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Scallops?

Marc - 9-27-2010 at 08:34 PM

What are the restaurants in Baja trying to pass off as sea scallops? Whatever they are serving is usually very good, but it ain't the real thing.

elgatoloco - 9-27-2010 at 08:46 PM

manta ray, likely.

Ken Bondy - 9-27-2010 at 08:47 PM

Marc
When a restaurant says "sea scallops" they are most likely to be pieces of ray-type fishes, typically angel sharks, bat rays, mobulas, etc., cut out of the "wings" with cookie-cutter devices. In the US it is not legal to call a scallop a scallop unless it is a real rock scallop. Thus the term "sea scallop".

[Edited on 9-28-2010 by Ken Bondy]

mulegemichael - 9-27-2010 at 08:47 PM

must be baja norte, cause down here we get the real thing...i've bought them lots of times still in the shell...mantas?...ugh

vandenberg - 9-27-2010 at 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mulegemichael
must be baja norte, cause down here we get the real thing...i've bought them lots of times still in the shell...mantas?...ugh

Same here in Loreto.
Pretty easy to tell if they're real.
They have dirt and black slimy stuff around the perimeter.

mulegemichael - 9-27-2010 at 08:54 PM

you got it, van...lots of times i go down to the launch when the boats are coming in and buy a 5 gallon bucket of free swimming scallops still in the shell....steam em up...yummm baby, yummm

mcfez - 9-27-2010 at 09:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ken Bondy
Marc
When a restaurant says "sea scallops" they are most likely to be pieces of ray-type fishes, typically angel sharks, bat rays, mobulas, etc., cut out of the "wings" with cookie-cutter devices. In the US it is not legal to call a scallop a scallop unless it is a real rock scallop. Thus the term "sea scallop".

[Edited on 9-28-2010 by Ken Bondy]

Very true! Didnt it start out with shark tails a long time ago, down in the southern us?

bajajudy - 9-27-2010 at 10:15 PM

If they are called callitos they are bay scallops and there is no mistaking them for manta because they are small, about the size of your last finger joint and you can see the vein/muscle. They are the best in a c-cktail(raw). Most people who cook them tend to over cook them and they wind up having the consistency of your finger tip.
BTW manta is really good machaca

sanquintinsince73 - 9-27-2010 at 10:17 PM

In most cases Lobina (Bass) is substituted for Callo de Hacha (Scallops).

JESSE - 9-27-2010 at 11:35 PM

Never heard of anybody using fake scallops down here.

bajajudy - 9-28-2010 at 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JESSE
Never heard of anybody using fake scallops down here.

Thanks, Jessie
That's what I thought but you are the expert
Good news indeed.

Pescador - 9-28-2010 at 07:18 AM

That story has been going around a long time about using Manta Ray for scallops and I have never really seen that happening and I spend a lot of time with the pangueros. Seems to have evolved because they were not packaged with styrofoam and plastic wrap and sold out of the supermarket with all of the health warnings and listing of calorie content and the like.
In the long run does it really matter? You buy them, cook them up, eat them, and if they are great, you pat yourself of the back that you are some kind of great negotiator, if they are lousy (which they can be for various reasons) you figure you just got taken by another Mexican Scam Artist.

Skeet/Loreto - 9-28-2010 at 07:50 AM

Skari; Might you tell us about the Past History of
Scollops in your Town??

Many years ago when "Fish Places" they were serving what they called Scallops. Places like Capt. D's. Finally in Calif. they were made to put a small sign near the entrance door telling people that they may be eatin Shark.

On one of my Adventure Trips from Loreto to the pacific I started noticing groups of women working in small Sheds, on checking it out discovered that they were "Stamping out" Scallops. When the Hwy opened they were being Hauled to the states. Skates were being used and passed off as Sea Scallops

DENNIS - 9-28-2010 at 07:57 AM

If you have to wonder what it is you're really eating, the anxiety of it all will ruin the meal.
I'll bet most of us have had a substitute scallop and didn't know it. Just thought the meal was delicious. If, before eating the same meal, we were told it was faux, we would have said it was terrible.
Down here, great flavor begins in the mind.

Woooosh - 9-28-2010 at 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS
If you have to wonder what it is you're really eating, the anxiety of it all will ruin the meal.
I'll bet most of us have had a substitute scallop and didn't know it. Just thought the meal was delicious. If, before eating the same meal, we were told it was faux, we would have said it was terrible.
Down here, great flavor begins in the mind.

I don't mind substitute scallops or crab- I just don't like to pay for the real thing and not be getting it.

DENNIS - 9-28-2010 at 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Woooosh
I don't mind substitute scallops or crab- I just don't like to pay for the real thing and not be getting it.

Would it still bother you if you didn't know?

See, Woooosh? That's what I'm talking about. Never again will you be able to have a Scallop dinner without suspicion running through your mind. Kinda detracts from the experience....doncha think?

Most here know this, but maybe some don't....the Angel Shark is what you get at most fish taco stands in town.

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/gallery/descript/pacificangels...

elgatoloco - 9-28-2010 at 08:25 AM

We have camped at Playa Requeson numerous times in the past 20 years. About 5-6 years ago we were there on one of our stops for a few days and one morning I watched as the 'pangueros' loaded up their gill net(s) and rowed their boat (had no motor) out around the isla and came back a few hours later. The next morning they rowed out again and returned with a net full of 20-30 small rays, probably bat rays? I got out my binos and watched as they cut off the 'wings' and two guys with what looked like sawed in half tin cans took to jamming them down on the meat and extracting small rounds of flesh that they then washed in a bucket of salt water and placed in zip lock bags. Later in the afternoon one of the gentleman fishermen came walking thru the palapas with a couple of bags offering to sell everyone 'scallops'. When he got to my location I politely declined and when he went to the hard sell of 'muy fresca escallop amigo' I held up my binos and pointed in the direction of his camp and he smiled and shrugged and went on his way. I did notice that after traversing the camp he returned empty handed so someone had a nice meal of 'scallops' that evening. A man has to eat, right?

I will say that MANY of the rays that were cut up were very very small, maybe two feet wing to wing. Must have been very tender.

Viva Mexico!

Requeson.jpg - 33kB

durrelllrobert - 9-28-2010 at 08:37 AM

around here real diver's scallops go for $2 US each cleaned or $1 each in the shell

Bajatripper - 9-28-2010 at 09:04 AM

Quote:

Pretty easy to tell if they're real.
They have dirt and black slimy stuff around the perimeter.

Surely you aren't being served scallops that way in a restaurant, are you?

DENNIS - 9-28-2010 at 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajatripper
Pretty easy to tell if they're real.
They have dirt and black slimy stuff around the perimeter.

Surely you aren't being served scallops that way in a restaurant, are you?

Well...how else is someone to know they're authentic? Black slimey stuff is the seal of approval.
YUMMY YUMMY

vandenberg - 9-28-2010 at 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajatripper
Pretty easy to tell if they're real.
They have dirt and black slimy stuff around the perimeter.

Surely you aren't being served scallops that way in a restaurant, are you?

One of the reasons I don't order them in restaurants because they're never done the way I like them.
Buy mine fresh here in Loreto from some vendors.
Cut them to about 1/2 inch thickness, than saute them in butter with lost and lots of garlic, seasalt and coarse ground pepper, put them on a bolillo and go to heaven. :biggrin:

BAJA.DESERT.RAT - 9-28-2010 at 12:00 PM

Hola elgatoloco, quite a story and the first time i have heard it from someone that has actually seen this practice.

over the years on short and long range boats, whenever we did catch a bat ray, the deckhands would always say to keep the rays and do the cookie cutter thing. when we said no thanks, they would always release them. but, we would say " you keep it and do it " and they never did.

when in todos santos, we went to the beach where the commercial guys were cleaning fish and there were really big carcasses of what we thought were manta rays ?

in la ribera, i exchanged lunches with the pangero and he had manta ray burritos. palatable but nothing to write home about.

BIEN SALUD, DA RAT

Bajatripper - 9-28-2010 at 01:35 PM

Quote:

So, when's the party?

MitchMan - 9-28-2010 at 03:54 PM

Bought scallops in La Paz super markets and they were all bad. They were usually the diameter of a USA Silver Dollar, but had the texture of leather. Stopped buying scallops in Baja.

kaybaj - 9-28-2010 at 05:25 PM

ok your probably getting callo de hacha and they aint very tender. they look like callo mano de leon which is what you want.

Marc - 9-28-2010 at 07:20 PM

Years ago at Mulege we caught a Humbolt Squid. It was about 60" and the nasty SOB really didn't want to join us in the boat. We took part of it (the mantle) to El Patron. They beat the s*** out of it with a mallet and served it up with butter and garlic. I'll eat anything with butter and garlic.

The squid's tentacle suckers have teeth and they were ready for a fight for hours after the fish was dead.

vacaenbaja - 9-28-2010 at 07:38 PM

I could not tell you how many times I have seen "phoney
Abalone" in and around Ensenada eateries. Some of it is deliously prepared giant squid. In La Paz Machaca de
mantaraya has been quite popular with the locals for
decades. You just have to know your seafood. Buyer
beware as they say. But hey if it tastes good and the price is
right so what if it's faux.

Woooosh - 9-28-2010 at 08:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Originally posted by Woooosh
I don't mind substitute scallops or crab- I just don't like to pay for the real thing and not be getting it.

Hey Dennis...would it bother you to have sixx with a T-girl if you didn't know? Just saying... lol

BAJA.DESERT.RAT - 9-28-2010 at 09:14 PM

Hola, as the thread is going a bit off course, years ago, a friend and his family took me and my son to a fish taco stand near a beautiful church in ensenada. the stand seemed like a permanent taqueria in a fairly wide sidewalk and was super busy with the locals and others. my friend said the fish used was angel shark and the item used to fry it was lard. delicious !!!!

can any one give me explicit directions on how to get there with my location recollection ?

BIEN SALUD, DA RAT

Woooosh - 9-28-2010 at 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BAJA.DESERT.RAT
Hola, as the thread is going a bit off course, years ago, a friend and his family took me and my son to a fish taco stand near a beautiful church in ensenada. the stand seemed like a permanent taqueria in a fairly wide sidewalk and was super busy with the locals and others. my friend said the fish used was angel shark and the item used to fry it was lard. delicious !!!!

can any one give me explicit directions on how to get there with my location recollection ?

BIEN SALUD, DA RAT

I doubt the Marlin fish tacos I get at TJ Juniors are really Marlin... taste like tuna to me.

Marc - 9-28-2010 at 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Woooosh

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Originally posted by Woooosh
I don't mind substitute scallops or crab- I just don't like to pay for the real thing and not be getting it.

Hey Dennis...would it bother you to have sixx with a T-girl if you didn't know? Just saying... lol

In the dark?

Baja&Back - 9-28-2010 at 10:39 PM

If you boat around those small islands off Santispac and Burro, you can often see piles of dozens of Bat Ray carcasses in the shallow water off the small beaches. Cookie cuttered.

JESSE - 9-28-2010 at 11:34 PM

you have to get dive scallops, or mano de leon. i like to wrap em with pancetta, sear them lightly in olive oil, make some couliflower puree with lots of butter, and then drizzle some lemon olive oil on top.

mtgoat666 - 9-29-2010 at 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Marc
What are the restaurants in Baja trying to pass off as sea scallops? Whatever they are serving is usually very good, but it ain't the real thing.

sometimes pin clams are mis-translated and called "scallops"

and there are many types of scallops,... so perhaps you are eating a variety that is diff than you are accustomed to?

BajaNomad - 9-29-2010 at 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BAJA.DESERT.RAT
...years ago, a friend and his family took me and my son to a fish taco stand near a beautiful church in ensenada. the stand seemed like a permanent taqueria in a fairly wide sidewalk and was super busy with the locals and others. my friend said the fish used was angel shark and the item used to fry it was lard. delicious !!!!

can any one give me explicit directions on how to get there with my location recollection ?

Possibly this was Tacos Fenix on Espinoza at Juarez ? There's an often-photographed church a block+ away between Juarez and Sixth on Floresta.

Green arrow (which should appear) in the map below is Tacos Fenix. Church is to the right.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=31.863839,-116.616325&num=...

Catedral El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltb/2930541856/in/photostream/

Cypress - 9-29-2010 at 05:08 AM

Many species of "trash" fish are very tasty. People are just turned off by their names or appearance. Some require extra effort to clean and prepare, but it's usually worth it.

vandenberg - 9-29-2010 at 07:29 AM

In Loreto often, when fish is in short supply, they use parrotfish in the tacos. Very tasty.
They do have a drawback though, when you clean them, they stink to hogheaven, enough to almost make you upchuck. :biggrin:

Ken Bondy - 9-29-2010 at 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by vandenberg
In Loreto often, when fish is in short supply, they use parrotfish in the tacos. Very tasty.
They do have a drawback though, when you clean them, they stink to hogheaven, enough to almost make you upchuck. :biggrin:

vandenberg beware of eating parrotfish, they are one species that is known to carry and transmit ciguatera.

That said, I have eaten them (before I knew about the ciguatera thing) and they were muy sabroso.

I didn't have the "stink" experience that you report. Maybe you should just clean the ones that haven't been lying around for a few weeks

++Ken++

castaway$ - 9-29-2010 at 08:31 AM

So Abaj&Back is it reasonable to assume that the "Scallops" Rafael sells in town are Bat Ray? Doesn't make much differance, pound the heck out of them, beer batter and fry, they are still pretty tasty.

Woooosh - 9-29-2010 at 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JESSE
you have to get dive scallops, or mano de leon. i like to wrap em with pancetta, sear them lightly in olive oil, make some couliflower puree with lots of butter, and then drizzle some lemon olive oil on top.

Nice! Now that's a low-carb feast! (I just dropped 25 lbs and I am not gaining it back- this time, yeah right). I wrap them with smoked bacon because I'm cheap and not Italian... lol I buy my scallops frozen in bags from CostCo. No one would dare sell the fakes NOB I hope.

durrelllrobert - 9-29-2010 at 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cypress
Many species of "trash" fish are very tasty. People are just turned off by their names or appearance. Some require extra effort to clean and prepare, but it's usually worth it.

anyone eversee a tilapia in the wild? breed up from gold fish?

mulegemichael - 9-29-2010 at 10:00 AM

in the san ignacio lagoon one can catch dozens and dozens of tilapia just as fast as you can get your bait in the water

DENNIS - 9-29-2010 at 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by vandenberg
In Loreto often, when fish is in short supply,

It's hard to imagine fish being in short supply in that area. Why is that?

BAJA.DESERT.RAT - 9-29-2010 at 10:16 AM

Hola, i've had the manos de leon at malarimmo's in guerrero negro and they were excellant.

my first experience however was seeing the shells in the curio store there and i thought, wow, these things ae going to be huge !

such a large shell for about a silver dollar sized treat.

i also bought a couple of the big shells at the curio store and on my way home on mex1 just after turning left, there were mounds of these shells alongside the road.

it reminds me of seeing all the abalone shells alongside the road at stores and stands in the malibu to the central coast areas years past in california.

same with the big pismo clams at san quintin and the venders on the roadside that would clean and sell them to you and have 5 gallon buckets full of them. i haven't seen them for years now. seems like they were fished out ?

what a shame !

BIEN SALUD, DA RAT

Ken Bondy - 9-29-2010 at 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mulegemichael
in the san ignacio lagoon one can catch dozens and dozens of tilapia just as fast as you can get your bait in the water

mulegemichael do you mean Laguna San Ignacio, or the body of freshwater near the pueblo of San Ignacio? Reason I ask is that tilapia are a freshwater species of fish belonging to the family Cichlidae (cichlids). It is unlikely that they could survive in Laguna San Ignacio.

bonanzapilot - 9-29-2010 at 10:55 AM

I have heard the rumors, but never seen any imitation scallops. There are three common varieties of Callos offered for sale in Baja.. the Callitos, or bay scallops, a true free swimming scallop, small and tasty, great as ceviche. The larger sizes... here is where my memory is failing me... are a nice white to off-white variety, the other a tan or dirty color. Avoid the tan colored ones, they are very tough and disappointing. One of these is called
Callo Burro, I think it is the good one.. not sure. Neither of these is a true free swimming scallop, rather they are a bottom dwelling mollusk, but good!

CP - 2-10-2011 at 11:21 AM

I have not been to GN for more than ten years...I recall that they had a poster on a wall at the Mallarimo that showed varieties of callos with name and photo. I'd sure like to get one of these posters...just bought some callos that I had not had before. Three point shape, not round.
If anybody comes across that poster, I would sure appreciate an address off of it or a photo if it is not too much trouble.
Buen provecho.

Scallops or ?

MrBillM - 2-10-2011 at 05:09 PM

Having come across the remains of Wholesale Ray Butchering on the Beach more than a few times, "Somebody" is using that meat for "Something".

Also having bought the HUGEST "Scallops" I had ever seen from those Itinerant FisherFolk a couple of times, I have a cynical belief that I KNOW what they were.

Besides, Tasteless and Tough, that is.

Cypress - 2-10-2011 at 05:36 PM

The small one's, sorta feathery along the edges, are really good.

Alan - 2-10-2011 at 06:13 PM

Mantay Ray is a common item in the stores of La Paz but looking at the filets, I can't see how that texture could be confused with a scallop.

cabo3100 - 2-10-2011 at 06:23 PM

I've got a picture of a scallop but it look's like a little camel meat :biggrin:

Lista - 2-10-2011 at 09:05 PM

I have had fresh scallops from islas encantadas area. They were HUGE and tasty! There is a family or 2 or 3 camped in that area from Guerro Negro, and they are harvesting the small scallops, and they are also tasty. Same area, both are real, one is the size of a thimble and the other....2 make a meal! mmmmmm

snowcat5 - 2-11-2011 at 07:28 AM

Around the corner from Coyote Beach, Bahia Conception, to the South, is a large manta ray/ fake scallop production spot. This small cove has been the site of Manta ray slaughter for years. The spot is really dirty and smells from the thousands of dead ray bodies. If you visit this spot (past the cliff writings and down the hill) you won't want to order scallops that night in any Baja town. You might not ever eat them again. I bet Pompano knows where I'm talking about. I have seen ray scallops in many tiendas in Baja- they are all the same size and shape and no slime.

Cypress - 2-11-2011 at 03:04 PM

What the heck! If they taste good and you enjoy 'em, what difference does it make? Scallops, sharks, rays can all be turned into scallops. What's this fixation on scallops? Anybody ever see counterfit oysters? :biggrin:

elfbrewery - 2-11-2011 at 03:46 PM

There was a diver in the Bahia the other day in the shallower water along the cliffs north of Frijole reef. We've seen this guy or others with air lines diving around other reefs and shallow waters. My guess is he's looking for the burro scallops (the pin scallops, if that's what they're called, used to be in abundance, but they're scarce now). At the bottom of the bay are piles and piles of nice clean pink shells from the swimming scallops that get netted. On islands around Coyote it's not uncommon to find ray and shark carcasses. So, if it can be eaten, it is. And, unfortunately, the resources are running low.