My wife wants some caviar to eat over the general mirth period coming at us. Again, I know nothing really at all…
I see us buying and eating the stuff only very rarely moving forward, so don’t want to bother with cheap and or crappy options, but don’t also feel the need to jump straight to the insanely priced options either. Can anyone point me in the direction of where or what I should be looking for? Should I even bother looking local (ie Portland) or simply suck it up and go online and deal with shipping?
I realize this is an incredibly open ended question, but any help or thoughts would really be appreciated.
Since you live in Portland OR, I’d suggest ordering from Catalina Offshore Products in San Diego. Their address and phone numbers are: 5202 Lovelock St. San Diego, CA 92110
Phone: (619) 297-9797 - Fax: (619) 297-9799.
Catalina is a great place (I use them) and would use them for salmon, tobiko and other goodies but if you are looking for sturgeon i would suggest this place:
or one of the many places that sell their product. It’s sustainably farmed. There are other American Caviars you could check out too.
I’d stay away from Caspian caviar because of the impending doom facing the species there.
Beluga is illegal in the U.S now so any of that you see is either black market of questionable origin. I would looked for farmed Osetra from Israel or somewhere else in the mideast. To me they are the best due to their size and firmness of the egg. I hate mushy caviar. There are many sources and you will probably pay around $100/oz. In Israel there is some sustainable caviar production. There are some good domestic sources also for less money but I am less familiar with those so hesitate to recommend one. I am sure others will chime in.
I think how you serve the roe is also key. I like mine very, very plain usually just the caviar maybe a blini a little egg yolk but tend to stay away from the cremes and onions anything with a very strong flavor. Do not use a metal spoon.
I had mushy caviar at La Folie a few weeks ago. Awful but then again at $110/oz in a restaurant i was not expecting to be great. Although I did expect it to be better than it was.
I’ve ordered from caviarstar.com with no problems. For a party, I like to do three and compare; Osetra, good domestic paddlefish/sturgeon, and some salmon roe. Good variety of flavors, great looking color contrast.
I was looking at one of the websites the other day and it seemed that going with Paddlefish might strike a balance between price and quality - something that isn’t just tiny quantities on a special occasion. While probably clearly not as good as the real thing, how is the Paddlefish in your opinion? Enjoyable and close enough to the real thing that it is worth the trade-off for being afforable?
Best served by itself on a blini if you ask me. Some folks like a little creme fraiche or sour cream, and some try to cover up the taste even more by adding bermuda onion or hard boiled egg.
Another good simple service is to roast some halved baby Yukon or other baby potatoes and use them in place of the blini. It adds a bit of sweet that I like sometimes.
Sometimes good, sometimes muddy flavors, especially if served too warm. I prefer sturgeon, but everything is personal opinion. Some folks like good salmon roe better than beluga or osetra Again, my advice is to buy an ounce of three different ones and see which you like best. Then go to another source and do the same.