Man, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells must have been pee-o’d those first couple of episodes. Chez Gilligan, one can only hope for a 3-hour tour that lasted 180 minutes.
Think the boat ultimately sunk ‘cause Lovey and Thurston didn’t want to jettison the steamer trunks full of clothes, which happened to wash ashore on their island?
Oy-ster-vey.
Oh, wait. Oyster Bay. No, wait. Walnut Creek.
OK, this is where it gets goofy. We were bemoaning, as Pacific NW transplants, that we could not find any seafood not “frozen for freshness.” Oysters-on-the-half were not to be found, let alone be eaten raw with a squeeze of lemon, or, heaven forbid, a bit of mignonette (house choice recipe). We talked about this with staffer Candice at our Trader Joe’s, and she said to head to the Walnut Creek Yacht Club.
The Walnut Creek Yacht Club is a restaurant/bar downtown in an eponymous city in which we have never seen water.
There may be a “creek’” but Kath and I have never seen a place to park a kayak. WCYC is a trippy joint with an outrageous, welcoming vibe. There’s no lake, river or sea; instead a nice bar area and capacious dining section. In fact, I think that the WCYC is a former downtown bank. Again, no surf lapping at the shore; maybe just parking cops cruising the metered streets, lapping up their monthly quotas.
Candice was correct, and WCYC has become a Happy Hour fave for us, despite the Highway 4 drive. Doesn’t hurt that we found a city parking garage, one block away, for 50 cents an hour.
Now, you must understand, that Candice, touting the Walnut Creek Yacht Club, engendered vi$ion$ of $ugarplum$ dancing in my head. Walnut Creek as a municipality is $pendy enough, and I love to break out the French cuff cufflinks as often as possible, but this sounded like every other “fresh seafood” joint we have encountered since our CoCo adventure: $25 for a half-dozen; maybe $2 each. We ain’t in the Pacific Northwest anymore. (Which not might be a bad thang; as of this posting Seattle is poised to welcome 5 to 9 inches of snow tonight, a “once in 50 years” snowfall that is now occurring annually. BTW: The person in charge of roads during our horrendous Seattle 2008 Christmas, and who was then out of town, has now been hired to manage BART, our multicounty commuter rail system here. Talk about an executive gene pool.)
The Walnut Creek Yacht Club hosts a “Skippers’ Meeting at the Bar” (aka Happy Hour) every day (‘cept Sunday; they’re closed) from 3 p.m. to 6. It’s 15 bucks for a dozen oysters, and 5 bucks for a big pour of wine.
We’ve been in a few times, but the other day was our first time sitting at the bar. Check out Kathy’s photo; Jaws is looking straight at her, and if you squint (Quint?) you might be able to spy a bottle of my favorite Gin, Boodles, in the distance.
We had the pleasure of being served by Dave, the WCYC manager, serving behind the stick in lieu of his regular mixologist who had severed a hand tendon in a horrible broken-cocktail-glass accident previously. Turns out that Dave, an Irishman then studying acting in London, had much in common with the pasts of Kath and me. Between stories of K getting her Masters in acting, Dave’s rollercoaster of theatre v. film, and my ‘Nam flashback of standup and B-Circuit infamy, we all had an unexpectedly heightened level of conversation.
No sour grapes. Sometimes, just a squeeze of lemon makes it all good.
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