Steamed lobster and fillets of fresh fluke poached in white wine and chilled also come to mind.
Because there is great promise in nori-wrapped foie gras, served next to a neat piece of watermelon topped with a finger of vinegar-washed, salt-cured Boston mackerel, and in the sheer simplicity of a hunk of smoked char sushi or delicate, wildly fresh fluke.
Slojkowski and Gulino are both recent ACME alumns (they cooked at Roberta's together, too), and I see it in their dishes: The raw foie shaved over fresh fluke with hackleback roe is rich, sure, but restrained, too, balanced and gently seasoned; and considering the dish sequence, certainly brings to mind Mads Refslund's signature foie and langoustines menu staple.
Usuzukuri, for example, featured very fresh, thin-sliced fluke sprinkled with tobiko and finely chopped jalapeno and served with ponzu sauce.
Here is happiness in a piece of sweet Montauk fluke marinated in kaffir lime, with pomelo, radish and a sauce made of galangal and turmeric: Southeast Asian Suffolk County food, as fresh as morning.
THE best dish I had at Josh DeChellis's new restaurant, BarFry, might have been the slices of raw fluke ($12), fresh from the waters off Long Island, dressed with minced chives and a squeeze of lime, an appetizer that could kick off a meal at Esca or Soto.
Start with a plate of salumi, for example — a choice of three for $16 — or the fluke crudo ($13), fresh and crunchy with sea salt.
But the rest of our meal — including bucatini all'Amatriciana with gummy clumps of meat; a fluke fillet with fresh chick peas and baby fennel; a slightly rubbery pork shank with parsnips and chestnuts — was much less impressive.
After driving a truck for Speonk Lumber all day, Mr. Broggi runs a mobile bait and tackle business each evening, delivering fresh, frozen and live bait to fluke, bluefish and bass fishermen from Montauk to Moriches.
On a previous night, though, a plate of raw fluke fell far short of fresh.
Most of the various items were sparklingly fresh -- mackerel, yellowtail, salmon, tuna and fluke nigiri, tamago (cold omelet), inside-out spicy tuna roll, crabstick-avocado roll -- but fairly standard.
