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Coming down from an orgy of celebration and irony, we decided eat at Siete Mares to mark the Redskins’ ugly, nearly undeserved defeat of the Buccaneers. There have been scant few reasons for a Washinton expatriate in LA to celebrate the Skins in the last 15 years, so this was as good as any. After unchecked hours of beer, chips, tension, elation, disappointment, angst, weariness, frustration, bliss and confusion, all we wanted was simple food with a few Mexican beers.

Over the last couple of years, Siete Mares has become my favorite Mexican seafood restaurant. They have several locations throughout greater Los Angeles, but I’ve only been to the one on Sunset. Nothing fancy, but the fish is fresh and the salsa is always surprising because it is never the same. Its not elitist, but it is not a hole either. It falls somewhere in between, leaning precariously closer to hole than haute. I don’t know what the turnover rate is in the kitchen, but it means there is always a fresh take on pico de gallo.

First, let me get this out of the way: I have a beef, which means a rant for you.

There are a growing number of seafood restaurants that offer crab. Siete Mares has a combination platter, which offers a panoply of fried goods piled on a plate. Accompanying that are a few sauteed…uh, logs…of…um…crab? Burned again. What I thought was crab turned out to be Asia’s greatest deception against the West: K-rab.

What is this living nightmare, K-rab? There is not a breathing human that believes this cut rate pollack mush is low grade carrion, let alone crab. The idea -the very notion- of finely grinding a fish, squeezing it out like telephone cable, and air brushing it red, is absurd, laughable, and teetering precipitously close to personal insult.

I propose a law, which, if Schoolhouse Rock taught me correctly,

needs to jog a labyrinthine process of cajoling, hand-wringing, and consultations with Jack Abramoff, in its long and arduous gestation period.

Any food that lists ‘crab’ as an ingredient that is not real crab shall be banned, and the supplier fined $10,000 and imprisoned for up to 15 years without parole. Punishment would be further envigorated by a strict diet of surimi for the entire term.

There is no greater disharmonious miscarriage of nature, than manufacturing a fish product you can unravel like a fruit rollup and write a will on.

Now that I got that off my chest, you have been duly warned. All the crab is K-rab. The one exception is their namesake. The ubiquitous Seite Mares, the Mexican BoooYa Base. In it, you will find a plump, real crab, shell and all.

Now you can enjoy yourself! Siete Mares, as the name implies, specializes in seafood. There is a consistent thread among Mexican style seafood, and they cover all the themes.

Cocteles, which are large seafood cocktails served in a schooner glass. You know, the one they try to upsell you in Bennigans, equating to an extra five dollars for three ounces of beer. Well, it doesn’t matter here, you are getting 20 ounces of seafood in a cold tomato soup base, augmented with onions, cilantro, spices, cucumber, avocado and tomato. It is fresh, inviting, and filling. Each one runs about 10 bucks. One thing I like about Siete Mares are the paleolithic slabs of cucumber and orange that seem to accompany everything, including Tecate.

They have cheap ceviche appetizers: whole tortillas with a liberal mound of seafood, whether it is fish, shrimp, K-rab (why, oh, why) or octopus. Each runs about 3-4 dollars. You can get the entree portion for 10 bucks a pop, but I couldn’t eat that much ceviche, could you? Some things are best in small bites.

You can get all forms of shrimp: Shrimp Veracruz, shrimp diablo, shrimp mojo de ajo, shrimp ranchero. Veracruz, now that is something that would be banned on any high school menu. Bacon wrapped, cheese stuffed, deep fried shrimp. You bet its healthy!

However, I have a new favorite dish, which veers 180 off the chart for this or any place. Molcajete. Named after the spanish word for mortar and pestle, this stew is served in a volcanic rock basin.

They don’t screw around. This thing is so hot, it’s like you planted your face in a steam vent. I dropped my napkin on it. It burst into flame. Spilling out of the mouth of Pele is a boiling cornucopia of shrimp, chorizo, mexican cheese and a cactus leaf. Binding the seafood and meat is a stew base that is dense, palpable, and feverish with tumultuous flavor.

The Molcajete is simulteneously hellish and divine, angrily simmering the whole time I carefully picked through the food. Each splatter is like napalm, and cutting a skittish piece of cactus is a skill developed that I haven’t quite mastered. The Molcajete is a grand paradox, comfort foot yet little comfort in eating it. It is Frankenstein’s monster, parts netted from the sea, ground meat rended from the land, a block of diary, and a strange vegetable choice I’m not convinced can be considered a vegetable. Together, it is an otherworldly stew that will surprise, confound and overwhelmingly satiate.

I’m serious when I say this thing is hot. Thirty minutes later, long after onions slowly weep their way to an oily death on a dank fajita plate, the Molcajete is still steaming and hot to the touch.

When I order fajitas at my local sexually ambiguous national chain, Boobz, the waitress comes out in a tank top, short shorts, welding mask and tungsten-chromium reinforced apron and gloves. Before serving I have to sign,

in triplicate, an agreement that will indemnify Boobz against damages, and hold them harmless should I (hereafter referred to as The Customer): burn, sear, char or otherwise conflagrate myself while in the commission of my dinner thereof. I sign the papers on her butt and she scuttles off.

You could never serve something that bold and hot in a national chain, with the fear of constant litigation due to the occassional, itinerant cockroach in the salad, let alone someone losing their face in a rocky crater of boiling stew.

Despite the risk, he seems to be having a good time.

This tragic smile serves as an indelible barrier to the presidency.

I know its out of the way for most of you, but if you’re in my ‘hood and heading toward Spaceland or Silverlake Lounge, you are not too far away. You can’t miss it, it is big, orange and blue. It also has a convenient outside cash-only stand, and parking fo’ free.

El Siete Mares (The Seven Seas)
3131 W. Sunset Blvd.

By Zteve (see more of his posts). You can find more of Zteve's writing at his own website Gastrologica