Fresh

I forgot to write about a few of our Japanese tourists. They are impossible to fool when it comes to the salmon meal at Orca Point Lodge.

The salmon the lodge serves is coho (silver) salmon that is locally caught (Scott likes to joke that it’s likely farm-raised Atlantic salmon) but has been frozen, thawed, and grilled for all the tourists to see as they’re walking into the lodge. Staff won’t offer to lie and say the salmon is fresh, but if asked, I’m sure that’s what most of us would say. Most tourists are content to eat their meal and declare it to be the most delicious salmon they’ve ever eaten without inquiring about its freshness. I think most of them just assume it is.

We had one Japanese couple say at the end of their meal, “This has been frozen.”

We had another Japanese couple who didn’t want the person at the grill to cook their pieces of salmon at all. They wanted to eat it raw, sashimi style. But to have allowed that to happen would’ve definitely given it away, so the grill guy insisted that he at least sear the fillets of salmon. I’m sure he left the pieces on the grill longer than the couple wanted.

When Zak, the captain, was going through the comment cards after the tour, he read a comment that said, “More raw fish,” to which Zak said, “I don’t want to generalize, but I think we can safely say that the Japanese couple wrote this comment.”