As a restaurant owner, you guys would be surprised how hard it is to buy illegal fish, unless you stand behind a bunch of guys fishing somewhere and offer them a fistful of money.
All of the fish wholesalers that I deal with wont even sell striper in Mass unless it's during commercial season. It used to be that I could buy Virginia fish outside the July-August window, but not after this year...I couldn't tell you if its a new law or some sort of self-regulation to target illegally marketed fish during the non-commercial season; whatever it is I like it, it keeps us chefs honest. Maybe I buy from extremely reputable purveyors, but all five outfits started doing this around May of this year.
Right now, I get primo stuff for like $6.50 a pound. Farm raised is usually sold by the case of 25 that average about 4# a piece. They're cheap and they taste like crap!!! I used to be a bigwig at a very posh restaurant at the Cape; we sold hybrid striper all year long for $27. an entree, until the customers finally stopped buying it because it's so bad!!!
A final point...My Health inspector knows I fish for stripers a lot, she has asked me before to present my invoices for striper when I have it on the menu (for the bargain price of $13.95, I might add). Maybe she's overconscientious, but I'm always happy to cough up the evidence. Everything that comes through my back door comes from an inspected retailer with HACCP certification. For me, its worth everything I can do to make sure the fish I sell is super fresh and inspected!!!
Anyhow, there are many guys in the industry like me. We are all mandated to undergo sanitation courses and know the dangers of selling inproperly handled food of any kind. I don't know what those yahoos in Providence are up to, but let me reiterate that the vast majority of those uf us in the industry are not like this.
OK that's it.
Later,
Rick
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