I’m still interpreting this as most of the advantage is coming from the fish itself. So maybe not “almost all”, but “most”?
i’ll try it this way (and this is just like my opinion man)
a) If no high quality fish, do no eat raw fish dish (majority of mainland poke places)
b) If high quality fish, do not waste on a dish with tons of overpowering ingredients and sauces (the majority of the remaining mainland poke places).
therefore i don’t see any reason to eat mainland poke in any scenario (clearly there could be places that serve actual hawaiian style poke which i never had)
if I had to eat a raw fish dish, which was the premise of your question, i would have B over A.
I can’t cite anything formal, but in my 10+ years in restaurants I never heard of any requisite that fish served raw had to be frozen first.
Why would this be necessary? To kill bacteria?
Parasitic worms. Many bacteria survive freezing.
I would assume at this point that 90+% of the fish eaten at restaurants in states on the coast is frozen.
The supply chain required to get fish from the boats to shore to the suppliers to the restaurants is just so many steps that there just can’t be many restaurants that can pay for or handle the time sensitivity of keeping it unfrozen.
A great deal of the fish (tuna and salmon especially) consumed in Japan is delivered frozen from abroad.
i don’t think i’ve been to south maui fish co, but when i went to maui (two trips) i made sure to stop at eskimo candy.
my most recent obsession from last trip to kauai is tropical barbecue, and the most appropriate recommendation i can give is Harley’s which is in an industrial park, but the tinono pork belly was out of this world.
it’s not so much proximity to a coast, as it is proximity to a dock where fishermen bring their catch, and how far they had to sail from the fishing spot to unload.
So it seems like lots of fish in Japan is frozen, lots of mainland fish is frozen, but the Hawaiian fish isn’t frozen? Do I have that right?
in a twist of fate, i am reserved to go to a one-star michelin restaurant. so a TR should be ** knock on wood ** forthcoming.
2 Likes
Back on topic, I ate at TFL 10 years ago and undid my belt and pants button after the ~7th course. TK came out of the kitchen and was hanging out in the dining room talking with guests at their tables.
I was terrified that he might come to our table to say hi and I’d have to stand up to shake his hand while my pants fell to my ankles. Would have been a great story, but he never came over.
While you’re in that area for a TFL reservation, it’s also worth going to Goose & Gander as another restaurant experience. Elite gastropub in St. Helena. Casual, cozy, delicious.
1 Like
tuna boats kill, gut and freeze whole carcasses. they are out fishing for weeks at a time. other commercial boats may just put carcasses on ice if they can get to processing ships in time.
day boats can work islands and shores to get day caught fish or seafood. If it’s not labelled or advertised as day caught and hideously expensive, it’s been frozen. even if it’s day caught, it’s been on ice.
This is my general understanding from working in LV restaurants, where flying in fresh caught seafood daily from both coasts is/was a thing.
3 Likes
And on the off chance I do buy seafood, unless I can see the body of water the fish came out of, I’m buying still frozen, minimally handled, large pieces.
Story checks out.
I have a friend that often does sushi parties. One time it coincided with another friend that went tuna fishing that day. He brought a fresh caught tuna over, my sushi friend butchered it, used it in sushi, and also did some lite searing on some of it.
I’m still chasing that experience. That tuna was one of the most amazing things I’ve eaten.
2 Likes
Nyotaimori?
Afraid not.
Did you think i was making that up?
it was a very strange experience that is hard to judge in retrospect because i was so young and they were younger and basically very very smart dumb as fuck college kids. So while it could be on us, i think the staff was ridic condescending to our table. it was borderline scary to make a ‘mistake’ (i remember attempting to remove my blazer and i got jumped at by 4 staff members.
Not at all and I should’ve provided more context. ActionJeff came up recently in a 2p2 post I read and I googled to see what happened to him. Oddly enough, one of the first articles that popped up quoted that timex post. Then I saw your post about the dinner and it was just a weird synchronicity so I linked to it.
Are new French Laundry reservations opened the 1st of the month? Need to celebrate getting my 10 year green card!
7 Likes