FISH TAILS

• My mouth is already watering — a boat with SANDABS on it is coming in … but you gotta hold off on your salivating until Saturday morning — get those pre-orders in!
• ROCK COD is still kinda tight — no such issues with TRUE or LING COD, or KINGKLIP.
• We’ve been bringing in the 7-oz Packs of the Marinated ANCHOVYS in Oil (or “Boccarones” as a lot of y’all call ‘em) rather than the 2.2# Tubs … they seem to be more user-friendly, and they work out to be cheaper, too. What’s your feedback? (And I always thought that Boccarones was deep-fried Pork rinds.)
• The classics: nice variety of HALIBUT, nice variety of SALMON, CORVINA & WHITE C-BASS, PETRALE SOLE.
• The exotics: HALIBUT CHEEX, Peruvian BAY ‘LANTERN’ SCALLOPS, SACTO. STRIPED BASS, HUACHINAGO, BRONZINI & DORADE.

… SOFT-SHELL CRABS! — Fresh SHRIMPMEAT — Live CRAYFISH — HALIBUT / SALMON / SOLE / ORANGE RUFFIE / CODS / SCALLOPS / OYSTERS / etc. / yesterday’s ‘Tail’ is below

FISH TAILS

• Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, so today must be MAY the FOURTH be with you. And there hasn’t been much to crow about regarding the Orange & Black, but Friday (– or is it Saturday?) is Willie Mays’ 80th Birthday. Finally, Sunday is “You Better Remember to Call Your Mom” Day.
• Speaking of orange, there’s ORANGE ROUGHY expected in with our JOHN DORY on Friday.
• What’s new? The Local KING SALMON season hasn’t produced any real numbers yet, the seas are pretty choppy outside, and the price remains high … but we do have Kings, mostly from OR, and just a few Local ones.
• SOFT-SHELL CRABS for Mom’s Day are gonna happen!! We’re hoping to pick ‘em up at SFO so you could have ‘em by Friday. PRIMES = $44.00 per dz, and HOTELS = 34.
• Speaking of pricing, all of the Oyster shippers from up north & back east, (and even some of the Tomales Bay growers) have recently implemented a price-hike (yeh-yeh, same ol’ cost-of-gas story), and we have to finally give in and follow suit.
• Typically for Mother’s Day, the big volume items are DRY-PACK SCALLOPS, DUNG. CRABMEAT & Fresh CKD SHRIMPMT, OYSTERS, SMOKED SALMON, SALMON , & HALIBUT. Reserve your numbers as soon as you have an idea!
• Other than that, a heckuva nice selection, and a lotta’ tonnage … check out da’ Hot-Sheet, and May da’ 4th be with you.

• Can’t say that I have a good explanation, but Big Mahalos to all of you who helped make April our biggest month ever so far. With Mother’s Day and Cinco de Mayo coming right up, May should start off pretty good, too.
• Starting off, a lotta’ that stuff that we didn’t have for Saturday is either in by now or expected in by Tues. Such as: MAHI / Sml CORVINA / YELLOWTAIL JACK / Arctic CHAR / etc.
• Regarding the ‘O’s: OPAH is in, ONAGA expected in, still No Ono, and No more Osama, either.
• And No Petrale … we have some inexpensive Pacific Soles — ENGLISH & DOVER

• WILD STRIPED BASS! — Looking at last year’s numbers, we had zero to very little Striped Bass from April thru November … this week’s shipment may be our last shipment for a while, so jump on ‘em while you can.
• Also, try our Suzuki-quality Farmed REAL STRIPED BASS, not hybrids, running about 3-5 lbs ea. The operation up near Sacramento has always sold these alive, so they don’t even have an ice-machine yet. They’ve been arriving to us alive, and we have to plunge ‘em into a slush solution to shut down their system!
• As usual this time of year, plenty of other ‘BASS‘ available.
• On to HALIBUT — the Northern HALIBUT price has dropped considerably from initial quotes. Both SoCAL and LOCAL are available, too.
• With calmer seas, we should start seeing more Pacific fish. You’ll be able to count on ROCK COD this week, and not have to resort to Pollock as a sub. Some Fresh (not thawed) J-Cut BLACK COD coming down from Canada, (with a price hike). PETRALE and less expensive SOLES are gonna be in. And several boats left the dock today to go hunt down and dig out their crab-traps, (which have been out there for a while) … we’re expecting to have CRABS this week. Finally, we’d expect to hear from the Tomales Bay OYSTER growers that they’ll be harvesting somtime this week … stay tuned.
• Our least expensive Fresh Crabmeat is the Maine ROCK/JONAH CRABMT, excellent on its own, or blend it with DUNG. CRBMT in your CrabCakes to help bring your costs down.
• Price-List above … Hot-Sheet below … More ‘Tails’ later …

ALOHA SFD Weekly $-List 97-03 .xls

• HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to us. Today marks Aloha Seafood’s 3-year birthday, tomorrow we begin our 4th year, and our highest gratitude goes out to you all who’ve made it happen for us. MAHALO!
• A week from today is important, because Pitchers & Catchers report. Furthermore, it should be one of your busiest nights of the year because it’s also Valentine’s Day …
• … SALMON & SCALLOPS are always popular, and we should have plenty. Here’s some “Salmon” ideas that aren’t always on your radar — Arctic CHAR; STEELHEAD (both Wild and Farmed); and Boned Red-Meat TROUT. And don’t forget about our line of SMOKED Salmon, and other Smoked Seafoods.
• CAVIAR on the menu? We inventory only a little bit, so Get Those Orders Called In Now!
• Pretty good supply of the “staples” — Bass (including Wild STRIPERS & SNOOK); Cod (including Blackburn’s HADDOCK); PETRALE SOLE; SoCAL HALIBUT, etc.
• It’s been a while, but SANDABS showed up.
• So will OPAH & ONAGA by Tuesday, which completes the return of the Triple O’s, (the other being ONO).
• As the Herring run ended more than a week ago, the ones still in our ice may be past their prime … we’ll probably feed ‘em to Toby (our resident pet SeaLion) … but we do have several buckets of Test-Run KAZUNOKO with a shelf-life similar to Uranium.
• We know you’ll start loading up by this Thursday for the whole weekend leading up to V-Day, so Please, Please, Please let us know NOW about any “unusual” products and/or any unusual amounts so that we can meet your expectations and take any unnecessary concerns off your mind. Mahalo.