Another reason to avoid imported Chinese foods

[30A Skunkape]

The TV station implies that the restaurants are pulling a bait and switch, but it sounds to me like the imported fish is being identified as something it isn't, and we're all paying for it!
http://www.wmbb.com/gulfcoastwest/mbb/news/special_reports/jun07/What_s_On_Your_Plate_II.html

 

[Smiling JOe]

Wow! Thanks for the link. If a restaurant manager or chef cannot tell the difference between Grouper and Asian Catfish, he or she needs to be fired. They like to coat it in breading so that the customer's cannot tell, but a decent chef can tell the difference if it is not pre-breaded. Heck, I can even tell the difference.

Why in the heck are restaurants on the beach selling fish from thousands of miles away? Don't we have Grouper right here in the Gulf?

Anyone read this:

"The grouper sandwich we got from Dusty's Oyster Bar tested as Asian catfish."

"We also ordered a "catch of the day" sandwich from Uncle Ernie's and asked for grouper specifically. Our receipt shows we paid two dollars extra for the upgrade, but the DNA of the fish showed it was Nile perch."

I bet that Nile Perch and Asian Catfish isn't even on the menu at either restaurant. I would guess that the "mistakes" are definitely not a case of the server picking up the wrong plate out of the window, or the Cook accidentally grabbing the wrong fish out of the cooler. They sound as though they are placing the blame on the distributers, but if they have a person in the kitchen knowledgeable of fish, they would be sending the Catfish and Perch back to the distributor, along with a big shoe in the butt, demanding to receive what the products for which they claim to be paying top dollar. I would like to see the invoices. I wonder if they are getting some "good deals" on "Grouper" ;-);-) then upcharging the customers for the premium fish. For a Chef to confuse fresh Grouper with Catfish, even if labled as Grouper, would be similar to a normal person confusing a Toyota Land Cruiser with a Range Rover which had Toyota Land Cruiser emblems.

There is a fish market in Panama City which, last year, was charged with selling Catfish as Grouper for a period of a few years.

I wonder what the server would say if you went into one of the restaurants selling the wrong fish, and ordered the Asian Catfish Sandwich?

 

[seacrestkristi]

This grouper switching has been going on a long time, and it's been done by at least one of our own big American wholesale distibutors, and some restaurant owners obviously. When you read your article the owners that are saying it was just a kitchen mistake just makes me wonder, lots of back peddling and sudden menu changes in the process, just coincidentally at the same time as the investigation. :scratch: A major distributors' buyer here in America has recently been imprisoned along with an importer, for fraud for this. There is an FDA law about mislabeling product imported in to this country. The species is inspected and/or identifed by FDA, USDA,US Customs, and even the DEA before it comes in and a vet labels the species and verifies its health before it leaves the originating country. The producer is even required to label where it's caught and also the time and are also noted on the box.
It was a major distributor in this country who had an unethical buyer who struck up a deal with an importer in this country to commit the fraud but he knew it was not grouper when they were buying it. So it was our own people screwing us with the importer's in this country, who also went to jail, help. I would think that would've scared other wholesale distrbutors in to trying that anytime soon again. Tends to make me wonder even more about the restaurants' excuses given in the article. Thanks for the link, skunkape. Hats off to Pineapple Willy's, Pier 77, and Gulf Club Cafe for their honesty. Wonder what would happen if they tested walton co.
SJ, the server wouldn't probably even know what you're talking about but it may scare the chef a little though. BTW, hubbabubba,says Nie Perch is another fancy name for tilapia.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Ever eaten at the Gulf Club Cafe? It rocks. Simple tasty food, with an interesting atmosphere, located in a place where you would never stop if you didn't know about it.

 

[seacrestkristi]

Never been. Where is it? Where is it?

Do you like Pier 77? Never been there either?
Tried Pineapple Willy's a while back, pretty good food as I recall. Very loud if you like that, but it was at night, maybe a weekend. Kinda funn.

 

[Smiling JOe]

The "Gulf Club" is located on 15th St, in Panama City, across from the big U-haul store.

As mentioned, the atmosphere feels a little out of place. Many older people there. White table cloths, like a Country Club, but the feel is more diner-like. Food presentation is nothing fancy -- lemon wedge and kale with sprig of parsely, but the food is delicious and the prices are cheap, compared to restaurants in SoWal.

 

[30A Skunkape]

Smiley J, it is all about $$$. Back home you could buy a 1lb bag of peeled Louisiana crawfish tails for about $9-$10 or the same from China for $4 (and the Chinese crawfish would have a bogus French name on the label to boot). If I read correctly, many of the restaurants in the story were preparing cheap fish from boxes labelled as grouper...so the problem is way up the food chain. I imagine the restaurants could assure they were serving grouper by buying at the local level, but then the meal price would spike, and customers would go elsewhere as, sadly, many people eat based on the bottom line, not the quality of the product.

 

[Plays With Food]

This reminds me of the second time I visited New Orleans. My husband and I were enjoying po-boys (Crab Po-Boy and Boudin Po-Boy) at the famous Johnny's Po-Boy when a vendor's truck was unloaded, and a restaurant employee brought a handtruck full of obviously frozen boxes labeled "basa", which of course is a cheap Vietnamese fish, through the restaurant (right past where we were sitting) and into the kitchen. There was no "basa" on the menu; locals suggested they were deliberately using it in place of catfish.

 

[Smiling JOe]

Skunkey, I hear you, but people are being upcharged for a cheaper fish. As I said, if they had an average chef looking at the fish on occasion, he or she would cuss out the distributor and demand the correct product, especially since they are supposedly paying more for the fish.

 

[30A Skunkape]

Skunkey, I hear you, but people are being upcharged for a cheaper fish. As I said, if they had an average chef looking at the fish on occasion, he or she would cuss out the distributor and demand the correct product, especially since they are supposedly paying more for the fish.

I am just guessing here, but I bet many casual places have high school and college kids prepping the meals who don't know the difference.