Fishmonger not just here for the halibut
Honest Weight, 10 a.m.
The Styrofoam container, cool, white, the size of a sofa cushion, until recently filled with a couple hundred bluejack mackerel from the Azores, their only residue a grapefruit-coloured fish juice pooled at the bottom, is finally empty Jayson Browne takes it from me. “We try to stay on top of the smell here,” says the chef, rinsing the container under the high-pressure nozzle of the dishwasher station, before putting it out with the trash, “especially in the summer.”
It hadn’t occurred to me as I gutted the fish, using teensy scissors to snip between belly and neck, pinching the gills and pulling them out with the organs. But suddenly I’m keenly aware that the kitchen is odourless. And that’s exceptional because Honest Weight is both a seafood restaurant and retail fish shop, serving Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood.
All day long, fish comes in the back door and out the front. Sockeye salmon and steelhead trout arrive in Styrofoam cases packed with ice. Cardboard boxes come piled with oysters, each bearing a label, required to be kept on file for 90 days; detailing the dates of harvesting, processing and shipping.
Almost as quickly, it goes out through the front door, the first customers trickling in over the morning, peeking into the display case at the rows of live clams, cooked lobster and filleted east coast halibut. The odd-looking limpets (resembling orange scallops in a furry shell, but with, as Browne is proud of, teeth that are the strongest natural material in the world) and barnacles (like rocks wearing turtlenecks), which will be tough sells.
“People take comfort in what they know,” says Browne. “Salmon, trout, halibut. But there’s so much more out there. We got in propeller clams. They look like a penis on one end and a vagina on the other. It’s a hard sell. But they’re delicious.”
A lunch rush starts around noon, Junction locals mostly ordering rockfish sandwiches, oysters and seafood okonomiyaki; a popular dish in Japan, where the savoury pancake is cooked by the customer on a tabletop griddle. Here it’s prepared in the kitchen, a little batter topped with scallops, cabbage, cured trout and bacon, finished with Japanese mayonnaise and shimmering bonito flakes.
Back in the kitchen, I’m eager to talk to the cooks, Browne and Ken Gilmore, about the Ghostface/ Action Bronson beef. But today’s restaurant is staffed with the only two Toronto cooks not into hip-hop, and I listen instead as they exalt the greatness of the Pink Floyd album we’re listening to.
When the server needs a hand, I jump out front to the dining area to shuck oysters, rising, if only for a brief spell, to a level of competence sufficient to fool diners into believing that I work here.
That spell is broken back in the kitchen when cook Adam Dalton teaches me to clean a salmon. We’re no longer dealing with the tiny mackerel, which cost about 50 cents each. This is an expensive fish that costs Bridle Path money. Dalton slices into the collarbone, removing it in one piece, then slides his long blade along the length of the spine. Working the knife like a conductor’s wand, he seems not so much to cut around the rib cage and remove the fillet, than convince the side of fish to voluntarily rise from the body.
When it’s my turn, I work the knife less like a conductor and more like a teenager fumbling with a bra. Lacking Dalton’s learned radar and sensitive touch for the location of the bones, I do an ugly job of hacking through the carcass. My fillets look like they’ve been attacked and should press charges.
It’s not until I get home that I’m overwhelmed by the smell of fish. Not from handling the raw stuff, I’m told, but the oils of all that cooking rockfish on the flat-top. I shower, go to the gym, shower again. But in the market, my neighbour comes charging at me, dragged by his leashed dog.
“We were walking home,” the neighbour says. “And he started pulling me in this direction from a block away.”
OKONOMIYAKI
Star Tested *In Japan, you’d go to a restaurant that only serves Okonomiyaki, order the ingredients you want, and fry it yourself on a tabletop griddle. I tested the Honest Weight version at home. It’s easy to make but requires seeking out some ingredients from an Asian supermarket. For an even easier method, I tested another batch of batter with just water, flour and eggs, so you don’t have to scout the yagaimo yam or dashi (fish broth). And while you can get away with using another mayonnaise (and miss the umami-bomb of Japanese Kewpie mayo), there is no substitution for the dancing effect of bonito flakes (dried, shaved tuna) as a garnish. If going to an Asian supermarket (where you’ll find other delights) sounds like too much, remember that you can always pay someone to make this dish for you. For the batter
1/2 cup (125 mL) water
2/3 cup (160 mL) all purpose flour
1 egg
Or (alternative batter)
3 tbsp (45 mL) nagaimo yam*, grated
1/2 cup (125 mL) dashi* (instant or homemade)
1/2 cup (125 mL) all purpose flour
1 egg
1 tsp (5 mL) soy sauce
1 tbsp (15 mL) Worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp (45 mL) ketchup
4 tsp (20 mL) canola oil
2 cups (500 mL) scallops, diced
2 cups (500 mL) cabbage, grated
8 slices bacon, cut in half
Garnish
Lots of Kewpie Mayo*
4 green onions, finely sliced
Smoked or cured trout or salmon, sliced
1/2 cup (125 mL) bonito flakes*
For the batter, in a large mixing bowl, whisk water, flour and egg. It should be the consistency of a thin pancake batter.
(If you’ve bought the nagaimo and dashi, make sure the dashi is cool before you whisk that together, then continue with flour and egg.)
In a bowl soy stir sauce, Worcestershire sauce and ketchup to form Okonomi sauce.
For each portion, add oil to large pan on medium heat and pour out one quarter of the batter. Cover batter with one quarter of the scallops, then one quarter the cabbage on top of that. In another area of the pan, layer bacon strips so they’re overlapping.
When pancake is brown on the bottom, about 5 minutes, gently flip onto the bacon. Continue cooking about 6-8 minutes.
Transfer to plate and garnish with mayonnaise, okonomi sauce, green onions, fish and bonito flakes. Makes 4 servings.
Star-tested by Corey Mintz. Email Corey Mintz at mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz.