THE CLAM CHOWDAH AT THE SANDPIPER IN BODEGA BAY IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST IN THE COUNTY!!
LUCIOUS, CREAMY, FLAVORFUL SOUP, TENDER CLAMS AND THE POTATO RATIO IS RIGHT ON.

I loved Sequoia Drive-In until recently. The Clam Chowder comes from a bag and is doctored up with bacon and canned clams. Their amazing onion rings have been replaced by the frozen rings thrown into the fryer. They used to be a big, beautiful pile of onions dredged in a flour mixture and were the best. Their fish and chips, which cost about $9 were two small pieces of frozen cod next to a bed of undercooked potato slices. Such a shame. If Sequoia is under new management, but same owner, they need to go back to the old way of how they did it. It was roadside perfection. This should be good eats made from scratch, not food service embeleished fare. Bummer.

Sorry. Manhattan "chowder" is not chowder at all. Real New England chowder has milk or cream in it. And yes, most people know about it.

SPUD POINT HAS THE BEST CHOWDER! If you haven't tried it your missing out....each pot is made fresh daily as needed and has the best flavors, spices & freshness are to die for!

Not one mention of Sam's Chowder House in Half Moon Bay, even though they've launched Sam's ChowderMobile (www.samschowdermobile.com), which has visited San Francisco and can be rented for parties, and which makes some of the best chowdah and one of the best lobstah rolls I've had outside of Boston or Maine?? I'm surprised...and planning to visit the Henweigh Cafe as soon as possible after returning from France, where I'm reading the Press Democrat online right now! :-)

Best chowdah is my own. Just picked my limit of clams from Bodega Bay and will be making it tomorrow. You can still taste the brine in the clams, and if they aren't fresh, you don't get it.

A guest from out of town and I had lunch there yesterday. What a disappointing experience. Although the restaurant was mostly empty, it took 45 minutes to get served LUKEWARM bowls of good, but hardly memorable, chowder.

Had lunch at the Henweigh Cafe today. The chowder was delicious! The word is out. Every table ordered chowder while we were there!

It's a good mag. I wish 'em luck seeing how I was the original editor of Edible Sonoma about four years ago and we only got out one issue.

Yeah. I think I still have a few boxes of the leftover copies in my garage.

There is only ONE chowder. What your referring too is vegatable soup with clams.

I came across this the other day, it's BY DAVID KATZ:

http://www.ediblecommunities.com/marinandwinecountry/fall-2009/a-new-england-transplants-chowder-for-the-marin-coast.htm

After all this debate I had to go try the Henweigh Cafe today...and it was delicious! I will go back for more!

While a good white New England chowder is fabulous, little is known out West of the best Clam Chowder...Manhattan style red.

A completely different animal, it is truly mahhvelous when made well.

I would love to get some locally, but who makes it hereabouts?

Oliver's Market...

New England hasn't contributed anything interesting to the culinary landscape in over a hundred and twenty years.Clam chowder yaaaay!

The Sandpiper in Bodega Bay. The Viking Bowl is the way to go, a meal in itself!

Just had my bowl of chowdah and it did not disappoint! I thoroughly enjoyed its perfect consistency and its balance of its cremes and clams. I am definitely going later this week!

The Sandpiper in Bodega Bay gets my vote!

I recommend the chowdah at BLU in Petauma. Fresh, Creamy-not clumpy & absolutely chock full of clams!

Hard tack can still be found all over Hawaii. Saloon Pilots! You break off a piece and use it like a chip on a stick of butter. A little weird sounding, but so good!

Swans Oyster depot on polk st in San Francisco is well worth the drive for the History, Chowder and Sasimi plate.

Believe it or not, Lupo's Trattoria, (aka Roberto's), on Highway 12 has great clam chowder...not too thick but very rich and creamy.

Where exactly does one get hard tack? Glad you liked it gator.

I'm a former New Englander and have had chowder at some of these places. I agree they are very good but I must say the chowder I get at the Piner Cafe is as good and in some cases far better. I believe they only make it on Friday's. I have had breakfast and lunch here and have never been disappointed. And the servers and great.

Ughhh - I do not have the patience for clam chowder with whole clams...too much work! Keep it simple, fresh and definitely hot, and I'll order it every time!

Had lunch today at the Henweigh Cafe. It's good food!!! It's good people!!!! It's good chowder!!!

Now back to the chowder debate. There are crab chowders from the south, chowders from the Caribbean islands, Rhode Island chowder, Shaker chowder, traditional New England chowder and what is known restaurant chowder . This last chowder, 'restaurant chowder', is what most of us know as chowder. Restaurant chowder is made with a roux and has bacon. Traditional chowder was made from hard tack and salt pork, and usually, whole fish. What is NE chowder? I agree with Mr. Kelly, it is chowder made by someone from New England, using New England ingredients, with the heart and soul of New England.

With all this said . . . and with many of the places listed in this thread, most of the chowders in Sonoma restaurants are canned or boxed. Hog Island in San Francisco, Henweigh Cafe's, and Nick's Cove, I can assure you are not. Is canned chowder good? It looks like many people from this thread like it. So I would say yes, it's good. Would I eat it? No. If cheap restaurants all buy their food from Costco or Sysco, then all of their food taste like Costco and Sysco, and so all their chowder tastes the same.

If you want to buy a bowl of canned chowder at $4 to $6 go for it. At Safeway, I'm sure you can get the same for half the price!

By the way, I had a Costco pickle today that was really good.

Love the Nick's Cove Chowder alongside a fine Bloody Mary~

As a former New England Fishmonger, I look forward to trying Henweigh Cafe's clam chowdah. Although if I have the time, I love making my own!

tho the chowder at River's End in Jenner is not traditional, thus not officially chowda, it is soooo tasty that we just get big bowls of it and forget about entrees entirely. as a new englander, i value a tasty fishy soup in winter ... and look forward to trying Henweigh's brew.

The chowder at the unassuming Marshall Store along Tomales Bay is the best I've had in the area.

Bruno's on 4th Street in Santa Rosa always has great chowder! Not exactly "traditional," yet yummie!

Best ever...The Wharf at Noyo Harbor, Fort Bragg.

Best ever...The Wharf at Noyo River, Fort Bragg.

Bodega Bay had a chowder tasting event a couple of years ago. After tasting chowder at all the restaurants on the same day, my favorite, far and away, was the Boathouse.

Nick's Cove on Tomales Bay has two chowdahs in two different styles; one richer and buttier than the other but both good. Different days I choose different styles according to mood, weather, and what else I'm ordering. Give 'em a try.

The best clam chowder ever is located at the Tides Restaurant in Bodega Bay! The kids and I never go to Bodega Bay without stopping in their deli and grabbing a pint and some sourdough to take home for dinner that night. Mmmmm...good!

There's red and there's chowder. But real chowdah-heads know there's a third - clear, also known as Rhode Island ("Vo Dilun") chowdah. For us working-class folks who grew up there, we had to make do with using one measly clam to make a whole pot of clam chowder so we got used to heavy on the broth, onions and celery and light on the clam. As I got older and was able to afford less Depression-era chowders, I still fondly think of the RI version, which I definitely have every year at Aunt Carrie's restaurant in Narragansett, RI.

River's End in Jenner and Olivers Mkt. on Fridays are also tasty

Thought I might chime in to this lively debate, seeing I inadvertently started it.

First, I would never claim to have the "best" clam chowdah (see criteria #7) just a good one (see criteria #1 - 6).

I’m not an authority on the history of Clam Chowder, but as all Bostonians are (just ask any of them), I am an authority on the qualities, characteristics and necessary requirements that makes a good authentic NE Clam Chowder:

1.Made by a New Englander (or at least a recipe from a NE’r) – hometown pride is the 1st ingredient and always mimic back to them how they say Chowdah, over emphasizing their northeast accent.

2.Served at 165 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit (74 – 80.5 degrees Celsius)

3.Taste "wicked" good and when the first creamy spoonful passes the pallet, it makes one think – this is real New England style clam chowder!

4.Not to thick, not to thin. Myth buster note: Although you can find those who like a really thick chowder, if a spoon can stand on its own in the chowder more than 5 seconds it’s to thick.

5.Not overpowered by potatoes. Greater than .5 clam to potato weight ratio is preferred (I use .56)

6.No weird additions. I.e. Any veggie other than onions and celery is weird and although some find clams still in the shell in the chowder itself an interesting twist, real NE Chowder fans have no use, nor time to shuck clam shells in their Clam Chowder.

7.It’s never the best – respect all the class one NE Clam Chowders. You can have a few favorites on your short list, I can name 5 places in Boston and a few in the greater Bay Area including Sonoma County where you can get a good cup of NE Clam Chowder. But identifying the best NE chowder is like identifying the best Boston Championship sports team this decade. Red Sox 04/07? Pats 02/04/05? Celtics 08?

Rock on and Happy Holidays!
/Dennis, Henweigh Cafe

Tried Jackson's chowder and I'll give the presentation a thumbs up and the taste a thumbs down. It was a thin broth with very little taste. Won't be buying it a second time.

I love ClamChowdah and I know that Marvin's in Cotati has a steaming, freshly made pot by pot on Friday's...no Sysco there.

The primo chowder in Sonoma Co (or anywhere else, for that matter!) is at Sam's For Play on Cleveland Avenue -- it's smooth, creamy, flavorful, and also includes shrimp -- easy to make a meal on the chowder alone!

Don't knock eat_gator...i respect (his) comments and he's actually right. What we eat here in SoCo usually isn't anything like what you can get on the east coast.

I liked the Henweigh version and they really do try hard to make it authentic. In a blind taste test of several of us, his was the hands-down winner. I'll be eager to see what folks think.

I never claim to be an authority (except on issues of mozzarella, sushi and tiramisu), but otherwise, I just report what I find.

Lemme know gator.

Nothing beats Spud Point!! Most places have that pasty bland chower but Spud Point's has flavor! May have to take a drive this weekend!

I love making it with pepper bacon...yum!

Hey, eat_gator, get over yourself. If you think the chowder at Hog Island is good, you are clueless... It is thin, flavorless and a total rip-off at half the price. The best chowder is made at home with fresh shellfish, bacon, dairy product and potatoes. Textbook definition...

What is a chowder? What is a gumbo? What is burgoo? So many people talk from authority based on nothing but "I have eaten it, so it must be" and no fact of what is real or what might be bastardized versions. These time-tested cultural culinary foods are important to understand the people of the areas in which they come from. These culinary terms should not be generalized or stereotyped. New England doesn't have just one type of chowder and not all chowder is from New England. I see so much badly defined food in restaurants and read ill-informed blogs that I feel part of our American food-ways are dying on the internet. If you want to know what a chowder is or isn't, read Jasper White's '50 chowders'.

Most of the chowder I see here in Sonoma should be called Sysco Chowder because that what it is. Straight from the can and crackers from a bag. Hog Island in SF has an authentic chowder. I haven't had chowder at Henweigh Cafe yet, but I will soon.

Checkers in Santa Rosa has great chowder every Friday!