To Live and Die in LA

There is no seafood more sincere, lowbrow and unapologetic than at the Fisherman’s Outlet. Occupying a sun bleached, shabbily built brick hut in a terrible part of town, the fetid stench of failure, drug abuse and palpable sociopathy makes you wonder if the food is that good, now that you’re standing in a Soviet-style line, clutching your purse in fear. That might be the feeling you first have, now that you -let’s face it- stumbled upon it accidentally because you would never be found in this part of town unless to score some street quality heroin.

Between frantically snapping your neck to piece together flashes of Thomas Guide pages, and cursing silently the baffling circumstances that brought you to this harrowing part of skid row, you registered that, amid the run-down edifice with its outcrop of listless cement picnic tables, there was a loooooong line stretching from two different entrances, and seemed it would be easier to secure a table at Rao’s during a Gambino wedding reception than a cement block at this place. After establishing it wasn’t a soup kitchen, you swung back around and parked right next to a whorehouse, evidenced by a brightly wrapped hooker wearing chipper red patent leather knee-high boots, vacantly finishing off the last embers of filter from a now disintegrated Virginia Slim Menthol 120. You checked the locks on the car twice.

So now you’re standing in line, suspicious and guarded, and a line cook hands you a menu. The line looks long, but the menu is equally as long. No nonsense items like fried combos, oysters, ceviche, lobster bisque and clam cowder. Grilled items like halibut, trout, salmon, seabass are prepared one of three ways: straight up, cajun spiced, or garlic butter. Alright, this reminds you of back East, where the greatest food is usually found in the forgotten and labyrinthine alleys hiding a hole-in-the-wall that only trusted locals whisper about in the frozen vegetable aisle.

The more you look over the menu, the more it resembles the menu you would find in any highbrow seafood restaurant…the Water Grill, Lobster, even Reel Inn and Malibu Inn. The venue may stink and the menu printed on cheap paper, but the smell and look is about the same. The counter guy comes back by. You shout your order to him with the passive confidence that the order will come out right, somehow.

As you slowly creep your way to the front, you begin to understand what is going on. There is a well choreographed cluster fuck churning behind the counter. What looks like a soccer riot about to break down into complete Armageddon soon reveals itself to be a Byzantine display of liquid motion, symmetry and teamwork. Amid the molten crocks of bisque and the searing Hell of a back grill, about 700 people are ducking, hopping, whipping around, tossing trayfulls of charred colossal shrimp through the air to serve you your food just as you make it to the register and the guy asks “Drink?”

When I say colossal shrimp I’m being conservative. For $14.00, which seems like a lot, you get six massive garlic butter soaked Leviathans on a bed of rice. The taste is deep and rife with guilt. You are certain nobody should be eating this without a permit.

So, what’s the story? Why here? How so good? Who knows about this place? I really don’t have any inside information or substantive back story. This forgotten netherworld of downtown Los Angeles is home to several Asian fish markets, canneries, commercial fishing warehouses so the close proximity spawned a few of these outlets. I have not eaten at Fisherman’s Outlet’s rival, wrong-side-of-the-street Catch 21, but I can tell you I have never seen a single living human eating there. I don’t know how most people find this place, since it is too far south of J-Town to be easily accessible, but there are a few revitalized loft communities popping up in the dilapidated carcasses of gutted buildings.

I found out because I worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers downtown about six years ago. Therefore, we discovered all the dirty holes in the unwashed East Side of Bunker Hill. This place was the one true find. I have been going there off and on since then, because I usually don’t have occasion to be procuring Mexican heroin from my local purveyor of difficult to find and specialty drugs. There are only a few legitimate reasons to be downtown on Saturday (they are closed Sunday). One, you woke up in the Midnight Mission after 48 hours of gonzo restaurant hopping. Two, you are trolling Santee Alley for knockoff Louis Vuittons and bootlegs of How High Pt II: How Much Higher. Three, you are a supplier of bacon-wrapped hot-dogs. Four, you’re in Chinatown waiting for a dead-drop of powdered tiger penis.

Be prepared for a wait, but the line moves swiftly and the tables turn over regularly. The area isn’t scenic enough for people to camp there all day. Prices are reasonable, but don’t be afraid to strike out and pay more for grilled items, they are just as savory and fulfilling as any overpriced seafood restaurant. I am partial to the mojo de ajo, garlic butter, as my preference for grilled items.

The fried platters are delicious, but the breading is nothing spectacular. I am only saying this having compared seafood on both coasts, and a unique batter or breading distinguishes one essentially identical tiger shrimp from another. They aren’t like humans, they’re pretty much all the same. I like the batter, but it does remind me starkly of Gordon’s or Van de Kamps.

I’m revealing myself to be a total hunyack, but I really like the lobster bisque at Hamburger Hamlet. Go ahead, laugh, but it is pretty good. The lobster bisque here is probably the best I’ve had in this city. It is creamy, chunky, sweet, buttery with that bright aftertaste that lingers like a tenant who won’t pay his rent.

This weekend I got a fried combo of catfish strips, shrimp and a crabcake. I am issuing a full on thumbs up endorsement of their crabcake. It was all crab, fresh, sweet and dense. It was delicately seasoned and it was left up to me how to eat it: with tarter or with cocktail sauce. There are no other choices. That’s it, in your face, uncompromising condiments. No chipotle remuloude, mango salsa, or avocado and lychee reduction. The only two tangents they offer are catsup for the fries and Tapa Tio.

The slaw is perfectly balanced between sweet and tart, and embellished with dill for an added dimension. You can get sodas and they offer a couple choices for beer, which is nice to drink on the patio, if you ignore the surroundings.

What is the best way to minimize exposure to this caustic neighborhood? I’ve found cutting down 1st st through J-town, hanging a right on Central brings you right there. It’s quick, and you stay in good parts of town. You can make your way around to the 5 and cut back on one of the industrial bridges to cut you back to Central. If you have to take the normal way through downtown because you went to the wholesalers, just take 5th all the way to Central and hang a left. Although I don’t advocate civil disobedience, if there are no cops I will run the red lights. For four solid blocks skid row spills into the streets infected with howling psychopaths, tweaking crack fiends and fractured hookers loudly theorizing with apparitions.

Dollar for dollar, Fisherman’s Outlet surpasses any other seafood restaurant in the city. Unappealing surroundings and no-frill eating keeps the cost down and that is a benefit to anyone willing to make the excursion. Do yourself a favor, next time you’re spending an afternoon at MOCA or the Japanese-American Museum, forgo the café food and overpriced niblets of sushi and head over to the real deal.