Duke’s Alki Chowder House

Duke’s Alki Chowder House
2516 Alki Ave SW, 937-6100

Sun-Thurs 11:30 am-11 pm, Fri-Sat 11:30 am-midnight.

Let me tell you, Alki, you’re no Venice Beach. You’ve got no palm trees, your denizens are sun-starved, and your brackish six-inch waves seem to flop on shore with exhaustion. Where’s your little parking lot devoted to the fine art of roller boogie? Why do you boast only one sculptor of surprisingly naturalistic sand mermaids? And frankly, Alki, if I needed a new bong, I wouldn’t know where to find one along your long promenade.

That said, you do occasionally reveal moments of brilliant beachside circus. And for this reason, there are places like Duke’s Alki Chowderhouse, where the food may be middling, but the deck is prime real estate. I crowded onto its terrace recently with several other beach-gapers–a middle-aged lady in a swimsuit, a clutch of high-school girls in flouncy 1980s-style micro-minis, and a boy in a fancy basketball jersey who tried to impress his date by eating in a reclined position, occasionally bashing his flimsy plastic chair against mine.

It’s too bad actually that Duke’s deck isn’t set up a little better: The guardrail on its fences runs right at seated eye-level, which makes it hard to watch the beach volleyball being (poorly) played across the street. But there is still plenty to be experienced from on high: A pug on a dirt bike. A dude spread-eagle on rollerblades slaloming down the sidewalk. A convertible hot rod with a muffler so low and loud I feel it in my pants. A Muscle Beach-style contest for bench-pressing teenagers.

Duke’s is part of a small local chain of deck-oriented restaurants, and thus devoid of small-time charms. I take a when-in-Rome approach to such chainy restaurants: I order the really obvious crowd-pleasers and self-proclaimed specialties, and avoid the offbeat, really-bad-idea specials (on my visit, it was salmon with–I am not kidding here–both blueberries and goat cheese). And so I found myself sipping a strawberry lemonade ($3) and poking at a cup of chowder ($5.95), excavating occasional clams and salmon scraps from its celery-heavy tomato broth. I’d been hoping for another kind of fish in my chowder, but I guess I should have known better. I love salmon, but it goes badly with tomatoes. (Maybe it has something to do with that antiquated fashion rule that you shouldn’t wear red with pink.) When an order of brothy “killer shrimp” ($12.95) came to the table, the poor overdone crustaceans were beached on a half loaf of chewy white bread. More bread (in the form of toast points) surrounded the sauce, which was not quite buttery or spicy or garlicky enough to merit such copious dipping material.

A crowded dining area can provide unexpected learning opportunities. As I watched a huge container ship make its glacial progress toward the sea, I discovered, through superior eavesdropping skills, something new about shipping. Onions, according to one table-neighbor, make for surprisingly volatile cargo. If you put them in a sealed 40-ton container, the gas they emit will blow out the steel walls. You have to undo some hinges to allow for ventilation. Just a bit of advice for all you would-be onion shippers out there.

In New England, where I’ve spent a lot of vacation time, good food and touristy seaside food often converge. Lobster shacks hand you a hotdog bun filled with mayonnaise-slicked lobster and suddenly life makes sense. Fried clam palaces churn out hundreds of plates of deep-fried clams without screwing up the fundamentals. West Coast restaurants seem to have a harder time making seafood work in a tourist-friendly context. At Duke’s, I ordered fish and chips ($12.95), but with a too-thin layer of protective breading, my cod turned tough in the fryer. Tasty wedge-shaped fries saved the day: By dipping them in tartar sauce instead of ketchup, I could almost pretend they were another form of seafood. Crab melts ($14.95) are usually fail-proof, and Duke’s, which was served on a plate-sized bun, wasn’t bad. It would have been better, though, with more crabmeat and half the gummy orange cheese.

Despite the so-so food, my afternoon was moderated by the deck effect–the chance to watch the world cruise by while soaking in Alki’s hazy sunlight. Spectacle easily dulls culinary disenchantment.