Dandy Yankee
Shopping in Costco a while ago, I saw one of those discount deals where you could buy $100 in gift cards for any of the Lark Creek restaurants for only $80. I picked one up, came home and promptly forgot about it.
Today, Gail found the gift cards, so tonight we decided to go to Yankee Pier in Lafayette, and I’m glad we did. Good food, good service and we saved big with the gift cards. Kind of a triple play for dinner.
I really like the decor at Yankee Pier
The decor at Yankee Pier is just right–some magic mix of highbrow and casual that makes you feel welcome and upscale at the same time. I really like the table tops which are made from nautical charts.
Gail started with the mushroom soup. There aren’t any ‘shrooms in MY kitchen, so she never passes up a chance to order it when we’re out. The soup they serve here is apparently very good–Gail loved it.
That big square biscuit you see in front of her is a house specialty. It comes with a very odd sweet/sour dip I don’t understand at all, but slather it with butter and you’ll be in biscuit heaven.
I had the crab louis:
The modern California version of Crab Louis
I always think of a Crab or shrimp Louis as coming covered in a thick, sweet, thousand island type of dressing, but this had a much lighter, lower calorie version with all the flavor you’d expect. It came on butter lettuce with a large portion of fresh, hand picked crab. The hand picked part is a double-edged sword, since you get better, larger pieces of crab but are also likely to find small pieces of shell. Win some, lose some.
Gail originally ordered a bay shrimp cocktail, but they were out of bay shrimp. So she ordered the fish tacos, and they were spectacular–I know because there were two, and I ate one of them. Blackened rockfish, avocado, cilantro all come together to make a great meal–the rice and beans on the side weren’t really necessary, but we appreciated them, too.
Service was excellent. They were concerned about making Gail happy after not having her bay shrimp cocktail, and did everything they could to make sure they succeeded.
I can’t promise that Costco will still have the discount cards, but even at full price Yankee Pier is a good place to get a casual dinner.
Totally Unauthorized 