The ''Sturgeon King'' is no slouch when it comes to lox or sable, either.

The Scene
The front room, which holds deli cases of smoked salmon, caviar and whitefish salad, is packed on Sunday afternoons with Upper West Siders and their wee tykes waiting for a table. Past the entrance area, the narrow 73-year-old dining room--humbly furnished with tightly packed Formica wood-grain tables and matching wainscoting--eases the commotion a notch.

The Food
You can bury your lox in an omelette, or savor it with one of the restaurant's fabulous smoked fish platters--served with two bagels or bialys, slabs of cream cheese, slices of tomato and sweet onion, and potato salad or coleslaw. Silken Nova Scotia salmon makes your bagel a beautiful thing; the drier, saltier pastrami lox, fringed in black, offers an equally pleasing variation. The kitchen's superb matzo ball soup pairs a flavorful broth with a perfectly fluffy matzo ball.