Unless you make friends with a chef, food writers rarely get to see what’s going on in the kitchen. We guess at what’s happening behind the scenes, taking our cues from what’s on our plates. Unsurprisingly, then, I jumped at the chance to get an insider’s look at Legal Sea Foods.

Yes, it’s a chain. And yes, it’s where you take your parents when they come to town. But, the sheer magnitude of this Boston-based operation—30-plus restaurants, plus more in the queue—made it impossible for me to ignore. So last Friday, I gladly donned a fleece and followed CEO Roger Berkowitz into the innards of Legal’s local operations: the Quality Control Center, on the South Boston waterfront. (The address? One Seafood Way.) (more…)

In addition to the influx of upscale joints plating up astronomically priced maki and nigiri in neighborhoods already drowning in the stuff, yet another alarming trend in the raw fish industry has emerged this week, this one outside our city boundaries. On Wednesday, the New York Times released the results of independent research on mercury levels in raw tuna (mostly of the bluefin variety) served in Manhattan sushi establishments, and needless to say, the results are disturbing:

“Recent laboratory tests found so much mercury in tuna sushi from 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants that at most of them, a regular diet of six pieces a week would exceed the levels considered acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sushi from 5 of the 20 places had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market.”

So does this mean Bostonians should drop the chopsticks and head for the nearest Applebee’s? Not quite yet. (more…)

Sushi is a staff favorite here at Chowder. We don’t care if it’s prepared in a fancy high-end restaurant or a tiny storefront; as long as the fish is fresh we’re there. But as a former resident of Brookline’s Washington Square, I was depressed to hear that another high-end sushi place may be heading for the long-vacant space that was formerly the B&D Deli.

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