Quality Seafood - Redondo Beach Pier

Always good eats at Redondo Beach Pier. Yesterday we were set to go out with an old friend of mine who lives within walking distance to the pier. We had decided to take her (Michelle from Puerto Rico) to the outdoor open-air seafood market, Quality Seafood, at the base of the pier. Quality Seafood primarily is a seafood market where you can buy fresh seafood to take home and cook, BUT they also have the option for steaming, broiling or frying of your bivalves (clams, oysters, mussels), lobsters, fish and crabs. They also had many different types of smoked fishes.

For a mere 14 dollars, we bought a fried red snapper with 3 small side dishes (1 corn on the cob, basket of fries, potato salad). An extra 3.50 dollars netted us 12 whole fried squid. Drinks were expensive, so bring your own!

Fried Whole Squid

This dish reminded me of mom's fried squid from my childhood. There was a difference though, mom's fried squid always required us to search and take out the ink sacs and was far more salty. This dish was fried well, the insides cooked perfectly, the insides of the squid were fuller than I remember from mom's dish. The cocktail sauce was just mediocre, something a little spicy like rooster sauce would have been perfect!

Fried Red Snapper

So many fresh fish to choose from... Tilapia, Rock Cod, Catfish, Mexican Snapper, Mackerel. After viewing all the fish, we decided to go with the Red Snapper. We were allowed to pick any of 15 different red snappers for our dinner. Right in front of us, they gutted and cleaned the fish. It was dipped briefly in some sauce and then taken over for frying. The snapper was fried to perfection, the skin crispy and salty, most of the outer bones able to be easily swallowed. The fleshy meaty part of the fish was cooked perfectly with natural fish oils draping the succulent meat. My wife commented, this was like back at Indonesia although missing the correct hot sauce (sambal).

The good: Food was all good, and we were stuffed!
The bad: Amenities in general but especially Bathrooms! Basically just the pier bathrooms, outdoor eating could sometimes be a burden when its cold or raining but beautiful when the weather is nice.
Overall: Based on price and quality/freshness of food, this is definitely a must go if you are a seafood fan!