I read with sadness in the Indy that Rock’N Fish was closing. I liked this restaurant. Let’s pay our respects and have a moment of non-eating. Quit chewing readers. It’s only a moment for crying out loud. From now on, we will refer to this restaurant as Fish’N Rocks. Others have recently washed up on our rocky coastline. Mosuns and Katsuya have made their final swims, too. What is going on here? Fish are an important food group, I think? But I won’t worry until spam and pork rinds hit the bankruptcy shoals.
Originally, I supported the blue belt ordinance. Made sense. Give fish a break, so they could bolster their swim school enrollments. But this blue belt creep to the eastside of Coast Highway is going too far. Now the ungrateful fish are taking themselves off the menu. This shows us that you can give a man a fish or you can teach a fish the restaurant business or maybe not.
I can’t help but wonder what is behind these closures. Perhaps it’s simply nature. These restaurants served sushi. That’s raw or uncooked fish. I have to belief word of this marine cannibalism has spread to marine life. The fish are swimming for their lives. And some of them are fighting back. Shark sightings are up. Sharks are sushi eaters of the land variety. What’s not good for the goose is not good for the gander either. They cried fowl over this feeding frenzy and flew out of town with copies of the Indy under wing. Their destination to be revealed in future issues.
Perhaps a truce is called for. If both sides agree to cook each other first, we can live in peace and harmony. Nature seeks a balance. And Laguna’s balance is out of whack. Mother Nature is telling us that serving raw fish is hitting below the blue belt ordinance. So our choice is to find a comfortable cooking temperature for each other or it will come down to the survival of the fittest. I suggest a cooking temperature of 168 degrees. That’s what my Weber grill temperature gauge tells me between swigs of libations. Or was it 172? Who can remember? Let’s toast to 170.
Of course, there’s bound to be sushi hardliners out there. They won’t want to give up without a fight to eat blowfish that can fatally blowback at you. At Benihana restaurants, diners sit with other dysfunctional families at the same table and watch seafood chefs slash seafood to pieces and throw the pieces into their chef hats. Great entertainment, but serving portions that make it to the plates tend to be small and sparse. The following exchange was recently overhead. “I’ll take blowfish please,” asked the diner to the chef. “You pay bill first.”
I hope we can find some middle tide pool solution and it doesn’t come down to survival of the fittest. I can only speak for myself, but I’m really out of shape. If you’re a betting man and the match comes down between a sunfish and me, the smart money is on the sunfish. The point spread is three earthworms, which I always cook to 176 degrees, or was it 178? Oops, I can’t remember. More Lagunitas, please. It’s the only unbalance of nature thing I still can do.
Bon, (but please cook) appetite, Laguna.
Mark is a transplant to Laguna from Chicago. He occasionally writes the guest column “Pet Peeves.” His recently deceased Border Collie, Pokey, is his muse and ghostwriter.
