Elegant roadhouse-style fun at Rocker Oysterfeller’s
Rocking chairs on Rocker’s front porch
A drive along Tomales Bay is everything I want in a day trip… fresh air, vistas, farmland, grazing horses and sheep, bay, ocean, forest, and a car loaded with just the right music.
Rocker Oysterfeller’s in the tiny blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Valley Ford with the warm, comfortable spirit of a roadhouse turned foodie, with fresh, farmland ingredients and the best cocktails for many miles around.
The namesake plays on the dish Oysters Rockerfeller, which they serve using oysters pulled straight from nearby Tomales Bay, baked with bacon, cream cheese and cornbread crumbs (6 for $14). It’s a classic New Orleans dish created by 1800’s restaurant Antoine’s. How can I help but adore the creamy, briny appetizer created in 1899? Though Rocker’s version works, our server rightly steered me to her favorite oyster dish, doused in Louisiana hot sauce and garlic butter with local Estero Gold cheese melted on top. Dreamy.
Oysters Rockefeller
Greens go down easy in a salad of nearby Bloomfield Farms‘ romaine, shaved Achadinha Capricious cheese (from Petaluma) and white anchovies in a Creole Caesar dressing ($10). A Cajun-style seafood and andouille sausage gumbo ($8/$12) is comforting on a fog-soaked day. Entree joys peak with buttermilk fried free-range chicken ($20) in a Lagunitas Ale and caraway gravy over mashed potatoes with a smattering fried cilantro and sage.
All this goes down beautifully with classic cocktails (like a Margarita, Sazerac, Vieux Carre) made from Northern California craft spirits like a lovely Pimm’s Cup ($9) mixing Pimm’s No. 1, ginger beer, cucumber, seasonal fruit, and topped with a float of Anchor’s Junipero Gin, or a Creole Sidecar ($12) mixing Germain Robin Fine Alembic Brandy with a Creole shrub.
Rocker Oysterfeller’s garnered a bit of buzz when it first opened in 2007, and I’m pleased to say it’s still worth a detour.
Buttermilk fried chicken in Lagunitas ale & caraway gravy