Restaurant Review: Señor Fish Revisited

We were almost as far from L.A. as you can get, sailing aboard a wood-hulled Indonesian schooner through the remote Komodo Islands, and I was exchanging pleasantries with a fellow scuba diver, an Australian from Melbourne. The place I lived, I said, was a neighborhood called Mount Washington, a couple of miles north of downtown, off the 110 Freeway. The Aussie wasn’t overly familiar with L.A., but he lit up with recognition. “North Figueroa Street,” he smiled. “You live near Señor Fish!”

The Señor Fish of international renown no longer occupies the meager space of its beginnings on Figueroa Street, but has morphed into a mini-chain; there’s one downtown, another in Pasadena and one in Alhambra, but the operators of the original Figueroa operation migrated to a craftsman home on Eagle Rock Boulevard three years ago, and in the new space, patrons can choose to eat their fish tacos alfresco or indoors. And those fish tacos may still be the best in the city, maybe the best anywhere.

Señor Fish’s offerings extend well beyond the realm of tacos. Their fish plates (usually a choice of orange roughy, tilapia, or snapper) are always fresh, nicely grilled and come with generous helpings of beans, rice, salad and tortillas, a very hearty meal for a reasonable $10.95 tab. Almost as famous as their fish tacos are their scallop burritos, an enormous roll of plump scallops buffered with rice and beans, easily a complete meal for $6.95 (for an extra $1, they’ll grill the scallops. It’s a dollar well spent). A ceviche tostada is a bargain at $3.50, piled high with marinated fish that will make your mouth pucker pleasantly. Though not their specialty, their carnitas and pastor burritos are above average (and are priced at only $5.95) and a garden salad, complete with mandarin orange sections, will feed two people healthily for $4.50.
A few words must be said about their salsas. Long before every Pollo Loco and Poquito Mas was offering salsa bars, a major attraction at Señor Fish was – and remains – their buffet of hot red, green and smokey chipotle salsas, relishes and deadly pickled jalapeños. There is a price to be paid the next morning, of course, but for those who love their food spicy, it’s a small price to pay.

My favorite dish at Señor Fish is the bouillabaise-like Caldo de Siete Mares, the famous “seven seas stew,” an ubiquitous item on Southern California mariscos restaurant menus but rarely done with the generosity of portion and freshness of ingredients as featured at Señor Fish. Chock full of seafood, with big legs of succulent king crab, clams, scallops, shrimp and fish, it’s a seafood feast in a bowl. At $13.95, the “Seven Seas” stew is the priciest item on the menu but well worth the cost. A word of warning, though: eating this dish can be a messy proposition, so consider wearing a bib or an old shirt or you’ll be likely to be wearing a splattered memento of your dining experience.

Señor Fish is located at 4803 Eagle Rock Boulevard in Eagle Rock. Open seven days from 11:00 AM.

-Eliot Sekuler