The Freshest of Fish

A Longtime Family Restaurant Raises its own Fish

If you're a Hilo bound vacationer with an appetite for seafood, there's a treat in store for you in this marvelous costal town; Seaside Restaurant, framed by pine trees and perched at the edge of 30 acres of natural fishponds.  In a tranquil setting straight out of  Somerset Maugham, the Nakagawa family combines a unique aquaculture enterprise with dining, spicing up the combination with a healthy dose of local color.  

"We're raising seven kinds of fish," says Captain Colin Nakagawa as he negotiates the floating catwalk along the edge of the pond.  All around are holding pens teeming with mullet, aholehole, catfish, golden tilapia, rainbow trout, carp and papio.  "The carp are painstakingly raised from eggs to fingerlings to a size large enough for dinner.  Trout eggs imported from Washington State take eight months to a year before becoming plump and ready for the pan, it takes four to five years for mullet or aholehole to reach market size.  The rainbow trout, a cold water fish, has adapted swimming to warm island waters.  Colin and his father, Susumu Nakagawa, gather mullet fingerlings from the shoreline and raise them in holding pens, waiting patiently for them to mature. 

Susumu, an entomologist who retired in 1982 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture fruit fly lab, does the books, supervises the aquaculture and helps with food preparation.  Colin, who returned from Seattle to give the family business a shot, is the Chef and official fish gatherer.  Through its 73 years, this family business has gained a reputation beyond Hilo.  "We've had people call from Honolulu before coming to Hilo to see if we're serving aholehole," Colin says.  "People also preorder rainbow trout, golden tilapia and mullet, but we're known for the mullet." 

After the reservations are in Colin goes out back, scoops up the fish needed, cleans them, gathers the ti leaves and prepares the fish for dinner.  You can't find fish fresher than that.  Ellen Nakagawa, Colin's mother, helps in the restaurant with part-time help, relatives and close friends.  Especially popular are the fried aholehole and steamed mullet, cooked very simply in ti leaves with lemon and onion.  Chicken and steak are still on the menu, as they have been since the beginning,  Catfish is a increasingly popular new item that can be specially ordered.  "We do run out of fish now and then," Colin say's, which is why reservations and pre-orders are important. 

The menu has changed little since its earliest days, when Colin's grandparents, Seiichi and Matsuno Nakagawa, opened the Seaside Club in 1921.  Susumu washed dishes there as a child, never dreaming that someday he'd be tending the fish and helping his son in the restaurant his parents opened.  The fish farm destroyed in the 1946 tsunami has been rebuilt twice since.  In the early 1980's, Susumu's World War II buddies from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team helped him rebuild the backyard fishponds, stone by stone. 

Ellen Nakagawa notes, "You have to put in a lot of hard work to run a place like this."  How are they working?  "Well," laughs Susumu Nakagawa, "It keeps me going, seven days a week.  I haven't golfed for 10 years now."