crowd pressure. I picked hawthorn. My choice was based upon there being red fruits depicted on the sign, and my vague recollection that a hawthorn was a tree of some sort. Also, I figured the odds of sampling hawthorn ice cream elsewhere were probably slim. It was a good choice. The flavor was dominated by the cream in the ice cream, but the fruit was distinct and not quite like anything can recall. It was like a cross between apple and a tropical fruit blend.

Walk through any Chinatown and you will see shops with roasted ducks, and other things, on display in the front window. What are the “other things”? And are they any good? To answer the second question, they are very good indeed. As to what they are, welcome to Chinatown Window 101.

Ying Kee offers choices of fish, or lamb, or a chicken-and-tripe combo. We went with the recommended combo. The combo includes chicken and pork tripe cooked in chicken broth preloaded with a variety of Chinese herbs. I asked my wife, who reads Chinese, if there was a special name for the dish. She said, “Yes, it is called Chicken and Tripe with Herbs“ Figures.

We are talking pickled watermelon rinds, turkey, and cranberry sauce. Do you know how hard it is to find a good pickled watermelon rind in California? You can imagine. … They were carving prime rib and ham as well as turkey, all buffet standards. The surprise was the turkey and biscuits. It is a simple enough idea, akin to biscuits and and cream gravy. Turkey naturally wants to become fiberboard, and what made the dish exceptional was that the transformation was avoided, and it tasted of fresh, tender turkey.

Fried oysters are deservedly classic seaside cuisine. Just as marshmallows go with campfires, fried oysters go with harbors. Princeton Seafood does them as well as they can be done, fresh oysters with a crunchy crust. No too much batter, but enough to preserve the juicy oysters and to crunch well.