Maui's Finest....Mama's Fish House!

I don't praise many restaurants but when I do it's usually pretty rare. Mama's Fish House has left a remarkable impression on me. I have been here three times on three separate occasions and each time was as memorable as the last one. Usually I could care less about the waiter service and just want the best darn food served to me but the staff here just simply was one of the best I have witnessed. Getting excited about what they have fresh for today, popular dishes, often replenishing our drinks and bread, comp'ing appetizers because they feel like it, and etc, list goes on.

Excellent location as it's situated off the coast and have a nice little sand beach in front of it. My dish along with the other dishes I tried are top-notch and worth the price you pay for. Perfectly flavored and cooked dishes. It's really hard to pinpoint what to order here as honestly you can't go wrong with anything you order here. You can tell the kitchen takes their cooking and presentation very seriously.

Front Entryway

Restaurant Front

Ocean View!

Name: Mama's Fish House
Google Maps:  Click Here!
Location: Paia, HI (Maui)
Yelp: Click Here!

Here are the list of items I have ordered from their pretty exhaustive menu!

Fresh Hot Bread!

Ginger Tomato Bisque

Sashimi Plate

Fish Ceviche

Fish Panang Curry

Traditional Hawaiian

Macadamia Nut Ice Cream

Black Pearl

Coconut Jelly

Boiling fresh Maine Lobsters to Perfection

The price has finally gone down to make it somewhat affordable to eat. Last time I checked, seafood markets were asking for $20 a lb here and on my recent visit, it came down to $6.99 a lb!

The secret to cooking lobster to perfection is to poach them, do not boil them! When you boil lobster, they will get too stiff and over-boiling will cause them to release all the white protein/fat which has full of flavor. Aside from poaching them, you must use a large enough pot so the lobsters aren't crowded in the pot and season the water with salt!

Usually you want to boil the lobster at about 7.5 - 8 min / lb. If you have multiple lobsters, the total cooking time is still based on one lobster. So if you have two lobsters that weigh on average 1.5 lbs, then the total cooking time would be 11.25 - 12 min.

You usually want to fill your pot 3/4 full as you want your lobster to be fully submerged while it's "poaching". To figure out how many lobsters you can cook in your pot, you can do this calculation:

Total # of Quarts / 1.5 = Total # of Lbs of Lobster you can cook at one time

Say if your pot 3/4 filled is 5 quarts then you can cook up to 3.33 lbs of lobster at one time. This means if you have two lobsters that are about 1.5 lb each then it's safe to cook both of them at the same time!

How much salt to season the water do you need?

~ 1/3 cup of salt per gallon

How do I insert the lobster into the pot?

Ensure the water in the pot is boiling and then plunge the lobster head first to instantly kill them.

Tips:

• return the pot to a slow rolling boil and do not cover the pot with a lid
• if you want lobster eggs, try to get female lobsters
• heat up some butter and minced garlic as your dip!

  How to differentiate between a male and a female lobster?

FEMALE: tiny, soft thin legs

MALE: thick, hard legs

Finished Product!

Cheers!

Fresh Scottish Salmon Whole Fish

Step aside the Baja Hiramasa, step forward the Scottish Salmon! I bought a fresh whole Scottish Salmon from one of my favorite wholesale sustainable seafood markets in the city. I am someone who enjoys getting whole fishes as you know for sure how fresh it is by feeling, smelling, and of course seeing it.  Of course part of the fun is testing your knife skills by filleting it yourself, knowing where it's from, and how it looks in a photo! Have you ever done this before? Let me know!

When it comes to the "feeling" sense, you can make sure it's good by ensuring there are no bruises on the body, no unwanted sliminess, and that it's relatively slippery to hold. If you have gone fishing before and held a live fish, you know exactly how it should feel.

When it comes to the "smelling" sense, you need to make sure it doesn't have a fishy smell. It should smell like the fresh ocean (or lake) it came from. The smell should be pleasant and if there is any sense of rejection or undesirable smell, it may not be that fresh.

Lastly when it comes to the "seeing" sense, you want to ensure the fish eye balls are perfectly crystal clear. Also another good indicator is to look at the gills and look for a deep red color. Also look to ensure there's no unexpected physical bruises on the fish.

Look at those Crystal Clear Eyes

Filleting Commences

Watch out for Bones!

Nice Presentation after the Filleting

Fillet Blocks

Sashimi!

A Great Weekend Lunch Starts at Jake's

Living in the West Coast does have many perks! Many great seafood restaurants with an ocean view is one of them! I have grown a lot of appreciation with this restaurant and have been bringing my visitors here most of the time as I have yet to find something bad about this place. They serve super fresh, seasonal, and sustainable seafood. I have always enjoyed the seafood selections they offer and they taste great too! Oh and they serve fresh sourdough bread!

Name: Jake's Del Mar
Yelp: Click Here!
Google Maps: Click Here!

Front Sign

Front View

Kona Pineapple Pop

Ahi Tartare Tacos - wasabi cream cheese, chili vinaigrette, sea beans, micro greens

Seafood Chowder - crab, sweet corn, fresh fish, clams, bacon, potato, creamy fish broth

Grilled Tuna Salad - seared rare Ahi, field greens, asparagus, hard boiled egg, potatoes, olives, smoked paprika aioli, sherry vinaigrette

Mixed Seafood Pot - fresh fish, shrimp, scallops, mussels, saffron tomato broth, sea beans

Shellfish of the Day: Fresh Live New Zealand Greenlip Mussels

Move over Black Mussels! Greenlip Mussels are here to stay! Yes they are called "Greenli"p because the mussels' lips are green! I like meatier, sweet, and larger mussels and Greenlips are all about those features! Bought some fresh live ones over the weekend and looked forward to cooking them! They are super easy to cook as you just need to wait until all of them have opened up (just like popping popcorn!) to know when they are ready to eat. Usually all of them will be cooked around 8-9 minutes.

Ingredients:

2.5 lbs of Greenlip Mussels
2-3 Celery Sticks
4-6 cloves of Garlic
1 Tomato
1/2 Onion
1 cup White Wine
1 cup of Water
Splash of Olive Oil

Instructions:

1) Discard any mussels that have opened and do not close after touching them. Never want to consume dead mussels before cooking them.
2) Brush and clean very well each mussel from dirt/sand and residue
3) Pull the hair that's sticking out of the mussel by dragging it counter-clockwise. You don't want to eat that part of the mussel. You can either remove it now or remove it later.
4) Heat a pot to medium-high and splash oil to it and add the diced garlic, tomato, onion, and celery.
5) Give it couple minutes for the above to "sweat" and release moisture.

6) You can opt to blend the vegetables if you like or leave it straight up and then pour in the white wine and water and wait for it to boil.
7) Once boiled, throw in the mussels and set timer to about 8-9 minutes. Make sure you don't overcrowd the pot with mussels!

Don't overcrowd like what I did here :)

8) Start shaking the pot periodically to move around the mussels while cooking.
9) Once the mussels open up that's when it's ready to start picking them out from overcooking.

10) After 8-9 minutes and some mussels have still not opened, discard those and do not eat!
11) And voila fresh delicious Greenlip mussels are served!
 

Shellfish of the Day: Fresh Hood Canal Oysters!

I recently went to a seafood restaurant that served Hood Canal oysters and I was pretty content on this kind. As you might already know, there's a ton of varieties when it comes to oysters and it's usually pretty difficult to remember what you had but the Hood Canal oysters did leave a lasting impression to me. It was pretty meaty, not very salty, not very metallic tasting, and had a decent texture to it. Oysters are pretty expensive at restaurants and can cost over $3 an oyster!

I decided to hunt for seafood wholesale markets that sell them so I can shuck and eat them at home. I found a place that sold them for 79 cents an oyster! You start to realize how much many restaurants are charging and see how much they are profiting. It's quite interesting.

I consumed these oysters raw so there's not much skill required and you just need to invest in an oyster shucker and just watch some Youtube videos. In short, you just need to stab/pierce/crack with the oyster shucker a gap between the top and the bottom lid of the oyster's back side. Basically that's what is keeping the oyster intact. You just keep forcefully twist your oyster shucker clockwise and counter-clockwise to slowly "drill" and detach the two oyster lids. It takes some practice and some trial-n-error on the technique but it's totally doable!

Give it a try and good luck!

Oyster Shucker

Drill at the back side between the two lids!

Voila!