Lots of seafood ratings and lots of confusion

A fresh-fish display at Whole Foods Market.

It would be an exaggeration to say there are as many seafood rating agencies as there are fish in the sea.

Still, if you take a look at the ratings of wild-caught and farmed fish and other seafood by a half-dozen groups, you'll come away with a lot of unanswered questions and a fair amount of confusion.

Whole Foods Market has its own seafood ratings, and the organic and natural foods supermarket chain also finishes at or near the top in outside ratings of retail fish counters.

Whole Foods has its own seafood processing plant and the fish sold there is among the freshest, but it also is one of the most expensive places to buy seafood.

However, it's a great place to buy fillets, whole fish and shellfish when they are on sale.

A Cuban sandwich made with smoked wild Alaskan salmon from Costco Wholesale.

There is a great selection of seafood at Costco Wholesale, and my warehouse store in Hackensack is only a couple of miles away from home.

We buy wild-caught fish fillets and farmed Black Tiger shrimp at Costco and whole fish, blue crabs and other seafood at H Mart, a national chain of Korean supermarkets with several stores in North Jersey.

Click on the following links to see seafood rating agencies I came across in a Google search:


Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch 

Fish Choice 

Whole Foods Market/Seafood

Environmental Defense Fund Seafood Selector
  
Greenpeace Supermarket Rankings

Blue Ocean Institute

More about the fish at Costco Wholesale

Image via Wikipedia

Atlantic Ocean cod fisheries have collapsed.

Under pressure from Greenpeace, Costco Wholesale has halted sales of five wild-caught fish species that are on the environmental group's "red list" of over-fished species, including Greenland halibut, certain types of grouper and skates and rays.

I don't recall seeing any of those in the more than five years I have been shopping at Costco in Hackensack.

Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, Costco stopped selling seven other species on the Greenpeace list, including Atlantic cod, Chilean sea bass and orange roughy.

I've been buying fresh cod fillets at Costco recently, but they are from the Pacific Ocean and labeled "True Cod." 

Dipped in an egg-milk mixture, breaded and baked, this cod makes for wonderful eating. It's a meaty, flaky white fish that fills your mouth. This morning, I had a piece leftover from dinner on Tuesday topped with two fried eggs -- sunny side up.

Image via Wikipedia

Another Korean enclave

In Closter, you can get your hair cut by a Korean barber or have your nails done in a Korean salon, enjoy a lunch of Korean dumplings and cold noodles, and then have dessert and coffee at a Korean bakery.

A few blocks away from those merchants, who are in the Closter Plaza shopping center, the small downtown is filled with more food choices.

After my haircut and coffee, I stopped at a catering shop called Doorebak for a jar of homemade cabbage kimchi, stewed tofu in red-pepper sauce and the translucent Korean noodles known as japchae. 

Doorebak, 218 Closter Dock Road, Closter.

Good deal on olives

Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood has mixed Italian olives for $3.99 a pound, among the lowest olive prices I've seen in North Jersey. I bought a large container with green and black olives of various sizes, plus crunchy, whole garlic cloves. Delish.

Fairway Market and Whole Foods Market , both in Paramus, charge at least $7.99 a pound for olives. In Fairway, a sign posted above the open pails of olives warns shoppers about behaving badly.

Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St., Englewood; 201-871-7108.

ShopRite produce prices

I found seedless red grapes from Chile for $1.29 a pound with a store card at ShopRite in Rochelle Park, but sweet peppers were $1.99 to $2.49 a pound -- compared to 99 cents a pound at Brothers Produce in the Paterson Farmers' Market.

If you go to Paterson for cheap produce, you can stop at Fattal's Bakery on Main Street for fresh-baked Syrian pocket bread, Moroccan sardines for 99 cents a can, and olives for $2.99 to $4.99 a pound.

Brothers Produce, 327 E. Railway Ave., Paterson; 973-684-4461.

Fattal's Syrian Bakery, 975-77 Main St., Paterson; 973-742-7125.