FORAGING
Catch of the Day, Cooked to Order
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page F05
UPSTREAM SEAFOOD MARKET IN SILVER SPRING
When customers walk into Upstream Seafood Market in Silver Spring, a greeting booms out from behind the counter, "How you doin'?" as owner Arnold Johnson, his brother Heyward and son Arnold Jr. bone and fillet fresh fish. Not every customer notices. Their attention is drawn to the long glass case filled with glistening sockeye salmon ($15.99 per pound), thin butterflied fillets of rainbow trout ($8.99), giant, spindly legged king crabs ($26.99), and schools of other fish. Packed in crushed ice in front of the case are whole red snapper ($9.99), ready-for-the-fryer croakers ($2.99) and porgies ($2.99).
  Arnold Johnson will cook lobsters to your liking and lots of other seafood as well. (By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post) |
Johnson, a District native, came to seafood by chance. A former mechanic's helper, he answered a help-wanted ad posted by Giant Food and wound up in the seafood department. Seventeen years later, last August, he opened Upstream. Johnson, 43, is the owner, but it's a family business: His wife Melanie stops in to make the potato salad ($6.99 per pound) and coleslaw ($4.99); Heyward Johnson, 36, and Arnold Johnson Jr., 21, are full-time employees; and Johnson's niece works weekends.
"When we opened, my son couldn't cook a lick," said the elder Johnson. "Now he tries to tell me how to do it."
Cooking is a big part of the business. Johnson realized that many people either don't know how to cook seafood well or don't have the time. So for no extra charge, Upstream will cook to order anything a customer selects, such as a salmon fillet that's seared on the outside, juicy inside, and dressed with a tangy lemon pepper sauce. Or try the crisply fried six-ounce crab cake ($9.99), subtly seasoned and short on fillers so crab is all you taste.
Tell Upstream how you like it, Johnson said, "and we'll do it for you."
-- Matt McMillen
Upstream Seafood Market, 9462 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring (in the Seminary Plaza Shopping Center); 301-565-6701. Open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 8 p.m.
Freelance writer Matt McMillen last wrote for Food about the Cakery in Bowie.
