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Seafood Harbor – Bryan Loofbourrow has gathered a geographically-diverse bunch of people for another attempt to indoctrinate me into the glories of the Chinese banquet. This time, he’s gotten us to BART our way down to Millbrae, on a rather restaurant-laden strip of businesses of which our destination takes a rather large horizontal swath. From the exterior and to the untrained eye, there’s no way to separate this establishment from a hundred other suburban outposts of mediocre Americanized Chinese food. But…we have Bryan.

We hang around a while for the latecomers, a bit longer for the no-shows, and then decide to start with who and what we have. And thus begins a procession of remarkable tastes, some with the pure clarity of the sea, the land, or the fire, others with the more subtle nuances of combinations in balance. Particular standouts include “crystal prawns” in a mayonnaise-like coating (it’s not really mayo…it achieves more of the effect of turning something crisp and sweet into something creamy and slightly briny; an “oysterization” of the shrimp, if you will), deep-fried balls of what tastes like – but Bryan insists shouldn’t be – coconut milk, and a mixed plate of single bits of animal flesh; some barbecued in the classic Chinese fashion, crisp and intense, and some not. It’s the “not” that intrigues me the most. Jellyfish, a sea creature that skeeves me out more than almost anything other than millipedes and giant cockroaches, is a revelation of taste and texture that I could eat for much longer than this particular feast allows. The meal starts to wind down with a truly excellent rendition of Peking duck, an old standby at Boston offlines, and a plate of pea parts (the table teeters back and forth between “shoots” and “tendrils”) that almost…almost…makes me agree with Bryan’s contention that they are the supreme expression of green vegetableness in all the world.

The problem – and this has been the same at nearly every high-quality Chinese place I’ve eaten, with or without Bryan, and whether two courses or a dozen – is the pace. Food comes out so fast, one barely has time to enjoy and savor anything. Add wine, note-taking, and conversation to the mix, and the pacing becomes extremely problematic. Though even given the ultra-rapid arrival of each dish, we still linger so long the restaurant essentially kicks us out at the end of the evening (still well shy of 11 p.m.). It’s a problem without a real solution, except maybe to start at 5 p.m. or so, which will work for almost no one. (4/05)

This restaurant has, according to locals, since closed.