Is it time for fish, not fowl?

SO is tomorrow Salmon Day?

If turkey has always struck you as a rather dull fowl, you’ll be pleased to know that restaurants around the city are offering more and more alternatives to the main course this Thanksgiving, from steak to game, pasta dishes to vegetarian plates.

But on every list, there is one dish as ubiquitous as the bird: salmon.

At Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabasas, the choices include turkey, mesquite-grilled venison chop, butternut squash ravioli -- and wild Scottish salmon, pan-seared and baked, served with a pumpkin-rock shrimp hash. At Joe’s in Venice, alongside turkey you’ll find an autumn vegetable plate -- and roasted Scottish salmon. Joe Miller serves the fish on a Swiss chard, bacon and tomato compote, topped with garlic cracklings. At Patina, the choices include turkey, suckling pig, beef strip loin and, yet again, roast Atlantic salmon, this time with beets, cranberries and pistachios.

Joe’s general manager Todd Barrie says, “Fish is really what the pilgrims ate, and salmon, it’s an easy choice. It’s the most popular, most recognizable fish around, as well as being a very versatile fish.”

And really, when salmon is what we order so much of the time anyway, why should Thanksgiving be any different?

“It’s the highest-purchased seafood in restaurants across the United States,” says Gerhard Tratter, general manager at Saddle Peak. “It’s familiar and completely approachable, people are looking for simple, old-fashioned food on this particular holiday.”

For those who dine out on Thanksgiving, at least, the turkey’s long reign as king of the day may be coming to an end.

-- Jessica Strand

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Small Bites

Restaurateurs Darin Feinstein and Bevan Cooney, who own part of El Dorado, have opened the sleek Avenue, designed by prolific interior designer Dodd Mitchell. Andrew DeGroot (formally executive chef at Casa del Mar) will serve contemporary American cuisine with a French twist. Avenue is open daily for lunch and dinner, and its lounge is open until 2 am.

Avenue, 301 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills. (310) 275-2900.

At his newly opened Menemsha, restaurateur Brad Johnson is offering free samples of one of the rare Standard American Bronze turkeys (there are only a few hundred in the country) he got directly from Kansas. Chef Joachim Weritz plans on brining this bird, roasting it and serving it with cider sauce. It’s a chance to see whether this now-expensive old-time breed is indeed superior. Today and Friday.

Menemsha, 822 Washington Blvd., Venice. (310) 822-2550.