'Dirty Waters, Dangerous Fish'

Farmed salmon is steamed in a clay pot with bok choy, and topped with fried, crispy onions at Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly. Brown rice is available.

Here is an eye-opening video about how basa fish are farm-raised in Vietnam:

'Dirty Waters, Dangerous Fish' 

Judging from the comments, the video was made public about two years ago.

Why a two-year-old video is circulating now is unclear.

But K.T. Tran, chef-owner of Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly, said she recalls a customer brought up a concern with basa fillets from Vietnam a year to a year and a half ago.

Since then, Tran said, she believes the United States has taken steps to ensure that frozen basa fillets sent here are from certified fish farms free of pollution.

Tran also said she is considering switching to U.S.-farmed catfish.   

On Saturday night, we had dinner at Simply Vietnamese, where I have enjoyed basa fillets a number of times.

Basa is a type of catfish that is also called swai or Pangasius.

On Saturday night and on a previous visit to Simply Vietnamese, I chose another seafood dish instead of having my usual basa fillets in a coconut curry sauce with bok choy and brown rice.

Food safety experts generally recommend buying seafood farmed in the United States, if you can't find wild-caught fish.

Simply Vietnamese doesn't serve any wild fish, so I ordered farmed Salmon in a Black Pepper Sauce on Saturday night as an alternative to basa.

The controversy over basa fish isn't going to keep me from enjoying one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the metropolitan area.

At Simply Vietnamese, two other alternatives to basa are shrimp in a coconut curry sauce, above, and greenshell mussles in a ginger-wasabi sauce, below.

A green papaya salad with mango, above, and pho with pork, below.

Simply Vietnamese, 1 Highwood Ave., Tenafly;
201-568-7770. BYO, free street parking. Seafood entrees are $18.50 and $19.50.
   

Where to find food-safety horror stories

The safety of basa fillets from fish farms in Vietnam is under scrutiny.

Today, I'm providing a link to U.S. Food Safety, which calls itself an "award-winning food safety blog."

I don't think this is a government agency (it's a .com, not a .gov), but the site carries announcements from U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).

I'm also going to list U.S. Safety in My Blog Roll, which you can find on the right side of this page.

Here is the link: http://blog.usfoodsafety.com/

Meanwhile, questions have been raised about the farming of a Vietnamese catfish called basa.

The fillets are frozen before they are exported to the United States, where they appear on menus at Simply Vietnamese in Tenafly and other restaurants.

This appeared on a site called Vietnam Talking Points in 2010:  

http://talk.onevietnam.org/cause-of-death-consumption-of-basa-fish/  

Food safety experts have said repeatedly that if you are going to buy farmed fish, including tilapia, salmon and catfish, make sure they were raised in the United States. 

Even better, buy your farmed fish at Whole Food Market, the only retailer I know that pledges the farmed seafood it sells is free of antibiotics, preservatives and other harmful additives.