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I like this list - maybe an honorable mention to San Francisco?
Never had seafood in SF.
I had seafood in Seattle, on the other hand, for seven straight days. That's because the people there kept bragging about the wild salmon. I admit that it was a good fish, but the preparation is as important as the quality of the fish (imo), and I felt Seattle came up short there. There was nothing in particular that stands out the way a crabcake seasoned with Old Bay, lemon and dressing does or the way shrimp and grits in Charleston does. I thought the seafood there, while fresh (but isn't that the case for most places on the water?), was exceptionally bland.
Is this thread about who has the best seafood or who has the best seafood restaurants or regional seafood dishes? Because, they're not neccesarily one and the same.
Is this thread about who has the best seafood or who has the best seafood restaurants or regional seafood dishes? Because, they're not neccesarily one and the same.
I suppose it be could any of those three. The OP doesn't specify.
I had seafood in Seattle, on the other hand, for seven straight days. That's because the people there kept bragging about the wild salmon. I admit that it was a good fish, but the preparation is as important as the quality of the fish (imo), and I felt Seattle came up short there. There was nothing in particular that stands out the way a crabcake seasoned with Old Bay, lemon and dressing does or the way shrimp and grits in Charleston does. I thought the seafood there, while fresh (but isn't that the case for most places on the water?), was exceptionally bland.
The Northwest has great seafood--but it just doesn't have any really amazing regional dishes that are really unique to the area. I mean salmon dishes aren't specifically unique to the region, but you'll find salmon in almost everything up here. Salmon chowder and salmon cakes and so on... Some of the highest quality salmon is coming from Alaska however like the prized Copper River salmon. There's plenty of good chefs cooking seafood in Seattle--and good Asian places especially Chinese specializing in seafood, but you don't have something like you have in Boston or Baltimore or New Orleans where there's unique seafood dishes to the area that you're going to find at both expensive restaurants and little seafood shacks. The selection of oysters in the Northwest is very good as well if that's something you like--there's a good range that's different than the larger oysters of the Southeast, with a broad range of taste and size--New England is similar in this way as well. You can find crab-cakes in Seattle restaurants, though the Dungeness crab of the Northwest, while very tasty--isn't as suited to making crab-cakes as the blue crabs of the Chesapeke Bay region.
On the other hand I can drive out to the Oregon coast in about an hour, go fishing in my friend's boat, catch several salmon, throw out a crab pot and get a couple Dungeness crabs, get some mussels at low tide, and then buy some Nehalem and Tillamook Bay oysters for incredibly cheap prices on the way home. There's incredibly easy access to seafood here, but I'm not sure how much better than somewhere like Chesapeake Bay or much of the Gulf Coast it'd be. It's probably more just a matter of preference. Though I'll say that in much of the Southeast, I've found places where seafood is incredibly cheap to eat in restaurants compared to the Northwest. Giant oysters in Louisiana for $10 a dozen at an oyster bar is much cheaper than the West Coast or cheap and fresh catch of the day specials in Florida with grouper or mahi-mahi for a bargain. But it's more so that restaurants are more expensive, you can get seafood cheap if you know where to go or just catch it yourself.
San Francisco on the other hand can lay claim to the cioppino--which despite being a dish with it's origins in the recipes of the Genovese fisherman of Italy who settled in SF--has basically become it's own regional specialty. The best are the huge cioppinos you can get with several types of fish, mussels, clams, crab legs, shrimp, scallops, and calamari with fresh sourdough bread on the side. Just like Boston and New England have the lobster roll or Baltimore has crab-cakes or New Orleans has seafood gumbo, bbq shrimp, baked oyster dishes, and crawfish etoufee and so on.
Sadly, I think China has taken over a good amount of the Crawfish industry. Like in grocery stores (or at least in New Orleans), they have frozen and peeled Chinese Crawfish and they are always cheaper than the local stuff (but not as good of course). I think most people still try to use local crawfish and the crawfish that is still in the shell is usually always local. You can even see from that source that I posted that it went from 90% of all crawfish harvested in the world to just saying 95% of crawfish harvested in the U.S.
It's true with crabs in Maryland too if you buy it from a supermarket (precooked and frozen).
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