We want some seafood, mama

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, June 14, 2000 | 1:44 a.m.

Fresh fish, primed for the barbecue or saute pan, is almost perfect food.

It is rich in protein, low in cholesterol, high in vitamins and, in many cases, loaded with heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acid. This may be the desert, but it is the 21st century as well. That's good news for fish lovers. Today wide-body jets deliver live fish to us every day, and buying them in Las Vegas now includes a variety of good options.

Perhaps the best option, especially if buying in bulk, is to visit local wholesalers who sell to consumers. Two of them are Southern Seafood Company, 2910 S. Highland Drive; and J&J Seafood Co., 3940 W. Pioneer Ave.

Southern Seafood actually has a small retail outlet attached to the production facility, where you'll most likely be greeted by owner and New Orleans native Janie Dauenhauer. At the slightly less user-friendly J&J, you'll order through a window. Be patient here. Retail orders are processed at intervals that a sign warns can be between "30-45 minutes, as the fish are cut to order."

At Southern, the store is stocked to the rafters with New Orleans and Louisiana foodstuffs; and hot sauces, cane syrup and two freezers packed with convenient boil-in-the-bag Cajun and Creole specialties such as seafood gumbo, turtle soup and jambalaya. This is a treasure trove for those who like to cook real New Orleans-style dishes. But it is the fresh fish that we've come for, and the selection is ample.

Dauenhauer shows off her fresh filleted Alaskan halibut at $9.95 per pound; freshly shucked oysters smell as if they were just opened, and are $7.99 per pint; beautifully gleaming Eastern scallops, $10.99 per pint. In the refrigerator case are fresh white shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, sitting on a bed of crushed ice.

Danenhauer often carries catfish and Eastern flounder. She also tells me almost anything is available upon special order (at a price, of course); speckled trout that Louisiana natives crave; redfish from the Gulf; haddock and monkfish. But she doesn't often order razor clams from New England, a personal favorite. "The shelf life is too short," she explains.

J&J Seafood sells to the public largely because, in the words of CEO Johnny Nalbandian, "we want to do something for the community."

Because there is no retail outlet here, however, the fish are sold on a cash-only basis, and the company prefers (although doesn't insist on) a 5-pound minimum purchase. Satisfy those requirements, though, and you'll probably save around 15 percent to 20 percent at comparable supermarket prices.

This is a huge facility, which features giant, temperature-controlled rooms. One room has, at all times, around 10,000 pounds of live lobsters, which you can buy at market price, currently around $7.25 per pound. Another has whole tuna, packed on ice, anywhere between 30-110 pounds per fish.

Alaskan salmon is around $5.45 per pound; and skinless, boneless Alaskan halibut, wonderfully white and grill-ready, $7.99 per pound. Fish come in to the plant daily, where the day begins at around 3 a.m., from the Gulf, Alaska, Hawaii, even Fiji. According to buyer John Sands, "the seafood industry exploded in 1982 and has been hot ever since."

Be aware that wholesale fish prices fluctuate almost daily. The prices quoted were in place on a given day.

The retail option is not as limited as it once was, either, thanks to the explosion of small ethnic markets and a more savvy buying public. Of course there are fresh fish at all the big supermarket chains and at some ethnic markets as well.

At the Costco membership stores, fresh fish are delivered on Tuesdays and Fridays (supermarkets have similar delivery days), generally trucked in from Los Angeles. Costco has a more limited selection of fresh fish than any wholesaler, but there are bargains here. And although the store discourages breaking open a sealed package to smell a product (to check freshness), each one is marked with a sell-by date. A fish service man kindly opened a package for a reporter to sniff. The smell was briny and fresh.

The stock of fish varies, with most sold skinless and already filleted. Fresh Alaskan halibut was again $7.99 per pound, and swordfish was $5.99. There were filleted Atlantic salmon for $4.99 per pound and fresh whole rainbow trout for $2.29 per pound. Not bad.

It should be mentioned that these portions are large. The salmon average around 3 to 3 1/2 pounds per package, the halibut slightly under 2.

The ethnic market option is a delicious one. At the 99 Ranch Market in the Chinatown Plaza on Spring Mountain Road there is a big, colorful selection that includes many fish favored by our Asian community, such as tilapia, milkfish and pomfret.

These are fish with little or no distribution to our restaurants. Prices can be astonishingly low, often under $2.50 per pound. What's more, this very clean fish market has live tanks that are sluiced with constantly running water.

The choices here are staggering: live Dungeness crab, $7.99 per pound; live snails and littleneck clams, $2.99 per pound. Live catfish, perfect for pan frying, are $4.99 per pound. Gorgeous white seabass, gleaming fresh, is the most expensive of the fish choices at $7.99 per pound.

In addition to the more than two dozen sea creatures sold here, this market offers a trio of convenient services: a free fish frying service is available from 10 a.m.- 8 p.m.; a cleaning service for those who are squeamish about cleaning whole fish is a modest 25 cents per pound; and a steaming service for live lobster, crab and shrimp is the same price.

So fire up the grill, the saute pan or the smoker. Seafood in the desert sounds like one of the cleverest summer ideas yet.