Sea Forager

For a city by the sea, San Francisco is not that rich in local sea products. We have these wonderful Dungeness crabs and a couple of great oysters farms but not much else local stuff is available in the stores.

Enter Kirk from Sea Forager

Kirk loves local sea products and shares his love for finding good stuff on our shores by organizing tours. He’s fun and quite a character so it’s worth going, if it was only for that reason. But the best part is that, if you have no time to forage yourself, he can just bring all the good stuff to you!

Kirk fishes with his kayak, especially the wonderful night smelt fishing, but he’s also buddy with a dozen local small boats fishermen. They are all garanteeing sustainable fishing. So not only you’re doing the right thing but you’ll have the freshest fish possible. And it makes a huge difference in taste and texture.

Most other fishes that we can find here have often travelled hundreds or thousands miles (Hawaii, Alaska…) before to land in the stores. When it’s by boat that takes quite some time, and if its by plane it’s usually in filets. Why would they transport bones, heads and tails when transportation is that expensive? Problem is that filleting a fish is almost like peeling a fruit or vegetable: they go bad much quicker.

None of that with Sea Forager where you can choose the “Neptune” (Seafood / small whole fish) formula or the “Slab” where the fish has been caught and filleted in the last few hours. And no worries if you’re not a pro at cooking fish as “Fishwife”, Camilla, has created tons of delicious and easy recipes on the exact same products you’re getting.

I’ve tried both formulas and although I tend to like better the Neptune better, I went with half and half: Neptune for 2 and Slab for 2, to avoid having too much of one thing. It’s usually enough for 2 dinners for our family (2 adults, 1 teen). Price is $24 each, not cheap but worth it. You can also alternate with the Slab one week and Neptune the next.

But the best part for me is that, instead of going to some big store to get it, you can pick it up in a… bar!