Fried and True
Rosemead Boulevard in Temple City is what guys in Wyoming probably think Los Angeles looks like, a swift-coursing street of Polynesian-themed apartment houses, low-slung strip malls and giant steakhouses made over to look like snowed-in mountain cabins. Riding the middle of the strip, midway between Bahooka’s tiki splendors and Clearman’s Steak ‘n Stein, is Temple City’s crowning glory: the Shrimp Boat.
The Shrimp Boat is a kind of spartan place, a few booths, a picture of a boat, a window view of the K mart across the street, squeeze bottles of ketchup and hot Chinese mustard on the tables, oyster crackers, quilted aluminum above the fryers in the open kitchen. The Shrimp Boat feels like a setting for a short story by Richard Ford or somebody, a breathing relic of the Eisenhower administration where half the people speak in laconic Raymond Carver sentences and the other half seem as if they might hop into a wheezing Ford at any second and drive straight through to Red Lodge. When you mention the Shrimp Boat to a native Angeleno, she’ll probably tell you how she used to go there as a kid, and be surprised that the place is still around.
Between tempura, fish tacos and the new California cuisine, American fried seafood has become such a cliche that hardly anybody actually eats it any more. It’s become a tradition as endangered as the bridge party or the drive-in hamburger stand.
What you get at the Shrimp Boat: Fisherman’s specials, cove plates, captain’s plates, but basically shrimp, big piles of jumbo shrimp, butterflied and fried in a thick, sandy crust, crunchy and sweet and fresh. Shrimp sandwiches involve two fried shrimp and a toasted hamburger bun. Combination specials get you scallops and fish fingers and oysters, fried in the same batter and also clear of flavor.
With the shrimp--which come three, four or five to a platter--are little paper pillcups of tartar sauce, probably the Miracle Whip/piccalilli kind, also French fries. Tawny and brittle-crusted, melting into hot grease under your teeth, the fries have a certain high oily tang that snaps you back to ‘60s beach drive-ins as surely as Marcel’s madeline put him back with Mom. Before the shrimp, you have the choice of a not-bad iceberg salad with Roquefort dressing, or a cup of not-bad tomato-based chowder, thick with clams.
The food here is exactly what you’d expect but somehow also more . . . because what you expect and what you’ve more or less resigned yourself to getting are two different things. Like most endangered traditions, American fried seafood is actually pretty good.
Shrimp Boat
5658 N. Rosemead Blvd., Temple City, (818) 287-6926. Lunch and dinner Wednesday through Sunday. Takeout. Beer. Cash only. Dinner for two, food only, $9 to $12.
