Welcome to King's Fish House | Chief Seafood Officer | Seafood Restaurants in California

Pacific Salmon and Blue Crab
Oncorhynchus spp. and Callinectes sapidus

This is my favorite time of year. I can easily imagine what it was like when native and colonial Americans on both coasts, after surviving the dull diet of winter, were able to treat themselves to bounty brought with spring. The return of wild salmon had to be a thrill like none other. Suddenly, after months of literally empty rivers, seemingly limitless lush, juicy salmon for months on end! And on the mid-Atlantic seaboard, try to envision the first person who decided to cook up a whole crab in its freshly molted, soft-shell state and his or her discovery that it was every bit as sweet and delicious as a hard-shell, but with none of the monotony of picking it out of the shell…just a rich, juicy crab experience through and through.

Pacific Salmon
Oncorhynchus spp.

There are seven species of Pacific salmon. Two of these are found only in Asia, the remaining five species occur on both sides of the Pacific Ocean :

Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ) a.k.a. king salmon,
chum salmon ( Oncorhynchus keta ) a.k.a. dog salmon,
coho salmon ( Oncorhynchus kisutch ) a.k.a. silver salmon,
pink salmon ( Oncorhynchus gorbuscha ) a.k.a. humpback salmon, and
sockeye salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerka ) a.k.a. red salmon.

King's Fish House serves three of these five species caught fresh from wild Alaskan waters:

Chinook salmon ( O. tshawytscha )
Also known as kings, these robust, deep-bodied fish are the largest of the Pacific salmon. Chinook live from three to seven years and average 30 lbs (14 kg) in weight. The record remains 126 lbs (58 kg) taken near Petersburg , Alaska in 1949. These large salmon have the highest oil content and therefore the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids. They are very rich and complex in flavor. The king is the first species to enter the Copper River in mid-May and continue to run through mid-June.

White salmon, or ivory salmon, is a subspecies of the King salmon. Their white flesh is due to the lack of a gene that permits pigments to be assimilated from their diet.

Coho salmon ( O. kisutch )
Coho don't begin to spawn until late July but do so through mid-September. The numbers of coho salmon that enter the Copper River exceed the number of king salmon but are still far less than that of the sockeye. An average weight for a coho salmon is about 10 lbs (5 kg). The coho salmon is less fatty than its cousins and has a more delicate and mellow flavor. The life cycle of a coho is 3-4 years depending on the richness of its diet and the length of its spawning journey.

Sockeye salmon ( O. nerka )
Sockeye are the most abundant species running into the Copper River . It is the slimmest and the most streamlined of the five species of Pacific salmon. The average weight of a sockeye salmon is around 6 lbs (3 kg) and the record is about 50 lbs (23 kg). The sockeye salmon has an intense nutty flavor and is the second species to enter the Copper River . Their spawning begins just behind the king's and lasts until August. Like the king, the sockeye has a 5-year life cycle.

Pacific Salmon Season

Wild salmon season is an amazing time of the year. The spawning of this fish is an event that we anticipate yearly. Rivers in Alaska fill with so many wild salmon that it appears you could walk across their surging bodies to get to the other riverbank. Pacific salmon are anadromous, which means they are born in freshwater rivers and lakes, migrate downstream to the Pacific Ocean and live their lives at sea only to migrate back into freshwater to spawn (reproduce).

One-Way Trip

Anadromous fish are real wonders of nature. After years at sea, they return to within several feet of where they were born. During this odyssey the fish will gain thousands of feet in altitude while swimming against powerful currents for hundreds, and sometimes thousands of miles. Little is known about the navigation mechanisms or cues they use to find their way home. Some evidence suggests that they may be able to use cues from the earth's magnetic field. Once near their natal stream, salmon use olfactory cues to guide them home. Pacific salmon will only make this trip once in their lifetime. They die within a few weeks after spawning.

No Meal Breaks

Salmon cease eating once they enter the mouth of the freshwater river where they will spawn. This is why they must be caught by net and not by hook and line.

Omega Madness

Omega-3 fatty acids are abundant in salmon. This “healthy fat” has been found to lower low-density lipoproteins (LDL) levels and raise high-density lipoproteins (HDL) levels. LDLs hinder blood flow but HDLs help increase blood flow. The extremely high levels of HDLs in wild salmon are very easily digested. Better still, salmon also contain nine essential amino acids and vitamins A, B1, B2, and calcium, iron, niacin, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. They also have less saturated fat than an equivalent amount of skinless chicken breast.

Blue Crab
Callinectes sapidus

Maryland soft shell crabs from the Chesapeake Bay are simply blue crabs which have molted and shed their hard outer shell. Once the outer shell is sloughed off, the crab begins to form a new shell and grow into it—like changing into baggier jeans! Soft shell crab is a seasonal dish. The molting cycle of the blue crab runs from late May through September.

Did you know, more than 100 years ago Maryland watermen introduced the soft crab to the seafood industry and the world? Other species of crab can be eaten in the soft shell stage, but the pugnacious, bottom-dwelling blue crab stands above the rest because of the amount of edible meat and its unrivaled, delicate flavor!

Did you also know that the olive-green and white-colored “blue crab” derives its name from its brilliant blue claws?