Sam's Anchor Cafe- Tiburon- Another Foodbuzz Voyage

Working at Foodbuzz has its perks- food namely. To celebrate our upcoming launch and the hard work that everyone put into it, the whole group of us took the Ferry over the Sam's in Tiburon for lunch and fun. We ordered a ton of food and enjoyed the slightly overcast day. Sam's is such a classic spot for anyone who grew up around here. In high school you go and try to see if your fake id/friend with fake id can buy some drinks to enjoy in the sun. Any sunny weekend day the place is absolutely packed with people. Anyone who comes to San Francisco during the summer should take the ferry to Sam's and check out the scene, it really is indescribable. Since this was a work field trip and it was a dark and almost stormy day, this was a completely different Sam's experience than I have ever had. The first order of business was to look at the sea lions as we passed by Fisherman's Wharf. I always forget how goofy these guys are, with their huge bodies and funny bark. When we arrived at Sam's it was time to order some food. Calamari was first on the order. A HUGE basket full of the fried up squid with a lovely dipping sauce. Sam's, which is more known for its view and pink lemonade than its food, really impressed me with this one. It was delicious. Mussels were another starter that the table enjoyed. These were okay but nothing to write home about.
I was excited when the crab cakes were dropped off. Big pieces of yummy crab dipped into a mayonnaise based sauce, it's pretty hard to screw that up! I think that the two main complaints that people have about crab cakes are 1) if they are too stingy on the crab and overloaded with filler and 2) if the cakes are too dry. This was not the case for these so we were in luck.
My main course was the Halibut Salad on a bed of couscous, arugula, avocado and grapefruit. It was very pretty but the taste was, meh. The fish was a little too dry for my taste (I typically like very rare fish. With white fish I always cook it through, but just barely. This could have come off the grill about 2 minutes earlier). The vegetable part of the salad was nice though, lightly dressed and I pretty much like anything that has couscous on it.
Other orders were the Cioppino:












Grilled Shrimp:











Linguine and Clams:














And here's part of the Foodbuzz team, enjoying their ferry ride back to San Francisco: