Hee. And the ABQ restaurant is along one giant wall of the shark tank, so you can eat the fish while looking at the fish. We usually just get the green chile cheeseburgers.

I always thought scuba diving was a good way to figure out what to have for dinner. Things could be sorted into Pretty, Tasty or just Scary...

Pretty, Tasty or just Scary

But diving off the CA coast it's hard enough to SEE what's there.

Fresh scallops were always good and I once had lobster someone had just grabbed. But that was the extent.

Though I have seen abalone in the wild and it's yummy that it's a temptation. Though of course the wild I saw it at was a reef/preserve so while the abalone was HUGE it also wasn't available.

Having seen them prep abalone at The Hump I'm kinda off the idea of it now. But I'm not sure if I've ever tasted it before.

My mom used to get annoyed when I was a kid and we'd go to a seafood restaurant, and while we were waiting, I'd watch the lobsters in the tank and name them all and then tell her what I'd observed about their personalities -- which ones were fighting, which ones stayed in the corners, which ones were swimming around a lot, and so on.

Though I have seen abalone in the wild and it's yummy that it's a temptation.

I held a big lobster one day before the season where they were nabbable. But she was pregnant and I did not even consider keeping her because she was bringing new noms into the world.

But diving off the CA coast it's hard enough to SEE what's there.

True enough. Mexico and Hawaii are better for dinner browsing. California is just hoping you aren't going to shiver out of your wetsuit for me.

I just got an early reservation link for Chicago Restaurant Week. 3 course meals, $32 bucks. Any Chicagoistas interested in checking any of them out?

I'm available from Feb 19 - 24. (On the 25th, I'm leaving on a jet plane.)

Oh, I love abalone. Takes a lot of prep, though, you've got to tenderize the hell out of it. We went on a huge group abalone dive once, everyone took their limit and we prepared most of them the traditional way - sliced, tenderized, breaded, and pan-fried. A couple of them, though, we left whole after we popped them out of the shells, whacked them with two-by-fours a few times, marinated a while in lemon juice for a while, and then barbecued them. My god, that was good.

I've only had it twice in restaurants - once it was awful, just ridiculously tough, but the other it was delicious and much like I've had it at home.

I hear they are farming abalone in Monterey, now. I'm excited about the prospect of being able to buy it whenever I want.

I suspect my Canada goose informant didn't cook it properly. That fits with what I remember of him.

The mountain lion taste thing, though, I'm thinking that is a not-so-urban legend I absorbed in my youth. Or my grandfather pulling my leg, which I would have accepted as gospel truth because I was that type of child.

I have cauliflower leek soup now. And I will be going to bed now. Why I realize I have to cook or something will go bad just at bedtime, I don't know.

Like who sees the giant sea bass and then thinks, "MMMM... bass = good eating"?

At the DC F2F I got hungry in the crustacean house. I am not proud of this.