Shrimp Cocktail at Bix Benefits Threatened Gulf Fishermen

​A regular feature in which SFoodie calls a local chef to ask what he or she is putting on the menu that night, and what inspired its creation.

Bix Restaurant's chef de cuisine Erik Lowe was the executive sous-chef at Ame before joining chef Bruce Hill at North Beach's longstanding supperclub, and he's been running the kitchen here for a little more than a year.

Lowe: We're going to be featuring Gulf shrimp for the next few days. There's a company out of Sausalito called Gulfish ― a guy named Jimmy Galle. A lot of the nice restaurants in town have been getting prawns from him. He's donating part of the proceeds from the shrimp to Gulf fishermen, to raise funds to help out with the oil spill.

Tonight we're going to do sort of a shrimp cocktail. But instead of cocktail sauce, we're having a chile and herb aioli served with four chilled gulf prawns, served with sea beans over crushed ice. (Price: $14.95.)

​SFoodie: So what do you like about the Gulf shrimp?

Lowe: They're really sweet, with a lobsterish taste to them. They don't taste like anything I've had before. You have to cook them really gently.

Any reason in particular you're pairing them with chile and herbs? Since the prawns are so sweet, the pepper ― serrano chile ― really brings that out. And the herbs are tarragon, chervil, and parsley. Our sea beans come from Wine Forest Wild Mushrooms. I believe they're from the coast of California. They grow in an estuary, where the rivers meet the oceans. They're more of a garnish, but they add a lovely saltiness, and they look nice.

Any other plans for the shrimp? It's possible ― we'll see how the dish goes over. I think it'll sell well. We want to support these guys. There are a lot of fishermen who are seeing their sales go down. People are afraid to eat oily fish, but the Gulf is big. We want to try and do what we can to help them out.