fish that has an ammonia taste to it ???

[Spurious]

Regardless of what the menu says, there's no possible way to know what you're getting...unless you caught it yourself.

[katefactor]

A lot of it comes down to the value of the product and sadly if that price is achieved overseas then that is where it ends up. This is why we get cheap imported products in Australia as the average market here won't support a high priced piece of fish.
There are huge costs associated with catching scalefish, i.e. running the boat and buying the quota, that fisherman need to get the max for their product. Some guys that catch crays are paying up to 50-60% of the beach price just for the quota then they have to cover all the costs of catching them plus make a profit after tax. When it comes down to crays you generally only see small ones from WA and in particular Sth Africa for sale because even though the per kilo price is still high the price per cray is cheaper. Its a mind set on price that the consumer is happy to pay, hit the top end and they will go buy something else cheaper.
Abalone are the same with a beach price of around $50 per kilo which equates to double that for the actual meat plus the processor margin. Who's going to pay that locally, thats why they mostly all go to China.

One of the biggest issues I see with scalefish is the wasted by-catch from trawling, when it comes up in the net its dead and the boat can't keep it as they don't have the quota for it, so its tossed over the side. Mind you they are pretty good at catching the target species with electronics but it does happen. Hook caught is better but you can still get losses.

When you go and buy a piece of fish, don't go to woollies personally the smell from the fish section alone is enough to say get a lamb roast. Go to a fishmonger where you can see the product and smell it and don't buy something that still has the guts in it unless its caught that day. Buy the fish that looks the freshest which may not be what you originally wanted.
I will quite often just buy salmon in a vacuum pack because its the freshest product and sashimi grade if you can get it, Blue Eye keeps far better than Trevally so this is usually ok.

If you are lucky enough to live near a fresh fish market like the Sydney one, go and buy a few kilos of the best product then get yourself a Sunbeam foodsaver Vacuum machine ($50) and bag it up at home and freeze it. Keeps way longer and better than a standard freezer bag and doesn't go mushy when defrosted.

[castellan]

When I came down to the Gold Coast and Brisbane the sea food was all rubbish.
A old mate came down and we went out to eat and he refused to pay for it, I said no no no that's the way it is down here and Sydney and Melbourne are even worse.

A lot of people have never eaten fresh sea food in there life.

A Brisbane mate was informing me how to cook fish, you put this and that in it he said, I said you don't add anything to it at all if it's fresh, he did not believe me at all, I said you are a moron you are not talking about fresh sea food and I know if it's not fresh adding other things does make it better, but not as good as a good tasting fresh fish.

Any fish that does not have scales the skin goes rotten first and permeates the rest of the fish, yuck !

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by castellan

When I came down to the Gold Coast and Brisbane the sea food was all rubbish.
A old mate came down and we went out to eat and he refused to pay for it, I said no no no that's the way it is down here and Sydney and Melbourne are even worse.

A lot of people have never eaten fresh sea food in there life.

A Brisbane mate was informing me how to cook fish, you put this and that in it he said, I said you don't add anything to it at all if it's fresh, he did not believe me at all, I said you are a moron you are not talking about fresh sea food and I know if it's not fresh adding other things does make it better, but not as good as a good tasting fresh fish.

Any fish that does not have scales the skin goes rotten first and permeates the rest of the fish, yuck !

Funny you mention that in Manly (I live 10 minutes away) if you go on the corso and buy fish and chips, you will get an dodgy I & J piece of fish and chips and pay $25 plus. I sent mine back after 1 bite and did not pay. They didn't care.

But the reason why they do it is there are no repeat customers, zero f....ks given, it's full of tourists, all too polite to not pay and will never be back anyway as they will be on a plane back home 24 hrs later. I'm sure Surfers Paradise is no different.

I have not found a decent piece of fish in Manly which is bloody appalling.

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by tex

Flake (particularly tropical shark species sold as flake) must be bled thoroughly at capture to prevent the flash from tainting with ammonia.

Proper cold water flake, as in gummy and school shark is mainly caught on long lines. Hook caught fish on these long lines are generally bled prior to death, ensuring a thorough bleed. The tails are cut off, and an incision made behind the gill slits. Blood is pumped from the still live fish by its heart. Gill net fishing for school and gummy shark does take place, but net shots (duration of net set time) are short to ensure captures are removed alive.

Flake is a generic term for shark, and unfortunately, some shark tastes like crap.

Tropical caught shark (usually black /white tip reef shark, various whaler species, even Tigre sharks!!!) are more often caught in large mesh gill nets, and usually brought aboard dead due to long shots and an increased mortality due to water temperature and predation. Thorough bleeding is not possible with a dead carcass. plus, all the tropical species taste inferior to true flake. Remember, proper flake is temperate water gummy and school shark only. I suspect that is NOT what you we served.

For the last few years Australia has also been used as a dumping ground for foreign caught tropical species, shark meat included. Shark fishing both legal and illegal takes place in Northern Australian waters, and misleading (illegal) branding and marketing of these species is still quite widespread, despite a real effort by the seafood industry to clean up its act. There is strict legislation in place to prevent mis leading naming and species substitution of seafood, however, due to the complexity associated with identification of most white flesh seafood species, foul play still goes on.

protein finger printing is often the only definitive way a fillet so fish can be identified without doubt.

Even proper flake if taken dead will have an ammonia taste remain after processing due to lack of proper bleed procees. Freezing of processed product will reduce the taste, but not eliminate it. Temperature control, or rather lack of, will hugely influence the strength of the ammonia taste in poorly bled product. Product handled, transported and stored outside of proper cold chain will inevitably result in a inferior tasting fish. And a strong taste of ammonia!

You're unlikely to become sick from eating ammonia tasting flake.... just put off from eating crap fish from the local grease shop.

How do I know about ammonia in flake? because I have been involved in the fishing industry for over 20 years, and caught shark commercially for a living back in the early 90s.

Only suggestion I can give is try to ensure the flake you buy is either gummy or school shark. And I'd buy it from a real fish shop, not a grease bar.

Great well informed post TEX, but the lastest information is School Shark numbers are now under threat and we should only be eating Gummy Shark.

http://www.afma.gov.au/wp-content/up...-2014-2016.pdf

"School Shark is assessed as a Tier 1 species which is a full quantitative stock assessment. School Shark is currently under a rebuilding strategy, as the stock is estimated to be below 20% of unfished spawning stock biomas"

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Funny you mention that in Manly (I live 10 minutes away) if you go on the corso and buy fish and chips, you will get an dodgy I & J piece of fish and chips and pay $25 plus. I sent mine back after 1 bite and did not pay. They didn't care.

But the reason why they do it is there are no repeat customers, zero f....ks given, it's full of tourists, all too polite to not pay and will never be back anyway as they will be on a plane back home 24 hrs later. I'm sure Surfers Paradise is no different.

I have not found a decent piece of fish in Manly which is bloody appalling.

It's a similar story at Phillip Island here in Victoria. Part of the fishing fleet come out of Newhaven on Phillip Island so you would imagine you would get decent fish and chips there. You can but you have to know where to go. My brother is a local, on a recent visit we got a large order of F&C's for our combined families. We went past several shops in the main drag and up some stairs to a shop a little out of the way. The shop is run by a mate of my brothers, who only sells local fish and local chips. "Local chips", I asked where else would you buy chips? The other shops in the local area bought chips frozen part cooked from China as it was cheaper, didn't need to ask about their fish....

[NTF6]

Originally Posted by katefactor

A lot of it comes down to the value of the product and sadly if that price is achieved overseas then that is where it ends up. This is why we get cheap imported products in Australia as the average market here won't support a high priced piece of fish.
There are huge costs associated with catching scalefish, i.e. running the boat and buying the quota, that fisherman need to get the max for their product. Some guys that catch crays are paying up to 50-60% of the beach price just for the quota then they have to cover all the costs of catching them plus make a profit after tax. When it comes down to crays you generally only see small ones from WA and in particular Sth Africa for sale because even though the per kilo price is still high the price per cray is cheaper. Its a mind set on price that the consumer is happy to pay, hit the top end and they will go buy something else cheaper.
Abalone are the same with a beach price of around $50 per kilo which equates to double that for the actual meat plus the processor margin. Who's going to pay that locally, thats why they mostly all go to China.

One of the biggest issues I see with scalefish is the wasted by-catch from trawling, when it comes up in the net its dead and the boat can't keep it as they don't have the quota for it, so its tossed over the side. Mind you they are pretty good at catching the target species with electronics but it does happen. Hook caught is better but you can still get losses.

When you go and buy a piece of fish, don't go to woollies personally the smell from the fish section alone is enough to say get a lamb roast. Go to a fishmonger where you can see the product and smell it and don't buy something that still has the guts in it unless its caught that day. Buy the fish that looks the freshest which may not be what you originally wanted.
I will quite often just buy salmon in a vacuum pack because its the freshest product and sashimi grade if you can get it, Blue Eye keeps far better than Trevally so this is usually ok.

If you are lucky enough to live near a fresh fish market like the Sydney one, go and buy a few kilos of the best product then get yourself a Sunbeam foodsaver Vacuum machine ($50) and bag it up at home and freeze it. Keeps way longer and better than a standard freezer bag and doesn't go mushy when defrosted.

Great advice, my son in WA is an avid spear fisherman and has a freezer well stocked with some of the best prized table fish. You can pull out one of the vac sealed bags two months later and it still tastes as good as the day it was caught. Nothing like fresh caught fish, usually any fish caught and eaten in the same day (such as tailor, finger mark bream, sweep, herring, skippy, rock cod, etc) will taste awesome even if it isn't considered a table fish.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Lakes Entrance has its own fishing fleet, a Co Op and a F&C shop that is supplied by the Co Op. My uncle went in there one day and was commenting about how there business must be very good considering they use fresh fish. The reply was along the lines of :Yep, we buy the fish from the Co Op, but it is trucked in to us form Melbourne as that is where it is distributed from". In other words, the fish is caught, transported down to Melbourne and then back before it is then cooked at the Co Op F&C shop

I also recall a story of a prawn fisherman who was flying his prawns to Thailand for processing as it was cheaper than processing in Australia! No wonder our food is not as good for us as it once used to be.

And whilst I'm no greeny, don;t get me started on the carbon that is required to produce each prawn!

[castellan]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Great well informed post TEX, but the lastest information is School Shark numbers are now under threat and we should only be eating Gummy Shark.

http://www.afma.gov.au/wp-content/up...-2014-2016.pdf

"School Shark is assessed as a Tier 1 species which is a full quantitative stock assessment. School Shark is currently under a rebuilding strategy, as the stock is estimated to be below 20% of unfished spawning stock biomas"

The term Gummy Shark up here is used to describe local people without teeth on the Dole.

[Blue Shadow]

Originally Posted by castellan

The term Gummy Shark up here is used to describe local people without teeth on the Dole.

Same here in Brisbane

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by castellan

The term Gummy Shark up here is used to describe local people without teeth on the Dole.

Originally Posted by Blue Shadow

Same here in Brisbane

Are they good eating, any ammonia taste?

[castellan]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Are they good eating, any ammonia taste?

Scruuummptious !!! precious.

[Ford_The_Win]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

It's a similar story at Phillip Island here in Victoria. Part of the fishing fleet come out of Newhaven on Phillip Island so you would imagine you would get decent fish and chips there. You can but you have to know where to go. My brother is a local, on a recent visit we got a large order of F&C's for our combined families. We went past several shops in the main drag and up some stairs to a shop a little out of the way. The shop is run by a mate of my brothers, who only sells local fish and local chips. "Local chips", I asked where else would you buy chips? The other shops in the local area bought chips frozen part cooked from China as it was cheaper, didn't need to ask about their fish....

What, even the chips aren't safe now! I'd hate to think what they are cooked in... Look up Chinese 'gutter oil' - restaurants and food vendors in China will often fry things in recycled oil or 'gutter oil' - old used oil and fat that is scooped out of grease traps and sewers or made from animal carcasses. These oils and fats then have the sediment and other adulterants filtered out of them, the oil is bleached and is repackaged for use again. Around 10-20% of all cooking oil used in China is made this way.

[Falcman0o7]

BASA! Bought some and never again. Full of the **** then I read it comes from one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Nice job by the big 2 supermarkets.

[SYZ]

Originally Posted by Falcman0o7

BASA! Bought some and never again. Full of the **** then I read it comes from one of the most polluted rivers in the world. Nice job by the big 2 supermarkets.

Anybody who buys purportedly "fresh" fish from any/all supermarkets is tempting fate with their gastrointestinal health LOL.

Also, "Sea Bass" or "Asian Perch" of doubtful origin (there are several species of Lates calcarifer) from Thailand, Indonesia, or Malaysia being sold as Barramundi in Coles and Woolworths? Oh yeah... I'll buy that. Not.

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by Stefan

WOW, we must be the dumbest country in the world, great seafood at our doorstep, but most of the stuff we can readily buy comes from some other third world country.

Really annoying....

Probably for the same reason that we can make the best quality steel in the world, yet buy most of it from China and allow our steel industry to slowly disappear.

[Falcman0o7]

Originally Posted by SYZ

Anybody who buys purportedly "fresh" fish from any/all supermarkets is tempting fate with their gastrointestinal health LOL.

Also, "Sea Bass" or "Asian Perch" of doubtful origin (there are several species of Lates calcarifer) from Thailand, Indonesia, or Malaysia being sold as Barramundi in Coles and Woolworths? Oh yeah... I'll buy that. Not.

Thanks. No more supermaket fish!