Going in search of fresh local seafood along the New Jersey Shore

Image by mcamcamca via Flickr
A fishing boat.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Garden State is also the Fishing State, with several working ports -- from Belford on Raritan Bay all the way down to Barnegat Light on the Atlantic Ocean.

So, on Saturday, we set off in search of fresh local seafood for lunch, but met with only limited success.

Four of us had a big meal at The Fishery in South Amboy -- fried smelts, steamed Littleneck clams in a scrumptious broth, fried whiting, meaty broiled haddock, large crab cakes and even soft-shell crabs.

I'm not sure how much of it was brought in by New Jersey boats (In 2016, The Fishery was closed).

Pirate's Cove

We had hoped to eat at Pirate's Cove, a restaurant operated by the Belford Seafood Co-op on Raritan Bay, but it was closed for the winter, as I learned when I called the attached retail market.

Fishermen who belong to the co-op catch fluke, porgy and many other kinds of fish in the Atlantic Ocean, and sell much of it wholesale to the Fulton Fish Market and elsewhere along the East Coast.

After lunch, we drove down to the Belford Co-op Fish Market, which is in the same long, low shed as the restaurant, but when I walked in, no one was on duty at the counter. 

However, I could hear someone working in another part of the building.

I saw whole clams and oysters in the fish case along with three kinds of fish fillets, all unlabeled. Some of the fillets were in a metal tray with water (maybe melted ice), which I thought odd.

There was a fishy smell to the place, though it wasn't strong.

On a board on a wall, more than a dozen kinds of fish were listed at prices you don't see in North Jersey fish markets. Many were listed at $2 a pound. Fluke, a terrific fish often eaten raw as sashimi, was listed at $2 to $4 a pound.

I left without buying anything.

I found the history of fishing in Belford at the following link: History of Belford

Belford was officially established in 1891 when a rail station was built here, separating from Port Monmouth (Township of Middletown).

 A menhaden processing plant was built in Belford in the late 1800s, which operated until 1982 (Jones 2004); this was once the town’s largest employer (Township of Middletown).

The presence and stench of the menhaden plant helped maintain Belford as a relatively unchanged fishing port while the rest of the shore around it was subject to intense development and tourism.  Belford has notoriously been home to pirates, blockaders, rum runners, and even through the 1980s, fish poachers.

There is a long tradition among some Belford fishermen of not obeying fisheries regulations (Jones 2004).  Some consider Belford to be the longest continuously operating fishing village on the East Coast.

The Fishery

Earlier, at The Fishery, we ordered way too much and ran up the bill to $100 for four, not including the tip.

The restaurant is basically a seafood shack on a forlorn stretch of Route 35 littered with shuttered businesses. 

There's seating for under 20 people, plus a counter, seafood cases, walls covered with white tiles and a more-or-less open kitchen in back.

We parked behind the small building, near a 5-foot-high bush of rosemary. The energetic young woman behind the counter is the lone server. Basic silverware comes wrapped in small, paper napkins.  

For some reason, the friendly Greek owner charges more for broiled or sauteed fish than for fried, so my wife's two large crab cakes were $18.95 with two sides, compared to $15.95 fried. Still, she complained they tasted "greasy" or oily.

My son wanted soft-shell crabs, which I didn't think were in season, and he wanted them fried with french fries ($19.95). 

My mother-in-law's fried whiting platter had three fish for $12.95.

I saw haddock fillet on ice, so ordered simply broiled haddock with fresh, sauteed spinach and a naked baked potato, a balanced and filling meal for $15.95.

We loved one of our appetizers: a half-pound of headless, fried ocean smelts, which are smaller than sardines but larger than anchovies. We ate them whole, sprinkled with lemon juice or dipped in a spicy red sauce or tartar sauce.

A smelt dinner was listed on a blackboard for $12.95, but I'm not sure how much we were charged for a half pound.

Our other appetizer: a dozen Littleneck clams ($9.95), which came with garlic toast. I ate the pleasantly salty broth with fresh tomato as a soup course. 

Three of us also ordered cups of The Fishery's Manhattan Clam Chowder ($2.50) and Maine Lobster, Clam and Corn Chowder ($3.95).

The Fishery, 1812 Route 35 north, South Amboy; 
732-721-9100. BYO. Closed Mondays.

Belford Seafood Co-op, 901 Port Monmouth Road, Middletown; 732-787-6508 (retail market).

Another swing through BJ's Wholesale Club

Image by ~Twon~ via Flickr

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I made a second visit to BJ's Wholesale Club in Paramus on Monday afternoon and got a better sense of how its fresh, prepared and frozen food compares to Costco's.

I have tried to compare prices, but each club store carries its own brand, as well as different outside brands for ravioli, chicken, yogurt and many other items. Package sizes also vary, but it appears BJ's has less variety than Costco's.

BJ's had five or six kinds of fresh fish fillets -- all but one of them farmed -- and frozen, wild-caught shrimp from Mexico and the United States at $11.99 a pound, but the latter did not indicate the state, and I wondered if they could have come from the BP-tainted Gulf of Mexico. 

Costco has more wild fish available, but no wild-caught shrimp. Both stores sell frozen farmed shrimp and prawns from Vietnam.

On my first visit, I saw Phillips Maryland-style crab cakes for $1.69 less than they are sold at Costco, but on Monday, there was only another brand, Mama Belle's Maryland-style crab cakes (made in Florida). 

Mama Belle's, like Phillips, lists crab as the first ingredient, but uses bread crumbs as a binder.  Mama Belle's is a better buy: 24 ounces for $9.99 compared with 18 ounces for $13.69.

I also picked up Fresh Express organic spring mix, 50 cents more than Costco's Earthbound Farm brand; three pounds of Sunset-brand, herbicide-free plum tomatoes, cheaper per pound than the two-pound package at Costco, but they don't taste as good for some reason. Maybe they need to ripen more.

BJ's also sells salmon burgers made from wild-caught, Pacific Ocean fish, 10 for $11.99 v. Costco's 12 for $12.99. Finally, I picked up an 80-ounce jar of Rosoff new half-sour pickles for $5.99.

BJ's has a good selection of gourmet ravioli, including those from Chef Mario Batali, but I didn't see any lobster ravioli, which are available at Costco.

BJ's also can't match Costco's smoked wild sockeye salmon.

Both Costco and BJ's issue their own coupons, but BJ's coupons are not available to me during my trial membership.

See:

Checking out the food at B.J.'s Wholesale Club

Monotony is setting in

Image via Wikipedia

My 12-year-old son was the first to use the word "monotony" to describe the meatless, fish-heavy meals we have been preparing at home for the past two weeks. Today, that word echoed in my head as I made my weekly trip to Costco in search of more variety.

I picked up Boca-brand soy burgers and frozen Maryland crab cakes at the Hackensack store, but passed on frozen mahi-mahi fillets and frozen Icelandic fish and chips, because I still have lots of frozen Pacific flounder and frozen Alaskan sockeye salmon, which I steamed in an Asian sauce and served with instant mashed potatoes and salad last night.

I walked warily past the Australian lamb I used to love to see what was in the fresh fish case, and startled a woman with a warning about the farmed salmon she was looking at. Damn. No fresh, wild-caught haddock, thick, meaty fillets that would be great fried -- my son's favorite preparation.

So, it looks like Maryland crab cakes (without the garnish shown in the photo above) and lots of frozen vegetables for dinner tonight. I'm not proud. If you have an idea for a meatless dinner, please pass it along.

Are there bad-produce days?

Image by wallyg via Flickr

If humans have bad-hair days, do supermarkets have bad-produce days? I certainly thought so yesterday when I stopped at H Mart in Little Ferry to pick up some greens for dinner (photo shows Ridgefield store).

I have purchased collard greens from this large Korean market several times, but yesterday, the leaves were blemished. As I strolled along the aisle, looking at the large selection of leafy greens and Chinese vegetables, nothing looked very appealing -- wilted, shriveled and so forth.

Another shopper, an American woman, came over and asked the produce stocker if there were more eggplants in the back, explaining the ones she saw were soft. Same for the red peppers. He said no. She went back and managed to find some firm eggplant. I spoke to her and she suggested Thursday wasn't a good day to shop there for produce.

Finally, I saw two heads of fresh spinach at $1.29 each that looked as if they had been put out that day, and grabbed them.  I had already picked up a 5-pound box of large Spanish clementines for $6.99, rejecting smaller Spanish clementines nearby that had seen better days and were priced $1 higher. That was odd -- two prices for the same item.

The selection of delicious prepared food was as good as ever: stewed tofu seasoned with a red-pepper sauce ($3.99) and stewed Alaskan pollack with onions and hot peppers ($4.99).

For dinner, I cut, rinsed and blanched the spinach leaves, then sauteed them in a little extra-virgin olive oil and seasoned them with salt, black pepper and mixed organic spices (Costco).

I served them with an imported vegetarian Indian dinner for two of basmati rice, coconut curry sauce and spiced chickpeas ($3.99 at Target in Paramus) and home-made baked crab cakes, using a pound of lump crab meat from Costco.