Lou's Pier 47

300 Jefferson Street

Tel: 415-771-0377

I had a good friend visiting from New Orleans and he demanded to see Fisherman's Wharf. For a reason that now escapes me, I caved in and can now thank him for dragging my butt down there because I would almost surely never have tried Lou's Pier 47 otherwise. When I hear the old adages about counting sheep to go to sleep, my twisted mind takes me on journeys like imagining billions and billions of the poor dumb animals lined up for slaughter outside Fisherman's Wharf to be quickly transformed into an eternal and endless supply of mundane and insipid T-shirts. I'd shed tears for the sheep, but I'm too occupied wondering about the motivations of the equal number of alleged human beings in lines at the other end of the slaughterhouse lining up to buy those damn T-shirts.

My good buddy Charles, here for the first time, is a master mixologist for 'The Court of Two Sisters' in the French Quarter of New Orleans, and I was going to take him to Scoma's. But we were both drawn to the outside seating and the visual presentations we saw being served at Lou's. After checking out Scoma's, he said he'd prefer to eat outside in a sunny, cool breeze, something that almost never occurs where he comes from, so we walked back and were given a table immediately.

Our first shock was the special board which proclaimed Crab Cake sandwich with fries, soup or salad for $6.95 and a Caesar Salad with fresh Dungeness crab for the same pittance. OK, who's screwing up here? After closely checking out the plates of nearby diners we both felt secure that there were no typos on the signs. We asked a few questions of our young, harried waitguy who started off telling us this was not his day, and that he would try and put a smile on his face and make our visit the changing point in his day. Hmmm, not too encouraging, but a start nevertheless. There was pretty good jazz wafting out the windows, the day was sparkling, the tourists abundant and surreal looking, and the food looked pretty darn good, so we decided to try several items to satisfy our curiosity and our bellies. This place is kind of a miracle, especially for the Wharf. Each thing we tried was excellent, and the prices are like they were when Ike was prez. We decided to split the Caesar with fresh crab, and it was a great starter though the two of us couldn't finish it. A very good dressing tossed with perfectly torn leaves of chilled Romaine, great croutons, and close to a half pound of ice cold fresh crab. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Smugly satisfied, I began to wonder what our next selection would be like. We ordered oysters, but our haggard waitguy said they weren't up to snuff and suggested both steamed mussels and the crab cakes which we tried. Two good sized crab cakes, busting with the sweetness of our local fresh crab, and a hot/sweet Nantua sauce, and a heaping bowl of simply delicious mussels swimming in garlic, white wine and tomato broth. Both were sensational. My eating partner ordered the Shrimp Creole and thought it was the finest he's ever had. I had to try a burger, and it was among the best I've had here in my eternal search for burger nirvana. The hand-formed patty was close to a half pound, cooked perfectly, the toasted green onion bun was great, vine ripened tomatoes slabbed in between, red onion and a huge selection of condiments made this a burger lover's dream. And the fries were laced with garlic and shredded parmesan, just excellent.

We had no room for dessert, and in fact could barely walk away from Lou's, but the desserts looked really good and again huge and cheap. The drink menu is very New Orleans and my buddy said authentic, the beer list is very good, wine list amazingly good and fairly priced. This place should be forced to move where natives can keep it to themselves. I highly recommend Lou's Pier 47.

Stu Smith

comments and suggestions to Stusmith97@aol.com

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