Jax Fish House adds a fish with many aliases

Next Wednesday kicks off the Lenten season — and yes, we’ll be posting our list of local fish-fry meals next week — when many local restaurants offer seafood specials for dining patrons who observe meatless Fridays (and Ash Wednesday, February 18, which is also a no-meat day for Catholics) during this period.

In the case of Jax Fish House (4814 Roanoke Parkway, 816-437-7940), the new seafood venue on the Country Club Plaza, chef de cuisine Bobby Bowman is adding a new fish for a limited time to his menu: the meaty, mildly flavored cobia, which is also known as black kingfish, black salmon, ling, lemonfish, crabeater, prodigal son and aruan tasek.

It’s called lemonfish on the Jax menu because, frankly, it sounds more appetizing than cobia. This isn’t earth-shaking culinary news; other local restaurants, including Jasper’s, have offered the fish as dinner specials over the years. But Bowman was keen on adding the farm-raised fish — sustainably grown in pens in seawater off the coast of Panama — because it’s high in omega-3 fatty acids (and February is, conveniently, American Heart Month), and he likes the many ways that the flaky fish can be prepared.

On the current menu, Bowman pan-sears the lemonfish to the point in which the pink fish becomes lightly caramelized and flaky but still moist. He serves the fish over potato puree with rapini, trumpet mushrooms, and an anchovy persillade. At $32, it’s one of the most expensive seafood dishes on this season’s Jax menu.

But if you prefer something more glamorous than deep-fried cod as a meatless meal, pan-seared cobia — or prodigal son, if you prefer — may be worth the price.