The latest fish tale from The Record stinks to high heaven
'6 best places' for fish misses Costco, H Mart and The Hill
Rebecca King, a food and dining reporter for The Record and NorthJersey.com, describes herself on Twitter as a "theater nerd, bookworm and ice cream addict." I'd like add, Knows nothing about where to buy or eat fish in northern New Jersey.
Her piece on the 6 best places to go for fish appeared on the Better Living front this past Wednesday under a clunky headline:
'FIND FRESH FARE AT FISHMONGERS'
She's even wrong about the biggest reason many people complain about living in New Jersey. She lists "traffic, rude drivers, and astronomical rents," but omits high property taxes (and local daily newspapers that Gannett, owner of The Record of Woodland Park, has turned into rags filled with sloppy or inaccurate reporting, headlines and captions).
And she's wrong when she says that because the state isn't landlocked, we "have access to beautiful, yummy fresh fish." As I discovered when I wrote a cover story for The Record's Food section in 2003, most of the fish and shellfish that reach our tables comes from out of state or out of the country.
Wild-caught fish sold in New Jersey comes from Iceland, Alaska, Canada and even Suriname, a small country in South America.
She lists only one restaurant, Seafood Gourmet, a Maywood fish market with a small dining room in the back. It's one of my favorites. But she fails to mention The Hill in Closter, a fine-dining restaurant that opened last June with a focus on seafood. The restaurant serves a "First on The Scene" menu -- a fixed-price three-course dinner with a glass of wine for only $29 during limited hours four days a week. I enjoyed a beautiful piece of pan-seared Mahi-Mahi with mushrooms and bok choy, plus a salad, dessert and glass of wine.
King's list of markets is topped by The Fish Dock in Closter, a shop run by an Icelandic couple who specialize in the incredible variety of wild fish from the pristine North Atlantic, as well as some Gulf seafood.
But she doesn't mention the seafood counter at Whole Foods Market in Paramus is simply the biggest and best in northern New Jersey. And her claim that Whole Foods has "high prices" is nonsense now that the merger with Amazon has reduced prices throughout the store. Fresh Monkfish is only $8.99 a pound, and Amazon Prime members get special seafood deals.
Her list of fish markets also omits Costco Wholesale in Teterboro, which has unbeatable prices for such fresh, wild-caught fish as Icelandic cod and haddock, flounder from Canada, Silver Corvina from Suriname and Mahi-Mahi (all $8.99 a pound or less).
Also missing is H Mart, the Korean supermarket chain with an incredible variety of whole fish at its Ridgefield branch, and smaller fish counters in the Little Ferry, Fort Lee and Paramus stores. The fishmongers there will clean and prepare your fish any of 5 ways, including fillets.
Two of the photos with King's article carry awkwardly written captions:
"Neon signs in the storefront windows advertise fresh food at Seafood Gourmet in downtown Maywood." The only visible sign says, "Seafood Market."
Another photo shows the front of a Whole Foods Market, but the caption describes the place as a "grocery store."
And the cover photo showing the seafood case inside The Fish Dock in Closter appears against a dark background that makes it impossible to see any of the fish or the descriptive signs and prices.
All in all, this was another report from The Record's Better Living section and Food Editor Esther Davidowitz that was filled with misinformation or missing information.