Ocean Odyssey Inland

Ever since Billingsgate closed, I’ve been looking for a new place to buy quality seafood. T&T is fine, since they have reasonably good turnover, but I have been looking for more sustainable options. I decided to check this place out because one of my favourite farms, Greens Eggs and Ham, sell their fowl products here.
Located in a little strip mall (free parking in front) across from Mayfield Common and Pacesetters Ski Shoppes, Ocean Odyssey is all about wild caught seafood. What I didn’t know is that everything is sold frozen — the tiny little shop (you can fit about 8 people in there; any more and there isn’t really space to poke around) is filled with deep freezers and stand-​up freezers, with a label on the outside as to what you will find when you open it. They have all kinds of fish (lots of salmon!), crustaceans (they had fresh spot prawns that day), and bivalves, though the availability depends on the time of year. Everything is vacuum sealed for freshness and they will immediately reseal something if they find that the bag has been punctured.
With the direct flights from Iceland Air, they now also stock fresh Icelandic fish. When I was there they happened to have some fresh Icelandic red fish — the fish I chose wasn’t frozen all the way yet because they’d just gotten it in. I was also able to pick up some sablefish (aka black cod, butterfish) fillets to make Nobu’s miso black cod, yum. Prices are high but this is the price of bringing quality seafood to Edmonton, and isn’t much more than other places.
Interestingly — they also sell some Ukranian yummies such a perogies. I didn’t see the price and picked up a bag of cheddar ones — turned out they were $ 17.25 for a small bag — yikes! Will report back on whether it’s worth it once I eat them.
Overall, I quite like this shop, and I will probably be back if I’m in the area.

It pays to be knowledgeable and so before I went splashing my cash on my fishy friends — I decided to do my little research on the kind of fishes that contain the lowest mercury possible.
Instead of buying it off our lovely giant supermarket — I figured it would be a fairly good idea to walk straight into a local fish market. My idealistic local fish market would be to walk in to a courteous, friendly and of course knowledgeable fishmongers.
As I walked into this small local fish market, I was welcomed by an older lady. I followed by asking which kind of fishes contain the lowest mercury — she looked at me and answered «all of our fishes are clean «from Iceland. I wasn’t convinced. The phone rang, and the lady left my side. I decided to go with whitefish and haddock which is on the lowest mercury list regardless of what the lady had claimed.
When it came to paying, came another fishmonger — curious that I was about the whitefish, I asked if he had any idea how it tasted or even the best way to cook it. The fishmonger answered that he wouldn’t be able to describe how it tasted nor there is any best way of cooking it. The answers the fishmongers gave me was unappealing, unconvincing and unsound.
Nevertheless I left with 5 frozen haddock & 1 frozen whitefish. Would I return? Not very likely. I’m afraid.
3 stars for what’s worth.

I stumbled upon this gem at the 104 street farmer’s market, and was excited when I learned they are a local store, open all year round!
They have every kind of fish you could want (or at least every kind I would want), and they bring fish in fresh EVERY WEEK from ICELAND!!! How cool is that?
My favourite is the arctic char and mahi mahi! The halibut and red fish are also wonderful. Really, it’s all amazing. And I find the prices to be very reasonable.
Stop buying farmed salmon from Costco and go support a local business.
The staff and owners here are wonderful as well. Super helpful and you can tell they love what they do!