The best of East Coast swordfish on Ann Arbor’s West Side
By Ari Weinzweig
On August 16, 1932, the front page of The New York Times carried what seemed like promising news: Adolf Hitler had failed to win the Chancellorship in Germany. For a moment, it looked like the tide might be turning against autocracy. Sadly, the relief didn’t last. Just over five months later, at the end of January 1933, Hitler rose to power—a role he would hold until Germany’s surrender at the end of the Second World War. Back on page 38 of that same issue of the Times in August 1932, tucked away from the grim politics of the day, a small column in the middle of the page celebrated a different sort of news—a fish tale very much worth noting! An 800-pound, 14-foot-long swordfish had been caught in the Rhode Island coastal waters not far from Block Island. Brothers Ernest and Albert Cyr landed the fish after a three-plus-hour fight. The pair, the Times reported, were understandably flabbergasted at the enormity of the fish they’d brought in. Much smaller specimens, all sustainably caught, are on the menu right at the Roadhouse. I don’t know how that 800-pound fish tasted in 1932, but what we’re getting right now has been uniformly superb.
Why Block Island Swordfish?
If you’re going to eat swordfish, the waters off the coast of Block Island would be the place you want to get them. Writer Tristram Korten paints the picture:
Block Island is one of the puniest chunks of New England’s scattered archipelago—a rougher, rockier cousin to manicured Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, which lie to the north. A three-by-seven-mile pile of boulders and clay left behind by retreating glaciers, the island sits a lonely nine miles from mainland Rhode Island. The Atlantic yawns wide and open to the east, providing environs that are secluded by human standards. But if you are a fish, Block Island is a veritable metropolis with an interstate highway running alongside it. Resident populations of tautog (a.k.a. blackfish), winter flounder, fluke, cunner, and sea bass populate the rocky coves. Big game fish like tuna and swordfish ply the waters offshore.
Of course, even when Block Island fish aren’t in season, there is still swordfish to be had much of the year. We focus on Block Island when it’s running, as it is now, because it’s rightly known to be the best of the best! And we work, as we have for 23 years now, with the fine folks at Foley Fish in Boston who have been bringing in top-quality fish for over a hundred years! And sure enough, everyone I’ve talked to who’s eaten the Tomato-Poached Swordfish this season has sung its praises!!
Why the Tomato-Poached Swordfish special is so good!
For this dish, we poach the swordfish steaks in a lovely heirloom tomato bisque, top it with a warm salad of blistered local cherry tomatoes, and serve it with the remarkably good organic Carolina Gold Rice we get from the crew at Anson Mills in Columbia, South Carolina. Stop in soon while the Block Island swordfish season is still on—beautiful, seasonal, and sustainably caught, it’s a late-summer treat you won’t want to miss!