The Food of Fisherman's Wharf: Cooking and Feasting from San Francisco to Montereyby A.K. Crump

TCB-Café Publishing

ISBN: 0-9674898-9-XSoft cover, 192 pages $19.95http://www.cafeandre.com/

To this third-generation San Franciscan, the name Fisherman’s Wharf conjures just a limited strip of that city that borders the Bay. That’s a parochial view, though, and limiting. Countless settlements on the water must have their own fisherman’s wharves and Monterey, some 115 miles south of San Francisco on the Pacific, would be one of them. Many of the restaurants profiled by A. K. Crump would be on or near the fisherman’s wharves of these two cities. Others in the book are not, but are near water and would certainly be encompassed by the subtitle “Cooking and Feasting from San Francisco to Monterey.”

Over 300 color photographs give the reader a good feel for the restaurants featured and for the 24 recipes that are included. “The Food of Fisherman’s Wharf” might be a worthy souvenir for tourists who have visited the area or dined at any of the restaurants featured. It might also whet the appetites of out of state residents contemplating a visit.

Recipes included concentrate on—but aren’t limited to—fish and seafood themes. They seem fairly straightforward and are all credited to restaurants in the area, if not always to their specific chefs. Such references provide the home chef with opportunity to try signature dishes—or adaptations of them—from some very popular restaurants.

--reviewed by Dan Clarke