Are you eating Walleye?

I won’t be home tonight to see this story, but have suspected this was the case for years.

KARE11 News Story

-J.

Looks like it should be a good one.

That is interesting…maybe somebody who sees it can give some follow up on the story…

Makes ya wonder about what else goes on in restaurants?

A guy in our office used to be a kitchen manager for Hooters (lucky guy!!!) Anyways, we talked about this. He said that for this to truely happen, the owner, manager and chef would all have to be in kahoots with eachother on it. It would be obvious on the order sheets and the work to take place to change labels for “staff” not to find out would take work amongst the three.

This isn’t a mistake……….It is fully intentional with many people involved.

If you have a weak stomach…you might want to pass on this post.

Last warning!

Back in the early ’80’s I was managing a full service restaurnant in the Brooklyn Center area. For our fish sandwiches and fish dinners we used Icelandic Cod. The cod would come in frozen in cases with two fillets per plasitc bag. We had to slice then to our specs…about 3 oz each. When these fish are harvested, they are filleted on a table with a lamp under it. It’s called “candling”, much like they do with eggs. This light would make anything that should be in the flesh show up…parasites and the like. When we would portion the fish, we would always be on the lookout for “things” that were missed by the workers that process them…like worms.

I was sitting in the lobby one day talking with by supervisor when a waitress came up to me with a saucer. On the saucer was an mangle 1 1/2 inch long worm. I asked where the customer was and was told…”in the bathroom”.

It’s not that any of these parasites would hurt a person…but no one new what Fear Factor was in those days.

To this day when I eat fish in a restaurant, I break it apart before eating it…

And I agree with Gary…unless the supplier intentionally miss labels the produce.

Gary,

I’ve been in the restaurant business for over 30 years. Chains such as Hooters have all the menus written, and food purchased on contracts, at the national level, with slight variations incorporated regionally. It is possible that the GM, and Kitchen mgr. might know of it…. maybe, but the responsibility for it happening, goes much higher up the chain than the store level.

Your smaller family/independently owned establishments, who do all their own food ordering would have to conspire to do the “bait and switch” though. That would not suprise me.

Did you know that years ago, Hardee’s was found guilty of importing kangaroo meat to use as hamburger in their sandwiches!

JLD;

I thought I was always light on my feet after eating at Hardees……I thought it was just healthy food, with little calories!!!!!!!

If you recall the McLean burger from McDonalds…it used seaweed as a binder…

I always felt that I had a pouch with a baby in it…

And you folks thought Eel Pout wasn’t of any commercial value!
Eyejacker

Oh Yeah! Eel Pout…I haven’t seen it for quite a while now…but that was sold in bars and grocery stores as “Blind Robins”. It was a smoked and heavily salted stick of fish….mmmm good stuff!

I havent seen a Blind Robbin hanging in a tavern in years. Now I know why I never liked them.

Blind robins and Blatz beer! Yummm! I think a lot of people would be shocked if they really knew what they were eating in restaurants. ANd yes, contrary to what you might think, they do substitute items and also use things which may not exactly be on the fresh size. It is a very competitive market and any thing tossed is profit down the drain. Just note the daily specials someday and see the soup the next day! Deep fried carp is probably just as good as walleye anyway!

Quote:

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Deep fried carp is probably just as good as walleye anyway!

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at least as good as bass…

Which reminds me…a fast food chain who’s founder recently passed on makes the chili out of the prior days left over hamburger. Of course I like left overs.
I’ve always worked for the large corperantions, I’ve never been aware of substuting a menu item for something of less value or even differant. I’m not saying that it wasn’t done…just that it would have been hide from the workers in the restaurant. If a box marked Icelandic Cod was really something else…then it happened above the store level…as someone else mentioned.

The most desturbing foreign object I’ve ever incountered was when a Sr citizen called me over to there table. The couple was working on there breakfast when the gentalman bite into a sausage link, felt something hard and spit it out…It was the sharp end of a needle used to give injections to hogs…about 3/4 of an inch long. The fella was from the old school where you don’t sue anyone…luckly for us! When I saw it..I know my eyes became twice there normal size.

When i worked at Quillins (grocery store) in High school..Pizza Doctors would come get our leftover/days old hamburger for their za….

needless to say i didn’t eat there much

OK…last post here for me…for a while…but I’m on a roll..

Have you ever bought Mullet either in a restaurant or smoked in a grocery store? If you have, you will seldom if ever see the head left on the fish…why?

Because that’s the name the industry came up with to make our little bait fish the Northeren White Sucker more palletable.

Never bought a mullet, but I wore one in the 70’s when I lived in a trailer park in a double wide

Down south mullet is pretty common as table fare. It’s good, too.

I am a huge sushi fan. I can’t imagine what kind of unwanted guests I’ve invited into my gastro-system eating that. Tastes really good though. I often wonder what a channel cat would do if a nice chunk of the oily belly tuna (toro) got waved in it’s face… Probably the same thing I do. . . GULP!!!

Bah! Kare11 has been having technical difficulties for a couple hours now. Wondering what the story is about is really eating at me….no pun intended
Chris

Jon, I was looking for the time..but your link died.

It’s on at 10 pm on Kare 11 news…they will be naming the restaurant that they tested (using DNA).

Here’s a link to the fish they use for the switch… Click here to see Zander

Imagine the introduction into the local ecosystem….
We could have Zander and only Zander for breakfast lunch and dinner!

Sure is alot of knowledge in that head of yours Brian!
(waiting for the comments from the rest of IDA on that one)
Chris

I work as a kitchen manager in Brooklyn Center. Kare11 comes in and films all the time at my place. They did the Thanksgiving story last week there. It was about how an average person needs to run like 31 miles to burn off all the calories of a average turkey dinner. I do know of the bait and switch, but not at my resturant.
This should be a good story, really good if they name names.
Ron

It at least looks like the Zander is in the same family as the walleye.

The only info I have in my head is…GOOGLE…and many will vouch for me!

The seem to have the same traits as walleye…I wonder were saugers fit in the picture…notice the spots on there dorsals?

Brian, they’re all part of the perch (Percidae) family. Here’s a link to the family. It includes Sauger, Walleye, Zander etc.
Perch Family

This reminds me of the post I saw this last spring (can’t remember who posted it… and I searched and can’t find it)..

It was the one about the guys commercial netting “non-game fish” (well… unless you’re BrianK ) out of the St. Croix. The poster said they talked with the guys and found out that they were going to advertise them as fresh fish from the crystal waters of Minnesota and sell them at fish markets in Chicago. LOL

Sheepeyes – not just for breakfast anymore!!

I always laugh when some of the Friday Fish Frys up here in Northern Wisconsin featue “Alaskan Walleye”.
Walleye don’t live that far north.

In Alaska they spell Walleye…P O L L A C K….

Sheepeyes?
I will check with the rep and see if I can order that. Might be a BIG seller! I might even deliver, at least to the Lake St. Croix Beach area.
Ron

Just watched the news show on the walleye dinner controversy and indeed some restaurants were serving the European cousin, zander. Many years ago In-Fisherman magazine was touting the zander as a fine fighting fish and every bit as tasty as our walleye.

So there is a dilema here for restaurants. According to the report zander is 2 bucks a pound cheaper and customers could not tell the difference in taste. Advertizing Canadian walleye and serving zander is certainly wrong so what do you do? Put zander on your menu in a walleye state? Put both on your menu at different prices and double your inventory? Change over to walleye and cut your margins?

Don’t know the answer as I’m not into marketing and don’t really care as I never order walleye in a restaurant because mine taste better and have no bones in them. Just curious what others think.

I saw the report also and I wish I had copied the names of the restaurants in the scam to share here. I find it quite interesting that zander can be imported that much cheaper than what Canadian walleye sells for.
If the taste of zander is that close to walleye , I would guess there could be many more places doing the same thing. Quite a few places have walleye strips on the appetizer menu.
I was happy to see that Tavern on Grand is one of the places that serves what they advertise. It is a good place to eat.

Dino

Restaurants Serving Zander
* Sunshine Factory Restaurant and Bistro in New Hope
* Majors Sports Café in Woodbury
* Maynard’s Restaurant in Excelsior
* Spectators Grille and Bar in Savage
* Jake’s Sports Café in Crystal
* St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin

Restaurants Serving Walleye
* Tavern on Grand in St. Paul
* Sunsets in Wayzata
* Lord Fletcher’s in Spring Park
* Zelo in Minneapolis
* Axel’s River Grille in Mendota
* Carousel Restaurant in St. Paul
* Shelley’s Restaurant in St. Louis Park

From Kare11 …full story in next post…