Tilapia sucks!
 

My local Mexican restaurant uses tilapia in its Signature fish dish. It is awful, but wouldn't be awful if they used pretty much anything else.

1) Don't order it.
2) Consider the dish might be another $10 a serving if it used its preferred fish choice.
3) The fish itself is an ok fish. The dirty farmed version is not. There are cleaner farmed versions.
4) Be careful what you wish for. "Much anything else" could be worse.

In Florida, Mahi Mahi is popular, and I find it acceptable. And, in New England, there are many choices. I actually wasn't so impressed with the choices on the west coast (e.g. salmon and halibut seem to be staples), but at least the quality was good. In all cases, fish doesn't really break the bank.

High quality local fish is $$$. Most restaurant, most of the time, in most of the USA, are using frozen, and frequently, farmed, fish. I'd rather have good frozen than rotting "fresh." The economics of small (not fancy) places using anything but industrial fish just doesn't pan (so to speak) out.

Perhaps I am spoiled, but one of the few benefits of being a Cape Cod native is that we can get amazing fish anytime we want.

Florida isn't quite as good, but I'm definitely cool with the Mahi as long as it well prepared.

I like Tilapia. I guess I'm the outlier here. :p

Interesting. I've always found the fish in the Bay Area in CA to be very disappointing. Even the supposedly good stores (such as Whole Foods and its competitors) and the roadside fresh fish markets in fishing ports seem to sell fish that has seen better days. It's really not that hard - catch it and get it on sale later the same day or, in extremis, the following day.

I therefore avoid fish in the USA altogether now.

Tilapia are great at converting any kind of organic matter into lean protein, but they also don't provide the omega-3 and other trendy benefits of eating fish.

I like tilapia as a generic protein that I can add to anything...an easy dinner I do sometimes is to stop at the grocery store salad bar on my way home, then put a frozen tilapia filet on the salad when I get home. 25 mins in a 450 oven cooks it perfectly from frozen. I rub it with a little olive oil and whatever seasoning strikes my fancy at the time.

Maybe tofu of the lake?

As I mentioned upthread, I think the entire West Coast lacks variety in the seafood area, but the quality is not bad. Boston, on the other hand, is honestly awesome.

It’s an ugly fresh water fish.

Don't order it then.

Well, the restaurant I mentioned in my OP simply marketed it as "fish". I (mistakenly) assumed that for $30, they would source a decent product.

Point taken, although I've seen them in brackish water south of here.

For what it's worth, Princeton Seafood near the docks at Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay is a reliable purveyor of fresh seafood. Occasionally, we'll also walk the docks to see what we can buy off the boats.

I"m surprised restaurants in the US don't source yellow perch or walleye more. It's far more delicious than Tilipia.

I think I agree with this - it seems 1/2 the shelf space is salmon of one kind or another.

That said, in addition to the salmon, you can usually find local halibut, rock fish, petrale sole, albacore and striped bass. Not bad, but nowhere near the variety to be had on the other coast.

My SO is a native of the Cape as well. She's got one of the highest bars for seafood I've ever come across.

I agree that tilapia isn't the best but I think you're also giving short shrift to the west coast. While is may seem like halibut/salmon are the only things on the menu, you need to pay attention to the seasonal fish they have on offer. Rockfish, sardines, squid, mackerel, albacore, ling cod, herring, and seabass are delicious and available in season up and down the coast.

Your roots are showing :)

Growing up, we would fish on Lake Erie and you pretty much dropped a double hook thing into the water and would pull up 2 perch at a time - repeat as often as you needed.

When I lived in Portland, OR 10 years ago, Zupan's had pretty nice fish that wasn't super expensive.

But, when I was a student at Stanford 5 years before, I was pretty much limited to salmon from Safeway.

I'm a native of Michigan ^

You could always find a local restaurant with fresh versions of either. YUM.

I've never been to Michigan, aside from your main airport, but I've heard the fish is nice. However, I can't believe it can compare with Boston. :D

Both long-time residents of a good Wisconsin Friday night fish fry!

It isn't available as a cheap farmed commodity, readily commercially available, with stable pricing.

You really haven't lived until you've started baking your salads! And then you've earned your baked ice cream for dessert.

I am fortunate to live close to two very good fish markets. One is the purveyor for the best restaurants in the area. But you pay accordingly. Most fresh local sea product is $$$. And delicious. The other has a larger selection, including imported sashimi grade, high quality farmed, and whatever may be available locally. I nearly cry when I see the poor dead fishes in a supermarket case, likely frozen and defrosted at least a couple of times over. My loaves come from Acme and my fishes come from above. Don't hate. But if Tilapia is what is served in my local hole-in-the-wall's dish, I'll usually eat it.

My local supermarket in Brooklyn is pretty bad about this. I've asked for whole fish and larger portions ahead of time and they usually can accommodate but always with the proviso "It'll be frozen, that ok?" Absolutely! I'd prefer it that way. Seeing the limp salmon fillets with no color is depressing.

I'm up on the Cape quite a lot and their selection is fantastic but as discussed, very pricey. One of my favorite foods is Nantucket Bay Scallops and you better believe they are never cheap. I couldn't find them for less than $35 a lb this year. I've got a good relationship now with the guys and they give me a break on larger lobsters later in the summer. I'll never understand people's reticence to buy anything larger than a 1.5 lb lobster.

agreed. That being said I wonder why these two species aren't farmed commercially. I would think there would be a market but what do I know.

Unfortunately the quality goes down with farmed fish and you might not find it as delicious, assuming they would be suitable. I've had farmed catfish, trout, clams, salmon and cobia. I imagine there are others, but not every fish wants to thrive in farm conditions.

It lives in fresh water, salt water, septic tanks as well. Eats anything.

I think there's farmed fish and there's farmed fish. The few times I've had tilapia, and I assume it was farmed, I've been pretty disappointed. It could be anything really, it doesn't taste like fish just blandness. I find the same with a lot of the barramundi that comes into Australia from SE Asia. It's flavourless and poorly frozen for transport.

If you don't like it, don't go for it.

I do not order any menu item simply identified as "fish" without asking what type of fish it is and perhaps even where it is from. Tilapia is not a fish I typically order eat because it is bland and tasteless. It is the Wonder Bread of fish.

Yes, I am the idiot in this case. Basically, in Boston, or even Florida, there is no way in hell that a restaurant would sell Tilapia for $30. I would be willing to pay an extra $10 for a fish that doesn't taste like sawdust because the preparation was actually quite nice.

Funny story. I was in Eugene OR on a business trip and grabbing dinner at the Fisherman's Market. As I was waiting to order, I overheard an employee taking a call from a customer asking if they had walleye. The employee said something like, "Walleye? I've never even heard of that. What is it?" I helped the poor guy out and said it's a lake fish from the midwest, so you wouldn't have it here.

On topic, I find tilapia to be either bland or muddy. It seems that sometimes, certain chemicals build up in farm-raised fish due to the presence of cyanobacteria. Since cyanobacteria blooms come and go, you might have a "muddy" fish or a cleaner tasting fish. That said, I think the texture is fine - just not a fan of the flavor. Would much rather be eating Patagonian toothfish, although tough to find sustainably caught.

I try to catch enough black seabass and tautog during the summer season to keep my freezer full through the winter but I usually fail.

I tried some walleye at a friend's in MN years ago and it was fantastic.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. It wouldn't be the first time a restaurant has charged exorbitant prices for second-rate fish.

The more troubling part is when you ask a server what fish is used in the fish tacos or fish and chips and they claim they don't know. And fish and chips made with tilapia is an insult to the English-speaking world. ;)

I agree! But it actually makes a decent fish taco, which is really the only way I'll eat tilapia.