We arrived at The Chicken House early afternoon so even after a nap, we still had enough time to go out and explore for dinner. Q yelped some places and it seemed like Old Fisherman's Grotto was the place to go.
But upon closer inspection of the reviews, it seemed like it was a hit-or-miss so we just decided to head over and see what else the pier had to offer.
There were a couple of restaurants there and we yelped each one. The best ratings were only around 3.5-4 out of 5. After a couple minutes of looking lost, we decided to go to Cafe Fina instead.
The receptionist quickly found us a seat. It would have been nice if there was vacancy by the view but we didn't want to wait so we agreed to whatever was free.
I adored the menu. It had this nicely weathered metal piece with the logo of the restaurant embossed on it.
After ordering, our charismatic server (I wish, I remembered his name), brought us our bibs.
Q ordered a Traditional Paella that includes "clams, mussels, prawns and crab with sweet peppers, peas, fresh tomato and saffron rice". It came in this huge dish and Q was actually surprised about how much food it was. We could've comfortably shared his order without any problem.
I ordered their Fresh Cherrystone Clams with Linguini. I'm not really a biiiiiig fan of seafood (despite being born and raised in the Philippines) and it's very unlikely for me to order anything with shells but this dish was served with "garlic butter" which enticed me a lot. It was also flavored with white wine, however, I think they might have put a little bit more than necessary. Eating the linguini with the clams balances the taste but without the clams, the linguini had this bitter aftertaste because of the wine.
When dinner was over, our server asked us what we were in Monterey for and we said that it was for my birthday. He greeted me a happy birthday and gave me a complimentary pistachio ice cream with a candle. (He was gracious enough to take pictures of us as well. Unfortunately, I chose not to post those since they came out a bit unflattering. Haha.)
Our server was great but it's a shame that our experience in this place wasn't the greatest. On Yelp, it was recommended for "romantic dates" but we felt really cramped in such a small space. The tables were very close to each other and on top of that, we were seated in between families which really made us feel claustrophobic. They seemed understaffed too since we only saw one server attending to all the guests. Like the Yelp reviews said, the food wasn't the best, especially since it wasn't cheap, and the place was very touristy.
However, there was still more in Monterey to see so we moved on and walked a little bit more after dinner.
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