A 45-minute drive from Cannon Beach, in Bay City, Oregon, is a place called Pacific Seafood that processes oysters from the sea.

Bay City is on a bay. Here’s the proof. That’s the bay. Presumably, that’s a source for the oysters themselves. The sea provides us humans with a delicious bounty.

Pacific Oyster itself is located at “150 Oyster Drive” in Bay City, which to me seems a bit over the top, as the “drive” in this case is a parking lot/pier. And the “150″ makes no sense at all, because it’s the only building on Oyster Drive. This made me mad for a short time.

This is where all the oyster processing happens. In the processing plant.

Oyster products, packaged and branded (those are smoked oysters up top). You can buy these products here, at the plant, and you’ll also find them at area grocery stores and purveyors of fine foodstuffs.

Spent oyster shells being shot into a collection bin. That’s one huge pile of oysters.

The shells are collected in bags and stacked at the far end of the pier. I’m not sure what is done with the shells at this point. Presumably a freighter comes along and picks up the load and carts it off to a faraway land where oyster shells are prized and used as currency. Some place like The Phillipines or Hawaii.

I know what you’re saying. So what? Why are you taking us to a sea snot factory? What next, the inside of a fucking dairy? Well, consider yourself lucky that you’ve read this far, because…

Pacific Seafood sells oysters to eat on the premises! Its actually a restaurant, that, in addition to the raw oysters you see above, serves sandwiches and other fare. But this is an oyster post, so on to the oysters. They were out of kumamotos, which pissed me off goddamnit, because that’s why I basically drove 45 minutes to Bay City, OR, braving Highway 101…

…to endure crappy scenery like this. The Oregon coast really is a shithole. Nature’s taint.

So after cursing my bad luck, I composed myself and ordered a dozen Pacific Oysters — a half dozen xtra-smalls and another half dozen smalls.

The xtra-smalls.

The “smalls”. Jesus, these were big. As a point of reference, that’s a normal-sized lemon wedge. I love how they gave you plenty of lemons. I hate when you order a dozen oysters and you get only one wedge. Life is too short to deprive yourself of citrus (and the specter of scurvy always lurks).

I had a hard time choking these down. The first 6 xtra-smalls slid down no problem, but by the third “small” I was starting to fatigue. I had to leave the last oyster on the ice. If, like me, you have a hard time choking down large raw oysters, I would stick to the xtra-smalls (or the kumamotos of course). The “small” would make a good frying or grilling oyster, though. I can only wonder what the mediums are like. Probably similar in size to a pork chop or a chihuahua.

Pacific Seafood

150 Oyster Dr.
Bay City, OR 97053
503-377-2323

Further Reading

Pacific Oyster @Roadfood.com

“Pacific Seafood - Bay City, Lunch on the Coast” (thread @Portlandfood.org)