Title: Land of Medicine Buddha Monastery
Author: GCS

Phil’s Fish Market and Eatery
7600 Sandholdt Rd., Moss Landing, CA
http://www.philsfishmarket.com/eatery.html
Review date:   August 2010

Phil's is an old-time favorite seafood restaurant in between Monterey and Santa Cruz. They don't take reservations and are located completely out of sight from the freeway, out on a spit with a faded and rather unobtrusive signage. You order at a central register, are given a number and waitresses bring you your food. The surroundings are bare-bones and basic. Even during a weekday, the lunchtime rush didn't end until around 2 pm, so we were glad we arrived late to avoid the regular lunchtime rush.

They are most famous for their cioppino. In January 2009 owner Phil DiGirolamo won against Bobby Flay in one of Flay’s Throwdowns. As Carlos loves cioppino and boullabaise, we took the opportunity to stop in to try it. A bowl of cioppino is $18.95, and it comes with a simple green salad and a piece of indifferent garlic bread. You can also get the cioppino in a bread bowl, which is a popular gimmick although you get a smaller portion with a large amount of bread nobody ever eats. 

We ordered the appetizer of two crab cakes. These were very generously sized, heavy on the paprika, and nicely crusted - not too thickly coated or too browned. If you were getting a bowl of clam chowder, adding a side of crab cakes might be almost too much to finish at lunch!

I was tempted by the chowder but decided on the fish and chips. Phil's offers other fried seafood, or you can get a combo for a modest additional price. I chose halibut and oysters. The french fries are adequate but as I wasn't that hungry I left them. The coleslaw had no vinegar that I could detect, so it was very mild which was fine. The serving was generous, with three thick chunks of fish and four large oysters. Sadly, the halibut was frozen so it was a bit watery, although it still had a good mild flavor and excellent texture, meaning it was probably flash-frozen aboard ship instead of processed in a mainland facility. But the oysters were both huge and delicious. The tartar sauce was a sublime housemade dip, made with finely minced shallots. If you like fried oysters, I’d skip the fish and stick with the oysters.

Carlos loved the cioppino. The bowl is deep and big, holding a handful of shrimp (veined but not shelled), half a dozen mussels and clams, several pieces of fish, as well as a leg and body section of a Dungeness crab. The broth seems based on tomato paste and a strong clam-broth/fish stock, with the usual onions and celery. It was delicious, and also surprisingly spicy.  For $18.95 it's an amazing bargain to us SFBay Area diners. This is almost twice the size you’d get at a bistro restaurant.

This is not a destination restaurant by any stretch of the imagination. But for good quality seafood, generous portions, and modest prices, Phil's is worth a stop if you are going to or from Monterey/Carmel.

We skipped dessert.  A starter, two entrees, two iced teas, cost $57 and Carlos left a modest tip for the waitstaff. We could easily have dropped the starter – unless you’ve got at least three or four people to share a plate, just an entrée is more than enough food for even a hungry eater.