What do you get when an engineer trades in his slide rule for a slicing knife?

A fourth-generation fish monger, of course! OK, maybe that wasn’t SO obvious, but once you take a bite of the succulent sturgeon or luscious lox at our friend Josh’s appetizing store on the Lower East Side, you’ll forget all about my senseless riddles and annoying aliteration. For the full Russ and Daughters spiel (look, I used Yiddish!) and to see what Martha Stewart’s raving about, read (and watch) on …

I wasn’t joking about the engineer thing. When I first met Josh in Portland, Oregon back in the day, that’s how he paid the bills. So when he told us all that he was moving back to New York to run his family’s fish store, let’s just say some of us were slightly skeptical. Of course that was before any of us west-coasters moved out east and realized Josh’s “family fish store” is only the pre-imminent appetizing institution on the Eastern Seaboard. Russ and Daughter’s smoked fish, homemade salads and caviar have been praised by nearly everyone, from the New York Times Magazine to Jewish Week. Even Martha couldn’t resist Russ and Daughter’s crispy latkes. In fact, she liked them so much she did an entire segment about them on her show.

And besides, little did we know that it would only be a matter of time before Josh climbed the ranks to become downtown’s “Best Easy-on-the-Eyes Fish Monger.” And believe you me, the New York Press doesn’t just hand out that award easy-peesy. You need some serious distinction.

And after watching Josh frolic across the screen in this video Todd and I made awhile back, I think you’ll be just as enamored by how Josh wields a blade …

So I guess Zagat’s was onto something when they refered to the Russes as the “royal family” of smoked fish presiding over “landmark for Jewish soul food.” Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot more of Josh on the site … maybe we can even get him to give us a schooling in caviar tasting one of these days …