With enough cheese and hot chiles, almost anything can be palatable. Almost.
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“Get together food”, is what I call it. My bud got a mess of Dungeness crabs when he was in Cali a couple years ago. HIs brother runs owns a fishing boat. Just had a mess of friends over and we got sloppy. I know what you mean. Crackin’ all that stuff open and devouring it.
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I always say best way to eat a California burrito is naked in the bathtub.
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I wish I could but I’ve never had it!
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking. I’m too cheap to throw it out, but haven’t been able to come up with a way to use it that’d be bearable.
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One of the most satisfying dinner parties Mrs. ricepad and I ever attended was an impromptu one. A friend of hers that lives a couple blocks away called in midafternoon and asked if we wanted to come over for some crab. We picked up some sourdough and headed over, to find they’d been gifted a few dozen crabs from friends who had just gone crabbing, realized there was too much for the four of them, so invited a few people over. Some brought salad, others wine, and we all got to work, up to our elbows in dungies. I think the crab had only been out of the water for about 4 hours, and had been on ice in the interim. Second freshest crab I’ve ever had.
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OMG. The Dungeness crab day made you feel great to be alive. Perfect day. That’s the food scene I live for. Someone gets great meat, seafood, hell, onion tops, and I’m there. Friends /family and “treat” food is the reason we work. God, I love crab.
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I made a Krab Noodle casserole recently, as well as a Krab roll (like a lobster roll). I like it in Asian seafood dishes. I went through a long 20 year phase where I was seeking out genuine crab, and avoiding Krab (maybe from 1995-2015).
I live halfway between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, and I decided to embrace Krab.
I gorge on the good stuff when I visit the coast, but I haven’t visited any coasts since 2019 
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Picked up fresh clam pizza this evening on the way to the weekend place from Zuppardi’s. Best clam pizza period. Expensive pie. $41 for a medium. Probably had 4 dozen little necks on it. I am mildly annoyed as they forgot to put the lemon wedges in.
Clam pizza is a thin crust pie ideally with freshly shucked clams (like in the picture) as opposed to chopped clam, garlic, some herbs like oregano and parsley, a bit of peperoncini, and maybe a dusting of cheese like on my pizza.
I don’t think of conch fritters as American food unless you’re defining American very loosely and mean the Americas including the Caribbean. The only place you have a chance of seeing local conch in the states is Florida and even there conch isn’t seen much. Bahamas yes. US not so much.
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I had conch in Grenada a few times. I remember trying fritters and conch curry.
I love calamari, clams, octopus, cuttlefish, scallops. I’m not a fan of conch. Pretty shell.
If you like all the other things you listed, then I will say you didn’t have good conch. Good fresh conch is amazing. Conch fritters, cracked conch, conch salad. All so good. But fresh conch is necessary. So much these days is processed frozen. I still remember the first time I was free diving for conch. I brought two up to the surface from about 20 foot deep water. Handed them to a friend who knew where you cut into the shell to cut the muscle. He then skinned it on the spot, beheaded it and then rinsed it in the ocean. Took his knife and sliced off a piece and presented to me on the blade. It was freaking fantastic.
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It was fresh. The other seafood in Grenada was fantastic.
I only listed the shellfish I like I don’t like mussels, sea urchin, Bottarga or sea barnacles. I only like oysters smoked, Rockefellered, or fried.
The conch I had had a more distinct and strong flavour than claims, squid or cuttlefish.
If I ever visit the Bahamas or the Keys, I will give it another try.
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That looks and sounds like the clam pizza we would have at Albatross Pizza in Berkeley. Sooo yummy!
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Bathtub with water?
Or just in an empty bathtub?
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Empty. Just a fantasy because so much inevitably dribbles out.
I have bad knees now so bathtubs are out!
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Every time I go to Isla Mujeres, MX, I get conch right on the sea. Love it.
Which is why the best way to eat it is seated at a table on a plate with a knife and fork. The least interesting part of a burrito is the wrapper. I want the stuff inside and the use of a knife and fork allows me to surgically open it and eat the good stuff and leave the empty carb calories behind.
That’s why I never understood the desire to wrap a flavorless tortilla around beans, rice, and whatever else is in those things.
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For the same reasons bbq should be served with wonder bread.
Essentially a delivery system.
Eating a burrito with knife and fork sounds like eating a hotdog with knife and fork.
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Or pizza.
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