MARKETS : The King and His Subjects

Fish King, 722 N. Glendale Ave., Glendale; (818) 244-2161 and (213) 425-3553. Open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday to Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Second location: 19550 Tarzana Blvd., Tarzana, (818) 345-1205. Open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

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In the cool gray light of early morning, the wholesale seafood markets are in full swing, jammed with rumbling trucks and rivers of melting ice. Inside a cavernous building that looms like an airplane hangar between Central and Alameda streets, men wearing black rubber aprons and sturdy galoshes unpack crates of iced fresh fish. In the middle of it all Hank Kagawa inspects Fiji Island albacore to make sure it’s up to his standards and hand-picks the choicest extra-large Dungeness crabs for his seafood business, Fish King.

Yesterday, someone from the “Days of Our Lives” show called Kagawa’s Burbank wholesale plant to request 25 perfect-looking red rockfish for a TV shoot. So today Kagawa scrutinizes the lot to be sure the eyes are bright and the skin well-colored. He goes over an order of fresh abalone and another of live crayfish for a restaurant client; he’ll have to send out a truck for it later, he learns.

Slight and still youthful-looking in his mid-60s, Kagawa is a hands-on kind of guy. Whether he’s seeking out a new oyster source or developing recipes for the take-out food at his two retail shops, he oversees just about every aspect of his retail and wholesale fish and poultry business with the help of his wife and son Jon.

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But Kagawa didn’t start out to be a fishmonger. Working his way through a commercial art program at Los Angeles Community College, he had a job at Fish King--”a two-man operation and me,” as he puts it. “I was the gofer, doing a little of everything--deliveries, filleting fish, you name it.”

When Fish King’s owner decided to concentrate on his frozen shrimp business, Kagawa and an uncle bought him out. Since then the tiny Glendale storefront has expanded into three adjoining stores. “The cafe and take-out part used to be a laundromat,” he says. Fish King also has its own fish preparation plant and a new store in Tarzana.

Kagawa claims good business instincts have always been a family trait. At the turn of the century his grandfather immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. A generation later, his son decided he could do better than working in the pineapple fields, and came to California. In short order he was trucking produce to the Central Market from the Palos Verdes Peninsula where, until recent years, there were small Japanese-run strawberry and vegetable farms. Later he opened a grocery store. “He felt he had really made it when he drove up in his new Buick and offered to take me for a ride,” Kagawa remembers.

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Kagawa, Sr. lost that Buick, his trucking business and the market when the family was interned during World War II, but he still had the entrepreneurial spirit, Kagawa says. After the war he managed to scrape together the wherewithal to open a small market in Downtown’s Little Tokyo.

Kagawa got his most memorable lesson in dealing with customers from his father in an incident he says he remembers as though it happened yesterday. The new store required tons of work and long hours from the family. One day, Kagawa recalls, a guy came in with a nearly empty carton of milk, saying it was bad and asking for his money back. “I asked him, ‘If it’s so bad, how come you drank so much?’ ” Kagawa remembers. “My father hustled me into the back, apologized and refunded the man’s money. Later he was really fuming and gave me a dressing down. He told me, ‘It’s good business when all your customers are satisfied.’ ”

Kagawa developed prepared foods with the same instincts that made the rest of the business so successful. He didn’t want to waste the odds and ends of fish that had been cut into portions for his restaurant trade. “It was wonderful fish,” he says, “but odd shapes and such, so we started to sell it cooked.” He also noticed that many people didn’t know how to handle or cook fish, so he added a fish-cooking service. Now prepared foods represent about a third of Fish King’s retail trade.

One of Fish King’s first prepared foods was its now-famous “crunch fish”--deep-fried and lightly breaded. It’s still so popular people will wait in line for it. But tastes have changed and now there are char-grilled fish, as well as fish tacos and several prepared pastas and salads and sushi and sashimi.

FISH IN THE ROUND

Ichthyophiles of a purist bent insist on buying their fish unfilleted; they like the way its uncut skin seals in the freshness. But many cooks are intimidated when faced with something that looks as if it just swam ashore. The line-up of skilled countermen at Fish King’s retail stores solves this problem; they can turn any seagoing creature into a form suitable for the dinner plate.

Fresh Sardines: In August, when vacationing Parisians crowd every town along the Mediterranean, the aroma of sardines being grilled is everywhere. These small, soft-boned fish, all members of the herring family, vary greatly. The larger ones are wonderful simply split open, cooked over coals and basted with butter. Sicilians pan-cook smaller sardines al vino bianco (splashed with white wine) or bake them with a stuffing of bread crumbs mixed with salted anchovies, parsley and pine nuts.

Pompano: Silvery and slab-sided, with firm and delicate white meat, the best pompanos for eating can be the size of a credit card or up to two pounds. Probably the most luxurious pompano rendition, pompano en papillote , bakes in a wrapping of parchment paper with a shrimp-and-crab sauce; the paper traps the pompano’s delicate juices.

But there are simpler ways to prepare the fish. Dust small ones in corn flour and fry them in a little clarified butter for pompano a la meuniere . Pompano lovers usually associate the fish with East Coast waters, but Fish King often gets West Coast Pompano as well as the Florida variety.

Eastern Pike: In the Baltic, people love this long skinny fish poached and accompanied with fresh horseradish. Kagawa says he sells a lot of pike around the Jewish holidays when it goes into gefilte fish. Pike has a lot of bones, which is why it is rarely served as a fillet. Usually it gets minced up, as for pike mousse or the fish balls known as quenelles de brochet .

Mullet: More than 100 species of this bony fish swim the temperate waters of tropical coastlines. Some people find mullets muddy-tasting because many do swim and feed at the bottom of brackish waters. But if you trim off the dark, oily meat along the mid-sides, cover the fish in salt and let stand for an hour, the muddy taste will disappear. Rinse well before cooking. Large mullets may be filleted and baked in a little olive oil or oven-broiled coated with a mustard-herb butter. The meat will be mild tasting, firm but tender and flaky.

Sculpin: With its thorny fins, bulbous eyes and grotesque mouth, sculpin is such an ugly fish that you wouldn’t want one sharing a buffet table with your best crystal and china. But for many, these monster-like creatures have their distinct pleasures. “They make great chowder” advises Kagawa, “because all those bony parts give a superbly rich stock.”

Skate Wings: Flat and sort of aerodynamic looking, skate is a ray (as in sting ray), a primitive relative of the shark, with a skeleton made of cartilage instead of bone. The “wings” comprise the largest portion of these triangle-shaped creatures. Skate is prized for its ethereal, marshmallowy texture and a flavor some liken to sea scallops. Skinned and trimmed wing pieces from large skate may simply be deep-fried or sauteed, perhaps, in a nutty browned butter.

Fresh Eels: These slithery, snake-like fish often elicit the eeeeoooo response. But cooks the world over find their rich, meaty flesh irresistible. In Italy, where eel is traditional Christmas Eve fare in many homes, they call it anguilla , in France you may find anguilles au vert , simmered in an herbal wine sauce. In Denmark eel is called ai , and it’s devoured in a stew of leeks and carrots matched with prunes and apples. And in Japan, specialty cooks steam eels, then barbecue them with a teriyaki-like basting sauce.

Miscellaneous Choices: Whole New Zealand snapper, a wonderful broiling fish, can be turned into sashimi that is cut so thin it becomes translucent. Pacific Spanish mackerel is coveted because it’s leaner and lighter in flavor than Atlantic mackerel. Another member of the mackerel family, wahoo, comes in from Hawaii where it goes by the name ono. Its firm-flaking, slightly sweet flesh is at its best simply broiled or baked. The Hawaiian pink snapper opakapaka, esteemed for sashimi, is also excellent from the grill.

SHELLFISH

Oysters: You want to be confident of the vendor when eating raw oysters. Fish King carefully selects and handles both farm-raised and wild oysters and will have several varieties on hand at any given time, so call ahead if you’re looking for a specific species. You may have sampled some of these at oyster bars or in seafood restaurants.

Malpeques, available from May to November, are gathered wild from Malpeque Bay on the Northwest side of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Malpeques’ cold-water habitat gives them a clean salty flavor that is often described as crisp and lettuce-like; their delicate texture almost dissolves in your mouth.

Fanny Bay oysters, also from Canada and derived from Portuguese seedlings, are cultured in the much colder waters of British Columbia. This gives their firm, sweet-tasting meat an exceptionally salty tang.

Skookum Inlet oysters, from Puget sound near Olympia, Washington have a texture that’s exceptionally firm and almost crunchy with a rich sweet, yet mild flavor. Their deep cupped shells make them beautiful to serve.

The Japanese-originated Quilcene oysters, from the Quilcene Bay area, have been raised in Washington for over 60 years. They resemble the well-known French Fin de Claires oysters. They’re only slightly salty, and some find their aftertaste “cucumber-like.” Quilcenes are available from September to May.

Two other American oysters were originally produced from Japanese stock. Hama Hama oysters are raised on beaches at the mouth of the Hama Hama River in Washington. Hearty and slow-growing, they have a mild, slightly salty flavor, with a fruity aftertaste. Hog Island oysters, raised in Tomales Bay, Calif., are large, plump and only slightly salty, with a smoky-sweet flavor.

Mussels: Fish King often has cultured mussels from Prince Edward Island, Canada. They’ve also started to carry the Mediterranean-style mussels that are now being farmed using stock imported from Spain. Their thin shells hold plump meat that is so sweet that some people love them raw. Because they are grown on lines, they never have a muddy or dirty flavor.

Fresh Florida Rock Shrimp: Made famous during the Cajun food rage, these East Coast shrimp have a taste vaguely like lobster and are wonderful in jambalaya and gumbo. Their sweet meat somehow makes Asian dishes taste more Asian and gives cioppino further complexity. When stir-fried or steamed, rock shrimp curl gracefully and their red-on-white markings intensify. Until recently, they were hard to find in the marketplace; their marble-hard shells made commercial processing too difficult. “The shells ground down the shelling machine blades and even broke them,” says Kagawa. But someone has licked the problem and now Fish King almost always has them on hand. They also carry fresh Santa Barbara spot prawns, and these can even be had live, on order when available.

Fresh Soft-Shell Crabs: When blue crabs shed their shells, they’re only soft-shelled for a day--the shells begin to harden within 24 hours. Then, Cinderella-style, they’re back to being regular old blue crabs again. To get them you’ll probably have to put your name on Fish King’s call list unless you luck out and arrive at the right moment.

Simply dust the crabs with flour, fry them in a little clarified butter mixed with corn oil and serve crisp and hot with lemon butter or Fish King’s Dijon remoulade sauce.