Mission Fresh Fish is owned by Patrick O' Shea, a commercial fisherman by trade who believes in getting fresh fish as quickly as possible to the consumer, (spanning 3 SF Bay Area counties farmers markets) supposedly within 4 to 5 hours of docking the boat with the catches. He used to deal with wholesalers, only to be eventually shafted by the low prices they paid him.
So for the last 7+ years, he's been paying people to sell his seafood at farmers markets direct to consumers. You'll find the MFF stalls at San Mateo (CSM), San Carlos on Thursday afternoons, and Mountain View on the weekend, for example.
It's pretty much mostly local seafood with a few selections from out of state, including the delectable and excellent Canadian Wild King Salmon (a very popular seller). I probably saw tuna of some sort, at least two or three kinds of white fleshed fish, shrimp, oysters (in a jar) and very tasty looking scallops.
So while Costco has occasional great deals on California wild salmon that sometimes looks ok, it's still no contest compared with the Canadian salmon MFF gets.
And if you love all parts of a wild salmon, you can even buy individual bags of them!
- The tails make a decent soup, not much meat, but you could bake them or fry, until the tail bones become crispy like chips.
-The heads....oh my. Grilling or baking em in the oven, a bit of salt and pepper and of course lemon wedge to cut some of the filling and fattiness away, mama mia. Goodness in the cheeks, lips, eyeballs, softbone/cartilege (in the middle of the inside). Best of all, a bag of 3 large heads runs about $2. Or you can make a stew or miso fish head claypot or hotpot soup with it (along with of course, San Jose tofu, enoki and shimeji mushrooms, carrots, veg, then throw in some udon or ramen for a great meal)
-Belly.....for those who can't get enough of phat and more phat. This stuff is so good you can do whatever you want with it, and even it tastes great gently stir fried with soy sauce, ginger, scallion, garlic. Or if you have some sort of meat smoker....dayum. Beware though, this stuff runs around $9 a bag. And you wonder why bears like to stand upstream, and pretty much wait for the wild salmon fall into their mouths as they leap upstream, take a few bites, only to have their bellies torn and ripped apart, just so the bear has enough inner ammo to hibernate....and boy does that bear sleep like a lazy bum for a long time thanks to the food coma and fat overdose (and then the fish basically minus the belly area, becomes forest fertilizer, head/tail/and good bits intact).
MFF is a great alternative to the likes of Whole Foods or other kinds of dismal fish markets (inclusive of some of the Chinese supermarkets where you see albino or side-way/upside down swimming/barely alive fish in the tanks, as well as frozen then defrosted and kept on ice seafood). Prices may be close to Whole Foods in some parts, but you're getting much better quality.
And that makes me a happy fishie.
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