At The Clam Chowder Cook-Off

The Wellness Community had wonderfully sunny weather for their event. The "International" Boardwalk at the Pier is U-shaped, with water and moored boats in the middle and sidewalks around three sides of it. Quality Seafood, where it was held, occupies a vast space along one side and the top and people were all over the place, most of them happily spooning in the chowder.

Tasters were given a souvenir of this event - a clam shell with a hole punched in the top with string forming a necklace -- a sticker inside the shell announced the event. Everyone was also given a small, white paper bag which contained contest instructions (taste and vote, basically) with five blue tickets to get the chowder and one yellow ticket to vote for it.

Richie was our official taster for this event and he reports as follows. (The first three are local restaurants; the last two were private entries.)

#1 Tony's on the Pier "Lots of clams, not real creamy. It's a good taste."

#2 Fat Face Fenner's Faloon "Thick, like mashed potatoes; very creamy with bits of red pepper and plenty of clams."

#3 Delzano's By The Sea "Thick, not as dense as Fat Face's. Red potatoes. It has a very good taste; creamy but not thick."

#4 Team Mayhem "Bits of cilantro, thick, but not pasty. Too many vegetables; too much stuff in it, takes away from the clams."

#5 Leslie B & Friends "This is the second thinnest, spicier than the others."

Richie's choice? Tony's on the Pier. I went to qualiftyseafood.net to see if the winner had been posted; as of this writing, no.

Aside: I would bet that the restaurants "refine" their day-to-day recipe to include more of the good stuff (cream, butter) and that a bowl ordered in the restaurant would be ... rather different.