You wouldn’t expect to find Sea Breeze, a fish market that’s been in the neighborhood for nearly 100 years and carries over a hundred different varieties of fish and seafood, across the street from Port Authority and down the street from a soup kitchen, but there it is.

Through puffs of a cigarette, Vincent Dimino tells me he’s been working the market, passed down from his father and grandfather, for 50 years. He’s 58. You do the math. A formidable man of few words, he seems to enjoy what he does, or at least has no thoughts of leaving. Sea Breeze has a 99 year lease with an option to extend it for another 50.

For his fish Vincent recommends the well worn combo of garlic, lemon, herbs and white wine. Instead of this standard, though, I decide it’s time to conquer gravlax (see following recipe). It seems like a good way to snub my nose at winter.

• At Sea Breeze Fish Market: Halibut, $11.99/lb; king fish, $5.99/lb; sword fish, $9.98/lb; tuna, $6.89/lb; organic tilapia, $7.49/lb; Spanish mackerel, $2.99/lb (remember the Mark Bittman Minimalist column this week in the NY Times); octopus, $3.99/lb; red snapper, $5.49/lb; whiting, $2.49/lb; salmon, $6.49/lb.

Sea Breeze Fish Market is located at 541 9th Avenue on the corner of 40th Street in Manhattan. It's open Monday - Saturday, 7am - 6:30pm. To get there take the A, C, E to 42nd Street/Times Square.