Of the many dining out faux pas we could fall victim to, eating bad seafood has the potential to be the most catastrophic. Rather than ignoring those telltale restaurant red flags and just hoping for the best, Kory Foltz, executive chef of Sunseeker Resort in Charlotte Harbor, Florida, says the number one thing to look out for to ensure you've not landed an eatery that serves subpar seafood has nothing to do with the food's taste or aroma.
In an age where folks are thrift shopping like it's going out of style, we know that price is not always an indicator of something's quality. However, in the case of seafood, Foltz told Mashed in an exclusive statement that it can send a message. "There are exceptions to the rule but I look at pricing carefully," he says. "If pricing is too low or not what you would expect then it could be lesser quality products, inferior products, or an issue with truth in the menu." While the latter may seem like some sort of conspiracy theory — seeing as there are laws in place to try and protect consumers from menu fraud — popular restaurants lie to us about what's in the food all the time.
You get what you pay for
More important than worrying about whether your calamari has been switched with pork bung (which is just an urban legend, by the way) the more immediate issue is what happens when you eat less than fresh seafood. Any catch that hasn't been properly refrigerated can induce a particularly pesky type of food poisoning called scombroid, which can cause itching, face redness, nausea, diarrhea, heart palpitations, and blurred vision. So the credibility of your chosen restaurant can have a profound effect on your seafood eating experience. "Fresh seafood of high quality is not necessarily cheap and you always get what you pay for," Kory Foltz says. To put it simply, there's no such thing as a free seafood lunch. "If it's too good to be true, it most likely isn't [true]."
However, because the price of seafood has so much to do with supply and demand, places with a lot of coastline often boast superior seafood prices. Countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain offer seafood dishes at prices far lower than you'd expect to pay in most places in America. But you don't have to leave the States to find killer deals on quality seafood. Some coastal U.S. cities, like New Orleans, have eateries that sell crawfish at a price that could knock your socks off!