Stores with good fish catch

The Lenten tradition of meatless meals and the warm-weather appeal of eating lighter makes fish popular fare as the seasons change.

Spring also brings Passover seder dinners with gefilte fish, which ambitious home cooks make using fresh-ground whitefish, pike, and carp.

But buying fish is often a challenge. It was true in my days as a chef, but it is even more perplexing as a home cook without the great wholesale sources available to the restaurant trade.

For a fine kettle of the freshest fish at the best price, make friends with a dedicated fishmonger at a market that moves a lot of fish. Finding a good fish market with knowledgeable staff is the first step. In the last few weeks, I've been making the rounds of markets and have found some surprising results, including a great fish market at the Dreshertown Shop 'n Bag and fantastic selections at Korean supermarkets.

"A good market is a market that moves a lot of product so that it's always fresh," declares Samuel D'Angelo, owner of Ippolito's, a third-generation market in South Philadelphia owned by the same family that operates Samuels & Son Seafood, one of the city's most respected wholesalers. "It all goes back to the fishmonger, not the person who buys the fish, but the one who is behind the counter," he said. "If they don't know what they're doing, they're not going to be able to sell something that the consumer is not familiar with."

Head to Ippolito's if you're in the market for "jumbo jimmies" (large male blue crabs) in addition to a full line of fresh seafood. Ippolito's sells dry (or natural) scallops at about $14 per pound as well as less expensive wet (chemically treated with a preservative) at $9 per pound. Ippolito's customers come there for shad, branzino, fresh calamari, and, once the season starts in late spring, lots and lots of hard-shell crabs.

"Most Americans eat a very limited variety of fish," says D'Angelo. (Catfish, tilapia and farmed salmon are America's biggest sellers, with pollock used by fast-food chains.) "When I was growing up, mackerel, bluefish, porgy, butterfish, and sardines were staples for us. Herring is unbelievable both for flavor and its nutritional benefits. I'd like to see Americans expand their seafood repertoires to some of these underutilized species."

For one of the largest area retail selections of seafood, visit Assi Lotte Plaza in North Wales, where an enormous assortment of fish fills 40 feet of case. Look for everything from monkfish to halibut, giant fresh carp to black sea bass, skate wings to bluefish, lobsters at only $7.99 per pound (this week), whole tilapia, and tobiko (flying fish) roe, but note that some fish have been frozen and defrosted (and labeled as such).

Three tanks contain live lobsters, eels (in season), and tautog (blackfish). For the more adventurous, every kind of squid and octopus imaginable along with conch and tobiko roe are all for sale at this busy market frequented by Koreans, Chinese, Indians, and others who flock there for its great selection and fair prices.

While the four area Korean H-Marts don't have quite as large a selection as Assi Lotte, their Elkins Park store is my local source for red snapper, small hard-shell clams perfect for steaming, ultra-fresh sushi-quality fluke (summer flounder), beautiful black sea bass for roasting whole, monkfish for sauteing, and my favorite: small, delicate bluefish.

For great service at the fish counter, I recommend George's Shop 'n Bag in Dreshertown, where fish man Jay Silver still grinds the carp and whitefish for gefilte fish. "I'll clean it out, clean all the bones out, clean the heads, take the eyes out, and scale. I do all of that, so you have all the bones and put it in a little separate bag to make the jelly," says Silver. That's service.

At George's, Silver and Frank Tornetta, the dedicated longtime fish men, welcome demanding and inquisitive customers who buy from their small (only 12 feet of case), carefully selected department. They'll order in whole fish such as pompano and fresh sardines. At Christmastime, they stock the case with live eels, fresh calamari, and bacala (salt cod), served by many Italians on Christmas Eve.

At the moment, chopped clams are on sale: "They're fresh with no preservatives, so it's a matter of minutes to prepare spaghetti with clams."

They also carry Ocean Garden shrimp (a top name from Mexico), which contains no preservatives, and they won't sell shrimp from Thailand, because of concerns about chemicals. They carry fresh tilapia from Costa Rica, after taste-testing three brands, "because often that fish is bland and dusty-tasting."

Another market that prides itself on customer service is Groben's in Mount Airy.

"It starts by knowing the customer's name when they come, knowing what they want before they even ask," says Erik Hooks, who co-owns the shop with Bob Coleman. "The person who buys by price alone is a totally different customer. If they want quality, they come to us . . . they trust us."

Hooks says his customers are diverse. "Many of our African American customers buy our porgy, whiting, and croaker, basically panfish for frying."

Soft-shell crabs are also a big seller, which they also wholesale to restaurants. They avoid frozen and defrosted fish, instead waiting for the fresh fish to come into season. They also prepare fish in the store, any way that the customer wants. "We'll even cook it for them at our take-out side," says Hooks.

In Jersey, there's Sea-Lect Seafood, in Maple Shade, a combination fresh retail seafood market with a small dining area and lots of ready-to-cook seafood, open since 1972.

The present owner, George Gladden, starting working in the store at age 13, and five years ago he and his wife bought the business from the founder.

"We strive to carry the freshest seafood available and avoid anything with added chemicals and preservatives. Right now we have local dry day-boat scallops from New Jersey. Our shrimp are all wild, either Mexican brown or domestic pink shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, and we don't sell any farmed shrimp," he said.

In season, they carry live blue crabs and domestic blue crab meat from North Carolina and Texas along with local mako shark, swordfish, and black sea bass.

"We tend to carry more of the basic old-fashioned items, as our customers aren't looking for the exotic. But we do try to expand people's horizons with barramundi and branzino," both farm-raised. They also carry Prince Edward Island farmed mussels, Long Island bluepoint oysters, and live Maine lobsters.

Where to find the fish purveyors

George's Dreshertown Shop 'n Bag