19 replies to this topic

[Holden West]

Please list your favourite sources for buying seafood--fresh or smoked fish, shellfish, etc.

And now, a rant:

Oysters are a delectable treat at local restaurants, but buying them in the supermarket and cooking them at home is fraught with peril. Not only do you risk ruining these delicately-flavoured morsels there is the problem of size.

It seems restaurants get ahold of the smallest ones, and the big oysters go to retail outlets. We've bought small tubs of oysters from Thrifty before. You usually get a half dozen or so on average. They're a little larger than you'd like--sometimes they have to be boiled off first before frying because of their large size. So we bypassed the supermarket and went to Freshest At Sea in James Bay today to get the premium goods. The clerk assured us these ones were on the smaller side so we happily bought a small tub. Except instead of the 6 to 8 oysters we expected the tub contained two large and one that was the largest I'd ever seen! Damn thing was the size of a shoe. Needless to say we were profoundly disappointed. If we were served that in a restaurant I'd probably send it back to the kitchen.

tl:dr Freshest At Sea was last resort for delicate morsels: turned into colossal error.

[Szeven]

Recently I purchased a crab at The Fish Store on fishermans wharf. It was $8/lb, which was competitive, plus it was live and fresh. We also got some "buck a shuck" oysters that were served there, but despite being the small size (I think the size you are looking for) they were shucked poorly and had shell bits in the half shell. Not well done. Ive bought mussels at Thrifty's before, but I try to make sure I get the local ones (cant remember the name) instead of the PEI mussels.

[Van]

Best places to buy seafood? Either from a food distributor or private fisherman. Maybe one of the fine gentlemen on here who own/run a food establishment would be willing to order stuff for you.

[Holden West]

When I worked in a kitchen it was common for shady-looking people to show up at the back door with seafood to sell. We sent them on their way. Other restaurants may not have been so picky.

On a related note, on a recent trip to Vancouver's Downtown East Side, Mrs. West and I spotted a gentleman selling packaged seafood on the sidewalk, alongside other vendors offering electronics and other goods of dubious provenance. The seafood was most likely shoplifted from supermarkets. After several hours of simmering under the summer sun, the sidewalk seafood would have presented surprising gastric results for the frugal consumer.

[aastra]

What's the deal with the size of the oysters? Isn't that purely an esthetic issue? If you're putting them in a sauce or a sandwich, does the size matter?

[Holden West]

^The intent was to bread and bake each individual oyster but the roast beef-sized behemoth we inadvertently purchased meant it had to be cut into smaller chunks and that just ain't the same. If we were making a chowder it wouldn't matter. I'm not an oyster fan so I can't say if larger ones taste different than smaller ones.

[VicHockeyFan]

On a related note, on a recent trip to Vancouver's Downtown East Side, Mrs. West and I spotted a gentleman selling packaged seafood on the sidewalk, alongside other vendors offering electronics and other goods of dubious provenance. The seafood was most likely shoplifted from supermarkets. After several hours of simmering under the summer sun, the sidewalk seafood would have presented surprising gastric results for the frugal consumer.

This was still common around the Dougy when it was around. Big cheese blocks too.

[sebberry]

This usually does it for me...





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[Sparky]

Damn thing was the size of a shoe.

I just shot some Corona out my nose onto my keyboard. Thanks a lot.

[sebberry]

I just shot some Corona out my nose onto my keyboard. Thanks a lot.

I can fix that for you

[Sparky]

It's an X61. I think I'll just dump the rest of the bottle on it.

[Matt R.]

FAS (Finest at Sea) in James Bay has a well deserved reputation for excellent frozen product, always much better than anything you will find 'fresh' in any grocery store. Often you can find fantastic quality fresh finfish here too, I think if you visit their website you can sign up for a newsletter, which will come to your email box and let you know that one of their vessels is on it's way back from up north and will be delivering some fresh catch the next day. Pretty hard to beat that. FAS also has Sea Angel oysters (in the shell) from Quadra Island. For some reason people always think live oysters are cheaper than they actually are. FAS also has the best cold smoked albacore and black cod going.

They also have Qualicum scallops in season, fresh urchin, octopus, Salt Spring Island mussels and manila clams from Quadra Island. Excellent quality, but again, not cheap.

Don't hesitate to buy FAS (frozen at sea) product, as long as the vacuum seal isn't broken.

Fresh dungeness crab, Fisherman's Wharf is your best bet. $8/lb is an excellent price right now. I suggest you go see Tim @ Hi-Gear, and if you are cooking for family and friends, get the B grade crabs. Legal, hard shell, but missing a limb perhaps or one small claw. At least a couple of bucks less per pound, so you can afford an extra one. They'll kill and clean 'em for you if you like. No frills, cash only, Tim is the man when it comes to dungeness.

For fresh finfish, the best you will find is Satellite Fish Co. out in Sidney. Absolutely the best, freshest, most pristine fish you will find unless you catch it yourself. Sole, rockfish, ling cod, grey cod, black cod, salmon, octopus, halibut. We routinely (a couple hundred pounds a week) get whole fish that is literally one day or less out of the ocean. These guys buy largely from the dayboats in Satellite Channel between Sidney and Salt Spring Island before they head further afield to unload their catch. Bypass the middle man. They also buy salmon and halibut and black cod from the westcoast. I can't say enough about the quality these guys deliver on a daily basis.

I've never bought oysters from a grocery store, not sure I would. After a short while in one of those tanks, they end up tasting like the water in the tank. I'm pretty picky about this sort of stuff, so prefer to buy grower direct, knowing the oyster hasn't seen much more than the ocean, a tumbler and the inside of a cooler with some top ice.

I think Rob "Effing" Tryon is doing some direct sales, you can creep him on Facebook or Twitter. His lease is on the west coast in Barkley Sound. Excellent product, and a hell of a guy and since he's on the west coast is much less susceptible to the damned red tide we are suffering under right now.

tl; dr? Sorry.

Matt.

[VicHockeyFan]

Excellent Matt. So good to have an expert on here with that kind of Intel.

[Matt R.]

Costco trip today. I noticed they now have, in addition to their other excellent Canadian beef, Spring Creek Ranch as a 'premium' brand. Having been lucky enough to sample this product from one of our wholesalers, I can comfortably say it's an amazing product. Hard to beat a whole tenderloin on the grill this time of year.

Cruised the seafood display, and while they occasionally have decent scallops, I normally give it all a miss. I'm just spoiled I suppose. I noticed that they had a good selection of local, wild fish fillets - sole, snapper, (ling) cod, and lovely looking sockeye salmon fillets! Right next to the farmed Atlantic.

I picked up a couple sides of farmed steelhead for dinner tonight, and a package of snapper fillets for the freezer. Cheap, cheap!!

Matt.

[Bob Fugger]

Thanks for the tip, Matt! Just got a stand up deep freeze and I've been dying to do a Costco run! Spring Creek Ranch it is! Will probably grab a couple of pork tenderloins, too!!

[snaptee]

I picked up a couple sides of farmed steelhead for dinner tonight

I don't know why they are marketed as steelhead. It's an insult to steelhead. A steelhead is an anadromous rainbow trout - there is nothing anadramous about a pellet pig rainbow raised in a net pen.

White Spot has a steelhead eggs benedict on their menu. Those steelhead are the same and come from net pens in Chile where their wild fish stocks have collapsed from fish farming.

People seem to equate steelhead with a higher quality fish but it's not. Unless you're an Indian or a poacher, you've probably never tasted wild BC steelhead. The closest most will come is a hatchery fish out of a river like the Stamp and sockeye, coho and red springs are much better in my opinion. Any chum and pink will most certainly beat out the farmed crap that comes out of places like Lois Lake. If you've eaten 'steelhead' at Earls or Cactus Club in the past, you were eating Lois Lake fish.

For those that aren't aware, the retention (sport or commercial) and sale of wild steelhead in BC is illegal and has been for many years. If you see steelhead on the menu, ask where it came from and if it is wild. If they say it is wild BC fish, double check with the manager and if they confirm, inform the Steelhead Society of BC.

It's incredibly difficult for a health and environmentally concious consumer to purchase salmon today. Unless you harvest your own fish, there is a very good chance the BC fish (and even sometimes, Alaska) you bought has come at the expense of wild BC steelhead. There is some hope though, check out this video from Patagonia:

http://www.youtube.c...player_embedded

[Matt R.]

I am all for the farmed steelhead from Lois Lake. Excellent product.

Matt.

[Bingo]

This is not a good time to get crabs.

 

SEATTLE — A vast bloom of toxic algae off the U.S. West Coast is denser, more widespread and deeper than scientists feared even weeks ago, according to surveyors aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel. This coastal ribbon of microscopic algae, up to 60 kilometres wide and 200 metres deep in places, is flourishing amid unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures. It now stretches from at least California to Alaska and has shut down lucrative fisheries.

Dan Ayres, coastal shellfish manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the area now closed to crab fishing includes more than half the state's 253-kilometre-long coast, and likely will bring a premature end to this year's crab season.

- See more at: http://www.cbc.ca/ne...-bans-1.3179591

 

[sebberry]

This is not a good time to get crabs.

 

Well it's never a good time to get crabs....

[Bingo]

Well it's never a good time to get crabs....

Exactly