Mission Fresh Fish

Can I give him 10 stars? I’ve been buying fish and seafood from Patrick at the Saratoga Farmer’s market (Saturdays) or the Mountain View farmer’s market (Sundays) for over a dec.ade. Especially, the salmon is incredible — and I am from north eastern Canada where meals based on salmon are more common than meals with hamburger. So I know my salmon. The salmon I gave to my caterers for my wedding lunch came from Patrick. His assistants are the best, they will filet on site if you buy a whole fish. My daughter loves the ¼ lb containers of bay shrimp, she will ask me to buy one, and it will be empty by the time we get back to the car.

My SIL and BIL raves about this place getting Salmon Belly and the Scrapes for under $ 10/​lb. Finally scored a bag but the belly bag was all sold out by 11am. Come early!
I found some interesting excerpts:
(I want to meet him!)
Love them. Lady LaBlanc~!

Sardines from Half Moon Bay move me. They are local, sustainable, and a fish-​lovers delight. Grilled whole with sea salt, rosemary, and olive oil, they make one long for Iberia, for a Portuguese coastal town where the tantalizing smells of charcoal smoke, fresh fish, and briny seafood waft through winding streets and open cafes, where you might meet the men and women who catch and sell to locals and visitor alike.
Mission Fresh Fish has a stall at the College of San Mateo Saturday farmers’ market. We had never stopped to look, let alone buy, until this weekend, preferring other seafood spots in Half Moon Bay or at the Crystal Springs market.
But something just looked right: mussels and clams by the pound, sardines, and some smaller local fish, silvery of sheen, that looked like anchovies and tasted of the sea, rich in oils and minerals and flavors that you rarely encounter at your average Whole Foods fish counter or Trader Joe’s frozen food aisle. The wild salmon may be great here, as others say, but sometimes it’s the little things that matter and that provide wholesome, healthy, and satisfying meals.
The service was also excellent: ice for transport, orders small or large to suit customer preference, and useful knowledge of where things were from and how they might be prepared.
There is a reason that this farmers’ market remains such a vital one in our family’s local Northern Californian food chain. And with MFF, we just discovered another compelling culinary reason why!

Hands down the absolute BEST salmon ever and It’s ALWAYS good. I purchase mine at the Hayward Farmer’s Market on Saturday. My suggestion is to try the King Salmon. I’ve been cooking all kinds of salmon over the years: Chinook, Coho, Sockeye, Steelhead, Loch Quart, etc. from Berkeley Bowl, Costco, Safeway, Lucky and this place blows them all away.
If you enjoy wild King salmon get it from Mission Fresh Fish. They definitely know their seafood. One day I’m going to have to get around to trying some of their other items.
As you can imagine, salmon is a bit on the pricey side. I believe it’s currently selling at about $ 15 per pound. Not cheap but very good quality and extremely healthy for you!

Mission Fresh Fish is owned by Patrick O’ Shea, a commercial fisherman by trade who believes in getting fresh fish as quickly as possible to the consumer, (spanning 3 SF Bay Area counties farmers markets) supposedly within 4 to 5 hours of docking the boat with the catches. He used to deal with wholesalers, only to be eventually shafted by the low prices they paid him.
So for the last 7+ years, he’s been paying people to sell his seafood at farmers markets direct to consumers. You’ll find the MFF stalls at San Mateo (CSM), San Carlos on Thursday afternoons, and Mountain View on the weekend, for example.
It’s pretty much mostly local seafood with a few selections from out of state, including the delectable and excellent Canadian Wild King Salmon (a very popular seller). I probably saw tuna of some sort, at least two or three kinds of white fleshed fish, shrimp, oysters (in a jar) and very tasty looking scallops.
So while Costco has occasional great deals on California wild salmon that sometimes looks ok, it’s still no contest compared with the Canadian salmon MFF gets.
And if you love all parts of a wild salmon, you can even buy individual bags of them!
— The tails make a decent soup, not much meat, but you could bake them or fry, until the tail bones become crispy like chips.
–The heads… oh my. Grilling or baking em in the oven, a bit of salt and pepper and of course lemon wedge to cut some of the filling and fattiness away, mama mia. Goodness in the cheeks, lips, eyeballs, softbone/​cartilege (in the middle of the inside). Best of all, a bag of 3 large heads runs about $ 2. Or you can make a stew or miso fish head claypot or hotpot soup with it (along with of course, San Jose tofu, enoki and shimeji mushrooms, carrots, veg, then throw in some udon or ramen for a great meal)
–Belly…for those who can’t get enough of phat and more phat. This stuff is so good you can do whatever you want with it, and even it tastes great gently stir fried with soy sauce, ginger, scallion, garlic. Or if you have some sort of meat smoker… dayum. Beware though, this stuff runs around $ 9 a bag. And you wonder why bears like to stand upstream, and pretty much wait for the wild salmon fall into their mouths as they leap upstream, take a few bites, only to have their bellies torn and ripped apart, just so the bear has enough inner ammo to hibernate… and boy does that bear sleep like a lazy bum for a long time thanks to the food coma and fat overdose (and then the fish basically minus the belly area, becomes forest fertilizer, head/​tail/​and good bits intact).
MFF is a great alternative to the likes of Whole Foods or other kinds of dismal fish markets (inclusive of some of the Chinese supermarkets where you see albino or side-​way/​upside down swimming/​barely alive fish in the tanks, as well as frozen then defrosted and kept on ice seafood). Prices may be close to Whole Foods in some parts, but you’re getting much better quality.
And that makes me a happy fishie.
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