No.4 of 100

I quickly cross the busy car park and head straight into an alley that leads towards Hughes st. I can see the sunlight glaring at the other end. Today, I’m on a hunt…

I’m looking for oysters! I have a dinner party to attend and I have no time to prepare a dish. My fellow party goers are all seasoned food connoisseurs and they will be serving up food that most restaurants will envy. I wont get away with bringing a bottle of wine. No, I need to impress.

No one ever turns their nose at oysters….at least not these ones. I spot Shaun in his plastic blue apron and he waves me in. I explain my situation in haste. He calmly smiles and  leads me to the glass cabinet where several hundred oysters are on display .  He reassures me that he picked them up just a few hours ago from the fish markets. They were still alive up until a moment ago when he shucked them himself. I know I’ve come to the right place.

They are lined up in order of ascending size. Each one looking as fresh as an oyster can look. Plump, creamy and shiny.

Sharing the front part of the display are rows and rows of beautiful meaty scallops resting on soft pink fan shaped shells.

Over in the sashimi display are fillets of prepacked salmon and seaweed salad. Throughout the shop are tanks and tanks of various crustaceans and fish.

But back to the task at hand, oyster. Yes it is so easy to be distracted here. I have a choice of 3 oysters  in various sizes:

1. South Australian Pacific oysters, available in a whooping 5 sizes. From JUMBO, grande then down to small. How do I choose which size? Well that depends on your dish. The larger ones are good for mornay or steaming. The smaller ones are eaten naturale, preserving their creamy sweetness.

2. Sydney Rock oysters, my personal favourite. The taste is delicate and much less briney than the pacific. They tend to grow smaller and the texture softer. They are a unique specie, found nowhere else in the world other than it’s breeding grounds of  NSW and Moreton Bay, QLD.

3. Tasmanian Pacific oysters, same as what you would expect from other pacific oysters though some say Tasmanian ones tastes better than the others, as they are bred in deep waters, below the effects of tides (subtidal). Others argue that they don’t differ at all because ALL pacific oysters in Australia are bred from Tasmanian breeding stock (sprats) and are thus, all descendents of the same specie.

So I’ve chosen a dozen of the mid size ones $13.99 and a dozen of scallops $15. I love scallop sashimi. Shaun’s ones are so fresh and sweet! Definitely best eaten natural. The texture is unbelievable. Its firm and plump yet al dente at the same time. All beautifully presented and cleaned. No sacs, shells or stringy bits. Good enough to present to my friends.

As I’m walking out, I spy someone shucking oysters in the back. The displays are full of oysters already, surely he isn’t planning on storing them is he? I decide to ask Shaun about them.  He explains that he supplies the large chinese restaurants in Cabramatta and Saturdays are wedding banquet nights. So Dinh is preparing the restaurant orders.

Including wholesale and public sales, Shaun sells some 500 dozens a day (that’s 6000 oysters!), lucky for Dinh, not all buyers want them shucked!

No more morning drives up to Sydney’s fish market for fresh and cheap oysters, we have Shaun. Lucky me and lucky you!