Laszlo's Smoked Fish 'Hooks' Customers
The Sacramento Bee
Mike Dunne,
Bee Food Editor – September 29, 1999
In Old Sacramento, customers
are getting hooked on smoked fish
Not all the smoke billowing over Old Sacramento comes from the locomotive of an excursion train.
Joe Laszlo is just pulling another batch of fish from his smoker.
Since May 27, the first day of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee, Laszlo and his wife Rita, have been operating Laszlo's Gourmet Smoked Fish, sandwiched between the Indo Café and Cinna-Roll Express in the Old Sacramento Public Market.
"I got a bug to open a little shop for myself," says Laszlo, who for 17 years had been a Sacramento contractor specializing in water and sewer pipelines.
Smoked Fish Novelty
At first, the specific kind of shop didn't much matter to Laszlo. "You need a niche business to survive down here," he says of his search for the right product or service. "My wife wanted something like that," says Laszlo, 57, pointing toward a bakery specializing in dog biscuits at the other end of the strip of shops.
"I love dogs, but that's not for me. The fish was attractive to me because it's so unique. Cinnamon rolls you can buy anywhere, but you can't buy fresh smoked fish anywhere."
Sure, just about every supermarket and specialty food store has some sort of smoked fish, but it isn't fresh-smoked on the premises like his, and it doesn't come in as many versions, Laszlo says.
He smokes his fish at least twice a week, and doesn't hang on to any pieces more than five days. Thus, his fish is more moist and tender than smoked varieties generally found. If customers want their smoked fish a bit drier and stiffer, just hang on to it a few days.
Professional Smoker
Laszlo's boxy $10,000 smoker sits in one corner of the shop, a digital thermometer on top, recording the internal temperature of the fish being smoked. When it gets to 125 degrees, he pulls open the door, steps back to let the smoke clear, and starts pulling out 35 pounds of fish, thinly sliced and arranged tidily on six racks. Most of the fish is a bright and glistening orange.
He and Rita arrange it by variety on clear trays, then slip them into the display case that looms invitingly before customers who stick their head into the small and spare shop, the walls of which are brightened with boldly colored sea life.
"So far, we've had a good response from people who like fish. If people don't like fish, I can't give it away," says Laszlo, his Hungarian accent as thick as kelp. "Actually, I didn't like fish myself. I'm a hamburger eater. But it grows on you. Now I'm a salmon guy."
Behind him, the display case gleams with fillets of smoked halibut, swordfish, sturgeon, salmon, trout and tuna, as well as lox. Most of it sells for about $5 per quarter pound. Swordfish and salmon also are available in peppered variations. (He gets the lox from another supplier, but plans to start producing it himself this winter, when he also expects to add smoked oysters and clams to his menu.)
Laszlo buys his fish from Pacific Group, a Sacramento wholesaler. He first cuts the fish into thin fillets of a fairly uniform thickness, so they will marinate and smoke evenly.
All Natural
He marinates the fillets overnight in a brine of apple juice, soy sauce, brown sugar and molasses. He uses no liquid smoke, no dyes and no salt other than what's in the soy sauce. He's keen on keeping all flavors balanced, and is especially leery of turning out smoked fish with too much salt. "Salt used to be a preservative, but with the refrigeration we have today, you don't need all that salt."
Laszlo smokes each batch for 2 ½ to 3 ½ hours at about 90 degrees. He fires the smoker with hickory sawdust. "Hickory provides a nice, smooth, uniform flavor," he says. "You have to be uniform. That person coming back next week expects the same fish."
Laszlo is as cautious about drying out his fish as he is about over salting it, and takes pride in showing how flexible and moist each piece is. "Fish is delicate," Laszlo says. "The great mistake everybody makes is they bring up the heat too much. If it cooks too fast, it doesn't take on the smoke, it just dries out. My fish is moist. It isn't so dry that it tastes like jerky."
The result is smoked fish a little smoky, a little salty and a little sweet, with plenty of moisture still in each cut to make it meltingly tender.
Laszlo had been smoking fish as a backyard hobbyist for about four years before he began to look at it as a business opportunity. Then he started to visit smokehouses along the coast, picking up tips from the operators. He was encouraged even more after not finding another fish smoker within 100 miles of Sacramento.
"Hickory provides a nice, smooth, uniform flavor," he says.
"You have to be uniform. That person coming back next week expects the same fish."
Mostly, he experimented with varieties and techniques. "It's a growing process. No matter how much you smoke, there's always new varieties to try," Laszlo says.
Jazz Jubilee
His first weekend – during the Jazz Jubilee – he thought he'd struck gold, selling 146 pounds of smoked fish to the crowd drifting from one venue to another. Since then, he smokes and sells 70 to 100 pounds of raw fish a week (he loses about 20 percent of the weight during the smoking).
He figures about 80 percent of his trade are to tourists who want a snack while they stroll about the historic district or as they getting back on the bus. Though he sells some smoked fish to the neighboring Delta King, he isn't wholesaling his product to other restaurants or grocery stores, though he has considered that option.
Curiously, he's developing an enthusiastic following among fishermen who tie up on the waterfront and find their way to his shop, flanked by the rattle and clang of trains ambling back and forth from the State Railroad Museum. Some fishermen ask him to smoke their catch, but that would require an additional health permit and a bigger smoker, so he hasn't taken on that potentially lucrative trade.
Laszlo's midlife switch in careers has the full support of Rita, who prepares the party trays and smoked-fish-and-bagel sandwiches the shop also offers.
"I love it," she says of the shop. "He's been so interested in the food business for so long, and this has come together well. He's enjoying it. The people who come into the store really are interested in fish, the men especially. They get this light in their eyes, and then start talking fish stories."
Laszlo's Gourmet Smoked Fish, 1100 Front Street, Old Sacramento, is open 10 am to 7 pm Tuesday through Sunday; (916) 492-9089.
