From One Family to Another

It is a Thursday night, and everyone is beat. Jan has been in meetings all day; my daughter, Paige, has so much homework that she has had to skip her swim workout, and my son Max, whose 17th birthday we are supposed to be honoring, is sound asleep in his room, the victim of early morning water-polo workouts.

Usually we would celebrate his birthday on the weekend, when everyone has more time to give it the attention it deserves, but Max is going to Ensenada on Friday, to take intensive Spanish classes, so we are resigned to a family celebration in the middle of the week.

But it is not going well. Our reservations are in 15 minutes, but Jan is not home from work. At five to seven, Jan blows in, I wake Max, and our subdued, slightly cantankerous little party sets off.

When I called the Riverboat Restaurant to make the seven o’clock reservation, I knew it was superfluous. This isn’t a place with a chef named Puck or Gustaf or Joachim. It is a little dining room in the stern end of a faux Mississippi-style paddleboat, a restaurant that shares quarters with the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum.

In fact, it was the nautical museum that lured me to the Riverboat several weeks earlier. Waiting to meet with the museum’s director, I’d wandered into the restaurant, hoping for a cup of coffee. I talked with the bespectacled man who seated me, Clayton Shurley. He brought my coffee but insisted I also try a cup of clam chowder.

Now, I’ve tasted great chowders--from the Splash Cafe’s version in Pismo Beach to that of Mo’s in Newport, Ore.--but this was absolutely the best, and it surprised me.

“That’s Cousin Earl’s chowder,” Clayton said. Cousin Earl, I learned, is from LaFayette, Ga. Clayton, whose drawl is almost as thick as his chowder, is from Arkansas.

Then Clayton insisted that I try Junior’s special gumbo. It’s even better than the chowder. Junior, it turns out, is Clayton’s dad. After the gumbo, Clayton brought out a little sampler of Big Mo’s baby back ribs, telling me how his daddy, Junior, smokes the ribs over an outdoor hickory barbecue back in Austin, Texas, because you can’t smoke them here in Southern California in open pits, “and that’s just the way Junior’s always done it.”

So Junior smokes the ribs for eight hours and ships them to Clayton to finish off with a light barbecue sauce.

By the time I was done talking to Clayton, I’d had a full lunch, though I’d eaten just an hour earlier, and still hadn’t talked to the director of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum. But I didn’t mind.

Tonight there are only a handful of diners in the Riverboat. My family thinks I’m a little nuts for bringing them here for a birthday dinner, since the place is decorated a bit like my English grandmother’s dining room, with hurricane lamps and pink glass chandeliers.

Two fellows near the kitchen, playing violin and guitar, sing a soft, country version of Traffic’s “Can’t Find My Way Home,” which both my kids think is very amusing.

“Just wait,” I tell them, not certain what I’m telling them to wait for.

At my suggestion, they all start with a cup of Cousin Earl’s chowder. And are pleased. More than pleased. “Hey, this stuff is delicious,” Paige says.

Jan concurs, and she feathers through it with her spoon trying to determine the secret ingredient. Then I give her a taste of my gumbo. Again, she is pleasantly shocked. Everyone has to have a taste.

The musicians are growing on everybody. They move easily through an eclectic mix that includes songs from Bette Middler, Van Morrison, even something that recalls Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks.

“I like this place,” Jan says, sipping her drink.

“Yeah,” Max says. “It’s different. Sort of laid-back.”

*

Our dinners arrive, and Clayton has not let us down. Max declares the baby back ribs to be the best he’s eaten, and Jan says the same about the calamari steak, which surprises her by being so tender and not at all rubbery, as calamari can be. Like everything else on the menu, it has a Southern touch: wrapped in spicy corn meal, we guess, instead of the more traditional bread or cracker crumbs.

As we finish up, Clayton comes over to say hello, to thank us for coming in. I tell him that we are celebrating my son’s birthday and that everything has been perfect. “You do a nice job here, Clayton.”

“Thank ya,” he says in his charming drawl. “I just wish more people knew we were here.”

A few minutes later, we are discussing who, if anybody, has room for a slice of pecan pie or maybe the Key lime mousse, but before any decisions can be made, Clayton returns carrying a giant glass tumbler sundae; he’s flanked by the violinist and guitarist, who serenade us in the sweetest, softest version of “Happy Birthday” I’ve heard.

We dig into the bowl full of vanilla ice cream and brownie and fudge sauce and whipped cream.

“What do you call this incredible dessert?” Max asks.

“That’s our Grand Finale,” Clayton says. “Is it good?”

“Tasty,” Max says. “Very, very tasty.”

As was everything.

BE THERE

The Riverboat Restaurant is on board the Pride of Newport, formerly the Reuben E. Lee, at 151 E. Coast Highway, Newport Beach; (949) 673-3425. Lunch 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; brunch 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; dinner 5-10 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Rick Dunham, on banjo and guitar, and Paul McIntire, on violin, play most nights starting at 7.