First: Ina's seafood chowder recipe:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/...recipe-1925488
Originally Posted by
JBord
I've only been to the one in Northbrook, one time. In fact, I went looking for lobster and didn't see anything other than the small frozen tails - same as I can get at Mariano's. It may just have been a bad day, but I was not impressed with their inventory -- although I was impressed with the deli there. I believe you may have been at the Highland Park store? I'm wondering if that one is better. I'll definitely give it a try one of these days.
Originally Posted by
work2fly
The soft shell crabs at $8 each look tempting.
I'm sure I could make them keto with a dip in egg, followed by a crushed pork rind and Parmesan "breading". Might not taste too much like crab anymore though
Originally Posted by
JBord
I should have mentioned -- that was my other disappointment with the Sunset I visited. But also realize that seafood is likely to be generally more expensive in Chicago than the coast. The fish markets here are extremely expensive (but high quality), with one exception I've found. Fresh Farms, which is a small chain that carries almost exclusively Eastern European foods has an excellent fish selection often at 2/3 or even 1/2 the price of the big chains.
Originally Posted by
gaobest
I also love the stone crabs at joes steak & seafood. Yummy.
I only go to the highland park one and I don’t know how it compares to the others; I just prefer Sunset over other HP options.
It’s Chicagoland :-)
you can also keto them by just baking them on their own and chowing down.
Originally Posted by
corky
Still the lobster tails are from Maine so they should be equally as expensive out here. And snow crab clusters are around $10 here and they are also not local (and personally I think they are crap).
This is LaLaLand...not known for being inexpensive.
Chicago is not inherently expensive, and a muchof the stuff you find in the seafood section of most stores is coming from the same distributors (one of the largest of which is owned by the Moonies). All of the stuff gaobest linked to is likely frozen (softshell crabs haven't been in season for months) so there's no point in making a special trip to Sunset for them if you have a closer source. Personally, I buy 99% of my seafood at Whole Foods, Dirk's, H-Mart and Mitsuwa. H-Mart and Mitsuwa generally have the best prices and all have an abundance of fresh stuff. (WF probably has the most items that were previously frozen.) I'm not going into stores until after my family leaves, so I'll call in an order to Dirk's on Wednesday to pick up shrimp, crab and scallops for our seafood chowder, since they do curbside pickup. (Also, some of their yummy smoked whitefish spread, which isn't as awesome as the stuff we get in Northern Michigan, but a pretty good substitute when you're stuck in Chicago during a pandemic.)