Seafood in Phuket

[IsaanFam]

So, I have a house in a mooban in northern part and just want to tell you this worrying story: My neighbour, a white guy which I do not know any further has opened some months (or probably already a year) ago a seafood processing company inside his mooban with 10 people from Isaan working there. I didn't really noticed and did not care because I do not stay there most of the time but now the smell is very indicative.

 

They repacking the plastic bags from "farmed in China" in to "non-farmed fresh seafood made in Thailand". His business is running great, 2 brand new fortunas and 2 brand new pickups owned by him. Every morning there are multiple trucks taking the seafood away and as it is a great number, I guess he is the supplier for many restaurants around Phuket. 

 

Buyer beware it seems. Take care of what you eat.

[Jimi007]

I know the old lady fish monger in the Sea Gypsy Village, I buy my fresh seafood there! He’s probably farming Tilapia which is a crap fish anyway! I don’t eat it!


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[Old Croc]

So this guy is rebranding farmed seafood from China and selling it as a fresh, local, ocean caught product?

Just the repacking process could result in potentially dangerous contamination.

If all is true he needs to be stopped. The OP  should report this to the Ministry of Public Health, but ensure he doesn't fall foul  of defamation laws. 

[Mysterion]

Most saltwater seafood species cannot be farmed.

 

Always best to avoid farmed or “river” fish/shrimp and stick with the ocean species that cannot be farmed.

[huuwi]

5 hours ago, Mysterion said:

Most saltwater seafood species cannot be farmed.

 

Always best to avoid farmed or “river” fish/shrimp and stick with the ocean species that cannot be farmed.

Not sure what you are talking about but most fish for restaurants are farmed.

[Mysterion]

1 hour ago, huuwi said:

Not sure what you are talking about but most fish for restaurants are farmed.

What are you “not sure” about?

 

Some restaurants only offer farmed fish/shrimp, many others offer a mix of farmed fish/shrimp and wild ocean caught species.

 

Do you understand???

 

[Jimi007]

Not sure what you are talking about but most fish for restaurants are farmed.

Do you live in Phuket? The seafood is caught daily here. Next you’ll tell me squid is farmed!


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[Old Croc]

7 hours ago, Mysterion said:

Most saltwater seafood species cannot be farmed.

 

Always best to avoid farmed or “river” fish/shrimp and stick with the ocean species that cannot be farmed.

You should read up on Ocean Aquaculture. It could potentially provide the entire global demand for seafood. 

 

I also stay well clear of Thai river and pond species.

[huuwi]

8 hours ago, Mysterion said:

What are you “not sure” about?

 

Some restaurants only offer farmed fish/shrimp, many others offer a mix of farmed fish/shrimp and wild ocean caught species.

 

Do you understand???

 

many restaurants offer farmed fish, if not all, the only not farmed fish are mackerel, then squid and some prawns (look at the color). the demand on fish is to high on phuket that this can be wild catch.

 

[Mysterion]

9 hours ago, huuwi said:

many restaurants offer farmed fish, if not all, the only not farmed fish are mackerel, then squid and some prawns (look at the color). the demand on fish is to high on phuket that this can be wild catch.

 

The seafood restaurants with live fish tanks usually offer a wide selection of live wild caught seafoods(the species that cannot be farmed) that you can pick and choose.

 

You can also buy dead chilled wild seafoods displayed for sale at many touristy restaurants

 

 

 

 

[IsaanFam]

4 hours ago, Mysterion said:

The seafood restaurants with live fish tanks usually offer a wide selection of live wild caught seafoods(the species that cannot be farmed) that you can pick and choose.

 

You can also buy dead chilled wild seafoods displayed for sale at many touristy restaurants

 

 

 

 

 

This is a fantasy. The reality looks different. Just go to Raiwai and check if you can buy a fresh wild lobster or some bigger crabs. But cheap restaurants all around the Island you can order that. Just some days ago I made pictures of a seafood restaurant in Karon getting new stock, looked really fresh and wild what they delivered there in big white ice bags with Vietnamese or Chinese letters. Add that to the situation I described at the thread start, I just can say, the fresh wild seafood in Phuket is mostly a fantasy.

[Mysterion]

1 hour ago, IsaanFam said:

 

This is a fantasy. The reality looks different. Just go to Raiwai and check if you can buy a fresh wild lobster or some bigger crabs. But cheap restaurants all around the Island you can order that. Just some days ago I made pictures of a seafood restaurant in Karon getting new stock, looked really fresh and wild what they delivered there in big white ice bags with Vietnamese or Chinese letters. Add that to the situation I described at the thread start, I just can say, the fresh wild seafood in Phuket is mostly a fantasy.

Crabs and lobster cannot be farmed. They are wild. They may be coming from china or vietnam as frozen or alive, but they were still caught wild.

 

Are you not aware that there are thousands of thai fishermen(and probably a million fishermen globally) going out to sea each day to catch wild seafoods?

[huuwi]

35 minutes ago, Mysterion said:

Crabs and lobster cannot be farmed. They are wild. They may be coming from china or vietnam as frozen or alive, but they were still caught wild.

 

Are you not aware that there are thousands of thai fishermen(and probably a million fishermen globally) going out to sea each day to catch wild seafoods?

ok, i see you have no clue at all. look at all the fish in every restaurant, if they where wild catch they where different size, but here you have all fish in a range from 3-500gr or 5-800gr. this is plate size, easy to sale.

and since when crabs or lobster can not be farmed.

 

 

so now i hope you know what i'm talking about

[Mysterion]

3 hours ago, huuwi said:

ok, i see you have no clue at all. look at all the fish in every restaurant, if they where wild catch they where different size, but here you have all fish in a range from 3-500gr or 5-800gr. this is plate size, easy to sale.

and since when crabs or lobster can not be farmed.

 

 

so now i hope you know what i'm talking about

Perhaps there is some farmed species being sold, but there are also many non-farmed species.

 

Hence the fact there are fishermen.

 

Do you understand what a fisherman is and what a fisherman does???

[Jimi007]

 
This is a fantasy. The reality looks different. Just go to Raiwai and check if you can buy a fresh wild lobster or some bigger crabs. But cheap restaurants all around the Island you can order that. Just some days ago I made pictures of a seafood restaurant in Karon getting new stock, looked really fresh and wild what they delivered there in big white ice bags with Vietnamese or Chinese letters. Add that to the situation I described at the thread start, I just can say, the fresh wild seafood in Phuket is mostly a fantasy.

Do you live in Rawai? I have for 12 years. I know a fresh local fish from a farmed one! I like Parrot fish, but now everyone likes them! So the marine department told them to stop fishing or selling them for a few months. So now I buy a red snapper. And yes, the crabs and lobster are local. You seem a bit clueless about ocean fish. It is very over fished here, but as I said before, next you will telling me the fresh local squid is from China and farmed. The shrimp or prawns are farmed locally. Many right here in Rawai. I don’t eat it! Tastes like the crap they feed them.


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[Argus Tuft]

There has yet to be a commercially successful lobster hatchery anywhere in the world.

They have always had issues in the juvenile development.  They're an ocean species and its been difficult to replicate the grow-out stage from juvenile to adult in captivity, regardless of whether spawning has been successful

Australian scientists came closest a couple of years ago in Tasmania

 

Can probably google the above for more detailed info

 

That video posted above clearly states that the lobsters in their farm are caught from commercial fishermen and then grown further in captivity before selling.  Hence wild lobsters.

[Argus Tuft]

Decided to go and have a look for the info I was thinking of

This article is probably pretty clear

 

Researchers are claiming a world-first aquaculture breakthrough in Tasmania that could reshape the rock lobster industry.

Hobart's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies has developed a hatchery process that until now, has been impossible, due to the lobster's complex larval cycle.

University of Tasmania Associate Professor Greg Smith is the director of the research program, and likened the advances to finding one of the "holy grails of aquaculture".

"It's very exciting ... because it's basically one of the holy grails of aquaculture because it is such a long and difficult larval cycle," he said.

"Since the 1980s, people have been able to rear very small numbers of rock lobsters, but it's been on the scale of being able to do it in a beaker, and using various things like antibiotics.

Source - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-08/lobster-industry-shake-up-predicted-due-to-new-research/7915232

[Jimi007]

1 hour ago, Argus Tuft said:

There has yet to be a commercially successful lobster hatchery anywhere in the world.

They have always had issues in the juvenile development.  They're an ocean species and its been difficult to replicate the grow-out stage from juvenile to adult in captivity, regardless of whether spawning has been successful

Australian scientists came closest a couple of years ago in Tasmania

 

Can probably google the above for more detailed info

 

That video posted above clearly states that the lobsters in their farm are caught from commercial fishermen and then grown further in captivity before selling.  Hence wild lobsters.

We do grow farmed Abalone in California. Kind of odd. I ate so much of it when I was a kid when we used to be able to take them wild with SCUBA gear back in the late 1960's when I got certified, that I never really care to eat them again! I bet I couldn't pass that test now! Ditch and recovery at 10 meters. They used the US Navy test was used when I passed the class at 14. We don't allow salmon farms, they would be wiped out by winter storms anyway. They use a lot of fish traps here in Thailand, nets and long line fishing. 

 

[Argus Tuft]

1 minute ago, Jimi007 said:

We do grow farmed Abalone in California. Kind of odd. I ate so much of it when I was a kid when we used to be able to take them wild with SCUBA gear back in the late 1960's when I got certified, that I never really care to eat them again! I bet I couldn't pass that test now! Ditch and recovery at 10 meters. They used the US Navy test was used when I passed the class at 14. We don't allow salmon farms, they would be wiped out by winter storms anyway. They use a lot of fish traps here, nets and long line fishing. 

 

Really interesting!  Thanks for sharing that.  I was a pearl diver in my twenties and thirties, and worked in aquaculture in Australia and SE Asia for some years.
Did some abalone diving recreationally (along with a lot of lobster, scallops etc - whatever tasted good!)
Had an intensive course to pass for pearl diving back in the nineties - and yes doubt I could pass it now ^__^

[schlog]

Phuket has still great wild seafood but you have to know where to buy it.

It's not more easy like 10-20 years ago when seafood was always great in taste and quality.

 

Btw never had a lobster here which came close to a caribbean or canadian one. Never mind prepared by myself or by 5☆  chefs. So gave up on lobster here years ago.

[Old Croc]

7 hours ago, Jimi007 said:

We do grow farmed Abalone in California. Kind of odd. I ate so much of it when I was a kid when we used to be able to take them wild with SCUBA gear back in the late 1960's when I got certified, that I never really care to eat them again! I bet I couldn't pass that test now! Ditch and recovery at 10 meters. They used the US Navy test was used when I passed the class at 14. We don't allow salmon farms, they would be wiped out by winter storms anyway. They use a lot of fish traps here in Thailand, nets and long line fishing. 

 

Years ago, usually on the way home from a fishing or crabbing trip, we would stop off at some rocks near small islands off Fremantle and, snorkeling, we would collect as much abalone as we wanted in a few minutes.

Tenderized and thrown on the BBQ they were a good appetizers before consuming the catch of the day. We didn't consider them to be anything special. Later with the influx of Asian migrants they became a high priced delicacy resulting in depleted stocks and strict rules for harvesting.

Back then prawning on the Swan river on a hot summer's night also used to be a favorite social gathering for many. This ended because of overfishing about the same time. 

[Jimi007]

I was just at the Rawai Sea Gypsy Village as one of the fish mongers called my wife, who is out of town, asking if she should save a Parrot fish for me. Lots of very fresh caught fish today! Tuna, red snapper and others. I don’t even look at crabs or lobster here, I eat them when I am back in California. I am kind of sick of lobster at this point. Warm water cray fish don’t sound too appealing anyway. The crabs are too small to deal with here.


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[Tapster]

All very interesting.

 

At the sea gypsy fish stalls in Rawai, opposite the restaurants which will cook to order, is most of that seafood locally caught?

 

There are some enormous prawns there. I've always thought they they must be from a farm. Is that correct?

 

[Jimi007]

All very interesting.
 
At the sea gypsy fish stalls in Rawai, opposite the restaurants which will cook to order, is most of that seafood locally caught?
 
There are some enormous prawns there. I've always thought they they must be from a farm. Is that correct?
 

I don’t eat shrimp or “prawns” they are all farmed locally. The squid and fish are locally caught!


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[huuwi]

3 hours ago, Jimi007 said:

I don’t eat shrimp or “prawns” they are all farmed locally. The squid and fish are locally caught!


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you still get wild prawns, look at the different color. and off course, more expensive.

[federicoP]

Maybe my question is naive, but what is the difference between  "farmed"  fish and  "farmed"  meat ?

 

 

[Tapster]

They're the same in that both the meat and the fish are raised in captivity under controlled conditions.

 

They are fed by the farmer and protected from predators and environmental elements which might reduce the chance of delivering good 'product'.

 

[Tapster]

@Jimi007

 

The word prawn doesn't require inverted commas. It is used in the majority of English-speaking countries.

 

In the latter countries, shrimp is used for small crustaceans, and prawn for larger ones. There is no hard line denoting the one from the other.

 

Yours, pedantically....