I was thinking of buying fish today, though I don't think it will happen, and the Fountainview Fish Market came to mind.  The Fountainview Fish Market is just that: a fish market located in a small strip center on Fountain View (both spellings of the street seem to work).  Around since 1980, this fish market doubles as a small, unpretentious and laudable restaurant serving an array of fried seafood such as shrimp, oysters, cod and catfish.  It’s all deep-fried here.  The differences between this one and most fried food specialists are that frying is done with a noticeably lighter touch, the dishes are cooked to order, and, most importantly, as a fish market, the fish is generally fresher and of better quality.  And, it's a terrific value. 

This is a friendly, family-owned and -operated venture.  The father might be in the area behind the counter cleaning fish or assembling fresh seafood orders while the mother operates the dual fryer that is almost next to the cash register.  There is neither much to hide nor much room to hide it in at this small-scale operation.  The spartan, but clean, dining area in front of the seafood counter and cashier’s stand consists of about a half-dozen tables.  There is room for just under twenty people among the seven or so tables in its single, small dining room.  The place fills up quickly during lunchtime with a diverse group of office workers and nearby residents who want to indulge in well prepared and freshly fried seafood.  Each of the tables is replete with ketchup and tartar sauce in plastic squeeze bottles plus bottled Louisiana hot sauce.  As the tables are often apt to be filled, takeout is a popular option. 

Sandwiches and plates are the bill of fare.  Sandwiches are still just $4.99, and come with a choice of a side and canned drink, and feature a choice among catfish, cod, oysters, crab meat and shrimp.  The shrimp sandwich consists of a few fried shrimp and a couple of fried onion rings between small hamburger buns with lettuce, tomato and tartar sauce.  The similar crab meat sandwich features noticeable pieces of blue crab.  Though these are tasty, big appetites will need to order two of these sandwiches.  Plates come with shrimp, oysters, catfish fillets, egg rolls and combinations thereof, plus a choice of two sides among the four the restaurant serves: fries, onion rings, coleslaw and egg rolls.  The portions are small, but the prices are low. This includes the incredibly priced catfish plate for $5.99 that features three good-sized pieces of deftly fried catfish, fries, coleslaw, and a drink.

In addition to the popularity of its great-value ready-to-eat foods, Fountainview Fish Market works well as a neighborhood fish purveyor.  The fresh seafood display is well stocked.  Among the choices on ice that day might be red snapper, redfish, flounder, speckled trout, catfish, shrimp of several sizes, lobster tail, scallops, salmon, halibut, crab meat, and even soft shell crabs in season, Dungeness crabs, King crab legs and seafood gumbo. 

Fountainview Fish Market
2912 Fountain View (between Westheimer and Richmond), 77057, (713) 977-1436
fountainviewfishmarket.com

“Americans won’t touch raw fish…if I served it, I’d go broke.”
– Rocky Aoki, founder of the Benihana in The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 1973
 
What a difference time makes.  Today, Americans by the millions have to satisfy a sushi craving on a regular basis.  That might even be more pronounced near the coast.  As one who remembers the days when it was a hard-to-find curiosity – only served in the very few Japanese restaurants, and rarely ordered by American customers – the amazing popularity of sushi is the most unexpected development in this country’s dining habits, and proof that they are always changing.
 
For years, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Hawaii were probably the only places with restaurants serving sushi.  These were very few in number, and catered primarily to Japanese-Americans and traveling Japanese businessmen.  Sushi was found beyond those cities by the late 1980s following the torrid love affair American consumers were having with Japanese electronics and autos.  In fact, Americans’ desire for sushi is directly related to that high tech commerce.
 
In the early 1970s, a Japan Airlines employee named Akira Okazaki was looking for a profitable way to fill the empty cargo holds, which had contained mostly electronics on the inbound flights.  He managed to convince fishermen on Prince Edward Island to fish more assiduously for bluefin tuna.  Though prized in Sicily and the Mediterranean since antiquity, it was seen only as a sport fish or nuisance elsewhere.  There was not even a commercial market for it until the late 1950s.  It was not nearly the favorite fish for the Japanese, either.  For tuna, they had preferred the yellowfin variety, and other fish with white or light-colored meat.  This was due in part to widespread influence of Buddhism, whose adherents did not animal meat.  But, the generation who grew up with a greater exposure to beef after the Second World War more so enjoyed the red-fleshed bluefin, and the stocks around Japan had been depleted.
 
Okazaki’s gambit was a success.  In a couple of years bluefin accounted for 90% of the cargo on these flights back to Tokyo.  The Gulf of Mexico, including south of Galveston, is one of its principal spawning grounds for this Atlantic bluefin, the largest in the world.  It had the added benefit that it could be ready to be eaten in Tokyo restaurants in four days, when its texture and taste were at its peak.  In the time before refrigeration fishermen would bury the odd bluefin for four days before being consumed for that same reason.  The availability of the bluefin from the north Atlantic – and from elsewhere in the world – help stoke a Japanese craze for this fish that they would pass on to Americans, and the rest of the world.  In January, 2011 a record was set as a 754-pound bluefin sold for $396,000 in Tokyo, well over $500 per pound.
 
Michael Lo, whose family has owned Yamato on 61st Street in Galveston since 1987 and served sushi that long, said that their most popular nigiri sushi – the familiar style with fish sitting atop rice – is the fatty stomach from the bluefin (toro), which is considered the tastiest part of the fish.  It comes in only once a week, and it is fairly pricey, $10.95 an order.  But, it is delicious.  A guide to eating in Japan from the early 1970s, wrote that the bluefin is “one of the favorites of foreigners who try sushi for the first time.”  It is because of its clean, meaty flavor – once off-putting to the Japanese – that Americans readily enjoy, and a big reason why sushi took off here.  Eric Hyatt, once the executive chef at the Landry's Red Sushi and Hibachi Grill on the Kemah Boardwalk, called it, “beginners’ raw fish.”  “Everyone understands it,” and it is very easy to like.
 
Because of evolving tastes in Japan and later here, bluefin has become overfished internationally.  But, it can be gateway to other, equally satisfying fish and not endangered fish.  Tastes are always changing, and even broadening.


An earlier version of this article appeared in the Galveston Daily News.

​The first thing that you notice when the larger of the two entraña orders is brought to your table at Saldivia’s South American Grill is how much food there is on the good-sized oval plate. 
 
The bottom is ringed with a half-dozen slices of grilled carrot, squash and zucchini displayed in an alternating orange, yellow and green-tinged array.  At the top of the plate rests a thick squat tower of rice with a few flecks of parsley; next to it is a row of plump, roasted potatoes.  In the center, running the entire length of the plate, is the thin, often rectangular entraña, a dark-brown cut of the outside skirt steak crisscrossed with darker grill marks and topped with a nearly addictive, rustic-style chimicurri sauce, oil, bits of garlic, parsley leaves and short stems and the odd red pepper flake dot the meat.  A puddle of bloody juice gathers under the vegetables and potatoes.
 
Imbued with expert skill at the grill, years of steakhouse experience, and a deep tradition of beef and grilling from their native Uruguay, the steaks at Saldivia’s are serious business.  The entraña is the signature cut.  It is the rather humble outside skirt steak – which comes from the plate section, below the rib and between the brisket and flank and whose fat has been trimmed off by the restaurant – that is always cooked to perfection, typically medium-rare.  It remains juicy and remarkably tender for the cut, while being extremely flavorful, rich and beefy.  If you like steak, you will love the entraña at Saldivia’s.  Though no assist is necessary, the oily and garlicky house-made chimichurri sauce is an excellent accompaniment.
 
Additional chimichurri is available on the tables.  This goes well with the tasty vegetables and potatoes, and also the crusty, airy rolls, which are complementary.  It is remarkable that the 12-ounce entraña entrée is just $25.95.  It remains an excellent deal.   You will be hard-pressed to find many steaks as flavorful for under $50 in Houston.  And, unlike the big steakhouses, the entraña here comes with sides. 
 
In concert with the pricing for the entraña, you can find a well-made bottle of red wine – a near necessity with the steak – for under $40 at the restaurant. The wine list highlights Tannant, the star varietal of Uruguay that happens to go very well with the entraña, or any of the other steaks on the menu, for that matter.
 
Saldivia’s South American Grill
10850 Westheimer (between Walnut Bend and Westheimer), Houston, 77042, (713) 782-9494
saldivias.com