William "Bill" S.'s Profile

The traffic from Phil's Fish Market lines the streets of the sleepy fishing dock access road for 3 solid blocks in Moss Landing.  The line at the cash register of the pay-first, eat-soon, no-service fish market was 25 people deep when we arrived at 12:30pm on a Sunday afternoon.  Yes, we heard about Phil's from the Food Network's throwdown with Bobby Flay and yes the attention from this program has brought an un-expected, but not impossible amount of traffic to the restaurant on a regular basis. The staff handles this load with relative ease and surprising quickness. The workflow of paying first, finding your own seat and being served the food without further interaction from the wait-staff allows them to maintain a high throughput of diners without having to turn away customers or extend the queue much further than the doors of the restaurant.  

On to the food.  Simple, extremely fresh and very well-tuned dishes for a great value that you really can't find anywhere else in Monterey or Santa Cruz.  The Cioppino was chock-full of every type of fish and shell-fish you could hope to find, and the broth was sweet and soupy, but could really stand more red pepper and spice.  This is not the deep, complex broth that you'll find in San Francisco, it's full of herbs and a rich tomato base, but leaves you craving more flavor and spice with every bite.  

There were no tables available once we ordered and we had to sit in the back of the shaded, outdoor seating next to the door to auxiliary outdoor seating.  There were flys (10 or 15) that plagued our table and the few next to it, but I really didn't mind because I was eating some of the best Cioppino that I've had in quite a while.  The need to get up and occasionally refill my own beverage got kind of tiring after a while and the whole place was way too crowded for how good the food was.

Go and expect the freshest of fresh, but don't go during peak hours, and don't expect to be pampered.  The no-frills, bare-bones experience is bound to please if you're expectations are aligned with the ability of Phil and his staff to meet the demands of the throngs of Food Network viewers from the Bay Area and beyond who long to taste the Cioppino that defeated Bobby Flay.

If you care most about BBQ, not the sides, not the service and not the price, this is your best chance at authentic dry-rub BBQ in the south-bay.  The ribs here are completely awesome.  The dry rub is so packed with flavor that your mouth waters while you're eating the ribs.  Go for the hot sauce if you are not timid of pepper.   Sure the sides are a bit stale, the prices a tad high and the service slightly apathetic, but the action-packed full flavor taste of the ribs can overshadow all of the minor inconveniences and leave you craving more.

The veterinarians staffed here are kind, friendly and very knowledgeable about a wide range of specific ailments my dog has experienced during the 3 years we've been taking him there.  

The waiting room staff on the other hand are regularly rude, difficult to deal with and sometimes openly hostile.  The hospital has an un-disclosed policy to make it extremely difficult to transfer a prescription  for medications to an online retailer like PetCareRX.  The hospital regularly charges 50% to 100% more than online retailers, but to discourage you from fulfilling the prescription elsewhere, they will try everything in their legal power to delay, frustrate and block the process of transferring the script.  

Most vets will accept calls for prescription confirmation from online retailers, but this hospital won't fax, won't verbally confirm and in some cases won't provide the hand-written prescription at the time the examination is performed.  

If you want to buy your meds elsewhere, be prepared to mud wrestle the wait-staff to the ground in a bitter fight for control over what is rightfully yours.

Decent pizza.  Good crust.  Thick, but not too thick.  A distant second to Mission Pizza.  It's always empty and now the phone number has been disconnected.  Is this place still around?