CHOWDER BARGE - WILMINGTON, CA

One night after work, sometime after 8 or 9pm, I got a call from CantStayJose. He needed a ride home and he was out in Wilmington, which is 4 or 5 miles from our hood.

Said he sold one of the dozens of bikes he had to some old dude out there who lived on a boat. He mentioned being at a boat harbor that was a little hard to find (near the corner of Anaheim and Henry Ford) but it was fucking trippy down there so it would be real neat to come take a look if anything.

So I rolled out there to go pick him up. I got a little lost; it was pretty dark and I missed the entry to get into that little harbor. When I finally got in there, he was all like "where were you at, dog? you get lost or what?" and before I could answer him, he says "come check this shit out! you gotta see this!"
So about 20 feet from where I was parked, there was a couple of bikes sitting there chained to a pole. Then I looked out further and saw this (above). "That place right there, its a fucking restaurant on the water! they're already closed but there's a hot young blond in there, dog. I was all like what the fuck!"
I went in and indeed, there was a cute young blond working behind the bar. She told us they closed at 8pm but it's cool, we just wanted to check the place out. I mentioned this to Sasha and a few friends but we all completely forgot about it. Over a year later, she mentioned wanting to go so off we went.
I finally got to see this place in the day. They had this nice waitress that invited us in and I gotta admit, I was kinda surprised to see the cook because he was a white dude. Bunch of old timers at the bar. At least half of them live on the boats that are docked right there. That's probably their main customers.
We both ordered a bowl of the chowder. Gotta have the oyster crackers and Tabasco. No chowder tastes right without it. If you guys in New England or whatever do it differently or we're doing it wrong, I'm sorry. I don't know any better.

Their chowder is good. I liked it and would have it again. Not a very thick chowder. Hard to tell if its better than the chowder at Berth 55 though, right off the 710 in Long Beach.
We also ordered the shrimp basket which came with fries, coleslaw and cocktail sauce. I couldn't decide what else to get so I blurted out "gggggarlic cheese bread". Better something than nothing. They were both good, nothing to rave about. But the whole deal here on the Chowder Barge is pretty neat. The whole place has like a 5 degree angle to it and it vibrates every few minutes.
Service was excellent. Gotta come back here again for their burgers or fish & chips maybe. Well, I'll have whatever plus the chowder again.

If you live in Long Beach or around the South Bay, this is definitely one of those places that you GOTTA GO.

Chowder Barge
611 N Henry Ford Ave
Wilmington, CA 90744

(310) 830-7937