In Which Richie Plans an Excursion

He's good at this and yesterday was the perfect day for it.  To start at the beginning:

the monthly South Beach New Orleans Jazz Club quit the Knights of Columbus, Riviera Village, because they really jacked up the rent.  After undoubtedly frantic scurrying around to find a new venue, they discovered Alva's Showcase, 1417 W. 8th Street, San Pedro.

Neither one of us is that familiar with San Pedro so he proposed that we saddle up, ride down and find the place and O! incidentally, we could have lunch!  I never require extensive coaxing to go out to lunch.

The new site looks interesting but we can only hope there's no church nearby and that members didn't score all of the parking.

We remembered a place down by where Ports O Call was (pause for silent sob) which was really a local place - fire station personnel were throwing a retirement lunch when we were there last time some 20+ years ago.  Because it was on the water; because the view was a picturesque panorama of nets drying in the sun, a cat picking it's way across a pile of them; probably looking for a bit of shredded fish caught in said nets, we really enjoyed it.

Utros, Berth 73, San Pedro.  They don't have their own Website, but social media has taken care of that - plenty of comments and several with the menu. There is also a dog menu.  Four patties of beef.

First we had a beer.  Pabst Blue Ribbon, $4.50 pint; Stella (Artois) "Chalice $6.50 a pint and Big Eye IPA $8  pint.  We got an order of onion rings to go with our beers while we studied the menu.  They were from a medium onion, well coated and perfectly fine with a serving of Ranch on the side for dipping purposes.

He got a cup of clam chowder, $4.50 and when I asked, he said it was thinner than the thick, clam and potato-crammed product he is used to having.  He ate it all, of course.  He followed that up with a Tuna Melt on sourdough bread while I had the Patty Melt on sourdough, both were $7.50.

One bite and our heads came up from the trough and we unison-ed "Damn!  This is good!"  What made our sandwiches so enticing?  The sourdough was grilled perfectly.  The hamburger in my patty melt was top grade beef.  The tuna mix in his was plentiful along the lines of "my cup runneth over."

Best of all we were having a beautiful day - the sun was out; the light clear; the temperature hot in the sun, cool in the shade.  We could have eaten out of the spacious terrace, but elected for inside at a sunlit table.  Dessert never even entered our minds - we each had half a sandwich left over for dinner.  Lunch was $32 before tip (always 20% unless the server is seen to spit in the container.)

Utros will never equal Pors O Call, but I'm now hot to go back, sit outside, swill PBR to my heart's content and watch the gulls and boats and nets.  How does tomorrow sound?