Seaside Summer Perfection
SECONDS BEFORE A LEMON SQUEEZE: Fluke (foreground) and Black Sea Bass at Artie’s South Shore, with lovely accompaniments, July 2008.
A few weeks back I revisited Artie’s South Shore Fish Market and Restaurant in Island Park, New York, just over the bridge (or one train stop in) from Long Beach.
It was one of those perfect summer days, a Tuesday, and my friend Lily and I decided to turn it into a perfect beach day. With the exception of its “no dogs allowed” policy, Long Beach is an ideal one-day getaway destination for New Yorkers. The beaches are clean and well monitored, and diving into the rolling salt water surf made me feel like I was in a 19th century novella, out taking the cure by the sea.
Nothing caps a perfect beach day more than a great seafood meal. And it just doesn’t get much better than Artie’s. Owner Artie Hoerning is a professional fisherman, and a great one at that. I know because I went fluke fishing with him five years ago. In the words of Dave Pasternack, an old friend and fishing buddy of Artie’s, “Artie knows the bay.”
Artie looked a little bummed out when I saw him recently. Daily maximums for most fisheries have been drastically reduced in recent years, which translates into telling a man like Artie to do less of what he loves the most. Still, he happily told us what had come in that day. He had personally caught both the Black Sea Bass and the Fluke, and had also brought in some lobster from his traps.
Our decision was easy, we’d order the Sea Bass whole roasted and the Fluke crispy. Then we’d have a 1 and 1/4-pound lobster for dessert.
The coup de grâce? Artie’s is BYOB, and having planned for this, Lily and I had stuffed a couple bottles of wine into an insulated satchel with a bunch of ice packs.
My affection for one of the wines we brought, R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia’s 1997 Rosado, continues to grow. Apart from all that great acidity and its sexy aromatics, the wine’s faint butterscotch character is perfectly suited for steamed lobster chunks dunked into clarified butter.
Our mellow, near wordless return to the city, accompanied by the sounds of Beck’s latest album, “Modern Guilt,” and, after that, Neil Young’s “Live Rust,” confirmed the restorative triumph of our day in the sun and its blissed-out gastronomic denouement.
Artie’s South Shore Fish Market and Restaurant, 4257 Austin Blvd, Island Park (516) 889-0692