552852 Wed Aug 27 22:21:49 -0700 2008 9 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 3993151 When cooking at home, for the last three years, I've been trying to buy seafood commiserate with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch recommendations ( http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/SeafoodWatch.asp ) for sustainably caught/harvested, healthy fish. Recently, I decided I ought to start applying these guideline to sushi. In a supermarket, I don't feel bad asking or reading on the board where they source their fish. I have enough patience to go down the list until I found one that's acceptable both for what dish I have in mind and for the guidelines. On the other hand, in a sushi restaurant, while I feel comfortable making small talk about what's fresh or where is that from, I don't feel comfortable interrogating the chef about where and how (farmed, wild, trawled, longline, etc.) each fish is caught. I don't want to take the amount of the chef's time that's required to choose half a dozen pieces of nigiri, and frankly I don't have the patience to cross-check every answer with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's recommendations. Do any of you try to make your sushi selections reflect the Seafood Watch guidelines? If so, how do you implement it? If you've mentioned the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch recommendations to sushi chefs, how often to they show some recognition? Are there sushi restaurants in the bay area whose selections reflect the guidelines? (I've heard of one in Las Vegas http://www.chow.com/stories/11173 so I know they exist.) Alternatively, are there bay area sushi restaurants that list on a board somewhere, for every fish they serve, where and how it was caught? thanks, mark Wed Aug 27 22:21:53 -0700 2008 29568 Mark P 1 3993269 Funny you brought this up. The guy who manages the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program contacted me a few months ago via another discussion forum, and asked me the same question. In his search he noted Tataki in SF uses fish from sustainable sources. www.tatakisushibar.com 2815 California St (between Broderick St & Divisadero St) San Francisco, CA 94115 (415) 931-1182 (A side note to purists, Tataki is Chinese run it seems). But bottom line is that wild caught fishes, as controversial this will be, will always taste better than their farmed counterparts. Sebo in San Francisco (as well as Ritz Carlton Dining Room) when they have it, will source blue fin tuna from Japan via Kinki University (a research program to sustainably farm blue fin tuna), also known as Kindai Maguro. Honestly it doesn't taste that much better than wild bluefin from several years ago, probably tastes better to some because it is guilt free or less. I had this kindai tuna at Akane in Los Altos not too long ago, so it seems that whoever is willing to pay and depending on availability, one of the big wholesalers will have it. But more high end sushi restaurants are catching on. Maybe using higher end sustainably farmed salmon, like from Loch Duarte in Scotland. Jin Sho in Palo Alto I believe uses Loch Duarte and you can definitely taste the quality, they refer to it as organic salmon (farmed fish but given organic feed). No idea about their other fish sources, but if you are patient and chat with the owners they will answer questions. In general I don't think it is easy to find a place that will source everything to sustainably farmed fish due to cost and availability. Low end sushi bars could say everything they have is farmed or rephrase it to sound more gourmet like "sustainable"....and from China or some shady farmed sources. Just a matter of doing one's due diligence before eating that stuff up. Thu Aug 28 00:38:59 -0700 2008 3993151 12872 K K 2 3993895 I am not sure this is an SF specific question or comment, but I am a bit confused by your reply: it appears to me to assume that farmed fish is more likely to be sustainable than wild. In fact, if you look at the Sea Watch Guidelines, a number (if not the majority) of the best choices are wild species, fished via sustainable means. Thu Aug 28 09:04:46 -0700 2008 3993269 10158 susancinsf 2 4130549 Another thought: farming carnivorous fish (including salmon, tuna and eel) is just not a sustainable practice. The farmed fish must be fed smaller fish which are being taken in huge numbers from the oceans to support these operations. Farmed species like tilapia, catfish, shellfish, etc are not carnivorous and are therefore much more sustainable. Sustainable is the new "it" word in food. Businesses of all types are using it to describe their products. Consumers should consider whether these claims are believable and look for a third party whose income is not linked to product sales to substantiate the claim. Sun Oct 26 17:44:09 -0700 2008 3993269 225386 Sheila663 1 3993816 Taktaki claims to be the first sustainable sushi bar in the country. Sebo's menu lists where each fish comes from, and for items that are usually farmed indicates if they're wild. Thu Aug 28 08:43:12 -0700 2008 3993151 11369 Robert Lauriston 1 4004268 Mark, Seafood Watch will be releasing recommendations for some of the more popular sushi items on October 22. We sympathize with how challenging it is to evaluate the sustainability of seafood in a restaurant and hope these sushi specific recommendations help. Thanks for trying to make the best choices possible. Humberto Kam Manager, Online Communications Monterey Bay Aquarium Tue Sep 02 16:06:06 -0700 2008 3993151 220463 seaotter 2 4004322 This is great news, thanks for the information. Tue Sep 02 16:29:33 -0700 2008 4004268 13525 JasmineG 1 4004281 For those interested, this link contains articles on various sources of sustainable seafood already mentioned http://www.litchfieldfarms.net/about.htm For general reading only. Tue Sep 02 16:09:47 -0700 2008 3993151 12872 K K 1 4060990 The sustainability consultant from Tataki, Casson Trenor, authored a guide to sustainable sushi, to be released in January. You may want to check it out: http://www.northatlanticbooks.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781556437694. Thu Sep 25 09:39:07 -0700 2008 3993151 223779 woot510 1 4131628 The Seafood Watch Sushi Pocket Guide is now out at http://seafoodwatch.org/sushi or go to http://seafoodwatch.org with your mobile phone and you’ll be directed to a mobile page with all of our recommendations. Hope this helps you make sustainable sushi selections. Mon Oct 27 08:51:58 -0700 2008 3993151 220463 seaotter