Hey everyone, hope you're having an amazing day.
It's Mark Wiens.
I am in San Pedro California, which is just south of LA, right next to Long Beach and surrounded by the massive ports of Los Angeles.
And today we are at a place called San Pedro Fish Market, home of the famous home of the legendary shrimp and seafood trays.
It's huge.
You choose the different seafood that you want.
Have you ever had a sheep head, a wild sheep head?
They cook it up fresh for you.
They serve it to you on a tray, a massive mountainous platter of seafood.
I'm gonna share all of the seafood with you in this beautiful location and it's gonna be an ultimate seafood party.
Is this a one-biter?
Oh, this is a one-biter.
It's a one-biter.
Oh, it's a one-biter.
All right, let's go.
Cheers.
Whenever you eat a mountain of seafood on a tray, you need a friend to eat it with.
Where did he go?
Man, I just said hello to him.
Where is he?
Dude, can you... You didn't see me, right?
No, I didn't see you.
I was behind this pole.
Oh, there you are.
I'm very thin.
I don't know if I can help you eat all this seafood.
I'm a very small guy.
Sunny.
You ready?
Dude, are you ready for a mountain of seafood on a tray?
I just got over my gout and I'm ready for gout round two.
Let's do this.
We're very excited to be here, and it just so happened that both Sonia and I were completely unplanned in LA at the same time.
Absolutely.
You have to take advantage of it.
So we're going to use this opportunity to hang out and eat a seafood tray.
Let's do it.
For both Sunny and I, this is our first time here.
So we're going to walk around.
We're going to start walking around.
Let's go see the seafood.
Let's try to figure out the process.
There's a bunch of seafood here.
Do you have an idea?
What's your plan?
You want a whole platter of seafood, right?
A whole platter.
Do you care if it's fish?
Do you want crustaceans, crabs?
We definitely need shrimp because I know they're most famous for shrimp.
But I think a giant fried fish on top of that, crustaceans.
We've got to get it all.
Just a mix.
Let's get it all.
Let's do it.
Okay, we'll go to the back first and check out the fish market selection and the fresh seafood, the fresh catch of the day.
They have this whole cooler here that's all full of stuff.
And then over there, they have a bunch of whole big fish.
So fish are like 15, 20 pounds, big ones.
Wow.
Take a look.
What's your name, man?
My name's Miguel.
Miguel, nice to meet you.
Everyone here calls me the bear.
The bear, awesome.
How many pounds are you going for?
Well, we'll go for however many pounds can fit on the tray.
All right, awesome.
I can't wait.
Let's maximize the tray.
Dunny, have you ever had a sheep head, a wild sheep head?
I've never had a sheep head.
They look awesome.
It's huge.
It has a giant forehead like me.
It needs a little bandana right here.
And I love the name.
It's a sheep head.
But I'm thinking a sheep head might be best fried.
Yeah, absolutely.
Crispy, a crispy sheep head.
All right, dude.
Let's do this.
We don't have gloves, but we have a bag.
How about you pick us out?
Pick us the freshest sheep head there, Sonny.
Should I smell them?
How do you know if it's fresh?
My trust is in you.
All right, I think this one looks nice and big.
Yeah, oh, look at this little guy.
He's a beauty.
Oh, yeah.
Pull them out.
It's got some nice weight to it.
There you go.
It's pretty cool that it's choose your own fish.
We're gonna bring this over to Big Bear. who I think he's in charge of gutting the fish.
Yeah, I see him doing it right now.
He's making work of some fish over there.
He's so cool, he's so cool.
And then we're gonna proceed on to the next station.
Perfect.
Really, that's good picking right there.
It's a good fish.
Yes, it's giving its teeth rock-like teeth because it eats lobsters crustaceans clams, mussels.
All right, thank you very much.
Thank you.
We got the fish.
We're going to move on to the seafood station where you get the tray and let's load up.
Let's do it.
I see two things that stand out to me.
There's lobster tail, wild lobster tail, about $73 a pound.
And then they have these giant king crab legs.
Already cooked, $95 a pound.
Oh, man.
$95 a pound.
That's including the shell, but it looks amazing.
Can we do one pound medium clean and one pound wild regular?
Wild large.
Yeah, because those are wild.
What makes a difference?
Yes, two of those.
Yeah please, it's two legs, it's a pound, it's 119 pounds and that's 113 dollars from what we see right here on the tray.
We're so uncertain here and we have no idea what we're doing.
But the people that are in line, they like, they have a goal, they have a plan, they know what they're doing.
People come here like once a week probably.
It's definitely regular here.
Oh yeah.
Okay, and we, I think we ordered everything.
She's dishing it all out.
The shrimp, we got the scallops, sausage, corn.
Any lemons or one of our hot sauces?
Lemons for sure.
Yeah, who shouldn't?
Right here, we have habanero hot sauce.
The hottest one they have here.
Can I outdo the spice lord, Mark Leans?
Let's see.
Cajun, garlic butter, or a spicy Diablo sauce?
What's the most popular, first of all?
Cajun is the most popular.
But then there's an extra spicy Diablo, and there's...
Mix all three?
Oh, okay.
We will, that's perfect.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
So you take all these bags and deliver it to the kitchen where they cook it up?
We've got the bags of seafood.
We are, whoa, this place really fills up.
And we're heading right into the kitchen where they're gonna cook.
The kitchen is absolutely amazing.
It's just like a nonstop, never-ending stream of seafood trays and steamy aromas of spices and butter going up.
What a restaurant, what a spot, what a concept.
The aroma, the spices, the heat.
Oh man, the aroma of the fresh seafood smells so good.
And again, there's all those three different flavors that you could get.
We got all three mixed, so they're about to start cooking our seafood tray right now.
To begin the process, a lot of the seafood is first blanched in hot water to kind of like cook it a little bit before.
It's then gonna be transferred over to the hot plate, mixed with the sauces and just stir fried in a jumble of everything.
Crab lugs go in, corn goes in, the shrimp, the sausage, the scallops, they're all in.
This is gonna be for us, and we ordered it fajita style, so that first step onto the hot plate goes on just literally a bucket full of onions, green peppers and a few tomatoes in there.
Butter, melted butter goes on.
Ho, ho, ho, ho, man.
A little more butter goes on.
A lot more butter goes on.
Oh, man.
All right, and what do we have here, man?
The Cajun.
The Cajun seasoning?
Yes.
Oh, that smells incredible.
I wish you could smell this, the aroma coming out of here, that melted butter, an entire cup full of melted butter, that Cajun seasoning, the spice, the seafood simmering down.
Unbelievable.
It's pre-time.
Oh man.
Wow.
Nicely done man.
Oh, that's good And then garlic bread That is a mountain of seafood.
I think we did pretty well.
We have everything.
Let me see if I can pick this up by myself.
Don't hurt yourself, Sonny.
That is crazy.
That's at least 10 pounds of food.
Sonny pulled a muscle carrying this, so it's up to me now to carry it to the table.
Wow, dude, that is insanely heavy.
Dude, that's 10 pounds of seafood on a tray.
But I need to have some support under this tray, man.
Wow.
Okay, let's move to the table.
Let's move outside.
It's always good to have a workout before you eat.
Just don't trip on the wooden planks with your tray.
I'm gonna be sore tomorrow.
But before we start tearing into this gigantic tray, we need to get a drink.
All right, so you're making the micheladas here.
All right, and then just pour it in and mix it up?
All right, thank you very much.
What is this?
This is, no, it's juice.
I mean, this is apple juice for people over 21 years of age in the USA and maybe Canada.
Oh wait, no, Canada is 18.
What's this?
So this is something called michelada, where they mix salt and chamois.
So this one has chamois, which is this fermented plum.
Oh, yeah, that's funny.
There's something fermented in here.
And then oftentimes there's tomato sauce, there's lime juice, sometimes there's even chili in there.
And then do you pour this non-alcoholic beverage into it?
You pour the beverage. into your cup and mix it all together.
Oh, this is going to be great.
Yes.
We have to do it.
Can you drive me home?
Oh, are we shooting?
Wait, are we doing a thumbnail?
What are we doing?
We're doing a thumbnail.
Thumbnail.
Normal face or shocked face?
You don't do a shocked face, do you?
That's really for like to get the preteens to watch your video.
Are we recording?
We're taking pictures.
We're rolling.
Oh, we're rolling.
We're rolling.
All right, then let me tell you about thumbnail philosophy.
If you're trying to get the teens and the preteens, you have to look shocked.
This is a shocking amount of food.
Thumbnail that.
Shocked.
But I really am shocked.
Oh, we're leaking.
Yeah, oh, for sure.
It was too much.
We're leaking.
We're leaking before we started.
We have an oil spill.
An oil spill in San Pedro.
Which has probably happened before.
Okay, but man, oh man, this is a massive pile tray of seafood.
Yeah, well, that was a big oil spill.
Let's make it look nice.
We've saved ourselves some calories by spilling that.
Should I?
I'll go get a bunch of napkins.
Yeah, do you have a bottle opener?
A giant, like a crowbar?
Yeah, right.
I think it'll just pop right off, right?
Yeah, it'll pop right off.
Yeah.
There you go.
It's a bottle you need a friend to help you with.
I feel like you weren't doing beer bombs in college.
Let's see what you got.
Oh, that's a good pour.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
All right, so that is mixing.
So that's mixing with all those toppings, the salt in there, the lemon juice.
There we go.
Oh, yeah.
Beautiful.
Hey, well done.
Yeah, you can't pour your own drink in Korea.
You can't pour your own drink.
You got to angle your glass a little more.
There you go.
Won't get too many bubbles.
Oh, that's nice.
Yours is a different color.
Is it a different flavor?
So I have a little bit more of chamoy on here.
Chamoy is the fermented plum.
Oh, look at that foaminess.
Cheers.
Cheers, man.
Oh, it's delicious.
Delicious.
It's even rimmed.
Mine's got salt and Yeah, because you've got that extra acidity and plus the extra lemon juice in there.
All right.
That like sweet, salty.
Oh, it's really good.
Very fresh.
It's like I can feel the ocean breeze.
This is one of those trays where you just have no idea where to start.
I can see you're overwhelmed.
Yeah, it is overwhelming.
You don't know what to do.
No, you don't know what to do.
I'm shocked and happy.
Should we start with the sheep head?
Yeah, let's do that.
Let's start with the sheep head.
It's right on top.
This has been deep fried.
And that's the fish right there.
It's right on top.
It's right.
The color changed a lot.
The head is still dark and there's still like that red kind of stripe in the middle.
So it kept some of the color.
Yeah, you still see that skin.
That's like bright red, actually.
It's bright red in color.
Grab a chunk of fish, deep fried.
Oh man, look at the oiliness of it.
Cheers.
First bite.
First bite, let's do it moist, super crunchy.
I love the exterior, really crispy, good but plain.
But i think there's a lot of flavor that's going to be coming to us very soon.
Let's set the sheep head aside.
Let's rehydrate those The butter he literally poured on a michelada-sized cup of butter into our tray.
That's what I love about the USA.
As he fried this.
What should we go for here?
Let's try, oh, scallop?
Yeah, I just got a big old scallop right here.
Let's find a, you have to rummage through the pile.
You have to channel in and find different, oh, here it is.
A massive scallop.
Massive.
Oh, yours is huge.
That scallop.
Are you doing... Is this a one-biter?
Oh, this is a one-biter.
It's a one-biter.
Oh, it's a one-biter.
All right, let's go.
Cheers.
Mmm.
Wow.
Wow.
Dude, that's so impressive because...
There's so much seafood here.
You would think they would overcook some of it.
Scallops are so easy to overcook, right?
And they get chewy.
That's perfect.
It's like rare.
It's buttery.
I think they have the system down so well, because what they do is they blanch all the seafood, cooking it perfectly.
And then while it's on the hot plate, it's just barely there.
Just for like minutes, little minutes.
It's just to char on the butter and like caramelize on all that seasoning.
But it's not easy to cook all this different type of seafood like...
The correct amount.
So it's all tender and juicy.
Especially with the amount of customers that they have here.
They know what they're doing.
The quantity.
Okay, let's move on to the shrimp.
Are we moving on?
I thought I just wanted to have one more scallop.
Are there more scallops in here?
Eat one more scallop.
I'm sorry.
I'm just really legitimately hungry.
Hold on.
It's $1.12.
And I had half a bagel for breakfast.
So you don't have to include this shot.
I'm going for another scallop, though.
Those scallops are amazing.
It's real nice.
They're outrageously meaty.
Buttery.
Buttery and a little bit of pepper.
I love it.
Okay, there's two types of shrimp.
This one, you can see, is the medium-sized.
The medium-sized, deveined, deshelled.
And then we have the wild, shell-on, head-off still.
So I think we should try the peeled one first.
Here we go.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Pretty, pretty awesomely good though still.
Easy to eat, slightly like bouncy and muscular.
The seasoning on here, it really is an interesting blend.
I didn't know that all three seasonings together could work, because it has a Cajun season, which is like a lot of cayenne pepper right.
And then the garlic comes through.
And then they said Diablo.
It's not overly spicy, but there's like a little bit of heat.
Like for you, it's probably a 2 out of 10, 1.5 out of 10.
It's like a good chili flavor, which i think is incredible.
That's remarkable.
The flavor is delicious yeah okay, and then we're going to try the oh right, the wild caught shrimp which again, i think we should.
I think we should peel these, though.
Oh wow, it's like more juicy right, It's more like everything.
It's a stronger flavor.
It's more like condensed shrimpiness.
It's more muscular.
I mean, that's the wild one.
Oh, you taste the difference.
I just ate the whole thing.
Okay.
Both shrimp are good.
You can eat the whole thing.
Oh, yeah.
You can eat the whole thing.
You can eat the tail.
I think you can just take the tail off.
You can even eat the shell.
Yeah, just the shell.
It's pretty good, it's because it's so plump and juicy inside, and then all that flavor, oh yeah.
So it's very soft easy, oh man.
And then lick your fingers and then what mark that gives you the edge of flavor, Oh okay.
And then mix that with a sip of the michelada.
Whoa.
That amount of butter, it's sliding out of my fingers already.
Oh, that's refreshing.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I'm going to need a nap after this.
What a combination.
All right, what have we not tried yet?
We got sausages.
There's sausage.
We got to work up to the crab, right?
Yeah, I think that should be the grand finale.
Okay, sausage.
Poke yourself a sausage.
Oops.
Oh, that's big chunks of sausage.
The bell peppers are mixed in.
The onions are just starting to melt.
That's the Polish sausage, right?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
Oddly enough, I never thought I would say that sausage is a palate cleanser.
It's super savory, oily, like you can just taste the pork juices kind of exploding from there.
That's a nice sausage.
That snap, that snap as soon as you bite down that skin.
I dropped that.
Bone.
That center.
The sauce sits on the bottom.
So this is one of those things that as you continue to eat, it's going to get better and better.
The further you go down, the more condensed the flavor, the more butter and all those spices start to just seep downwards.
Before we move on to the corn and the crab, just want to read you a few facts.
Ooh, fun facts.
Well, first of all, it dates back to 1956.
Wow.
When it was first... established when it first was started.
I think it was in 2013, the San Pedro fish market set three Guinness World Records in a single day for lobster cooked, displayed and served.
Fourth generation now family owned seating for 3000 people and they serve over 30000 shrimp trays per week.
So those are just a few fun facts.
Let's get back to the I think we should try the corn.
Do we need to kind of like, I kind of want to rehydrate this corn.
Look at that.
When you go down, look at that thick sauce.
You've got the right idea.
The roll?
Yeah, just rotate it in there until it soaks it all up.
Oh look, it picks up all of that like greasy, buttery seafood condensity, plus all that caramelized spice.
Oh wow dude, the corn is awesome because it's sweet, but then all of that butter seasoning contrasting the sweetness oh, like it's the.
The seasoning has found its way into every crevice, between every kernel.
I've got cayenne pepper like up my nose right now.
Oh, it's so juicy.
Mmm.
Mmm.
What's your style?
Do you go around or back and forth?
I go around.
Oh.
I go circles.
I'm like a typewriter.
Oh.
Oh yeah.
I just take out a whole row.
I do.
I normally go around in a spiral so that I never have to take my mouth off of it.
Sorry, I got one napkin.
That's okay.
I'm to the point now where I'm going to just not use napkins and I'll take a shower at the end of the meal.
Jump in the ocean.
You want to do taco first or crab first?
Crab first.
That rolling move, man, was key.
Stop it all up.
Rolling ladle.
There we go.
They were like that size, and then they cut them into various parts to be able to fry them more efficiently.
I believe
You can just use your finger to scoop out.
Look at those, oh, here's the move.
Scoop it out and then wipe up as much sauce as you can.
Mop it.
Mmm, all the firmness of it.
That's really good.
The stringiness of it.
This flavor combination is so interesting because they it's a lot of flavor, but you can still taste the crab meat coming through, so it's a nice blend.
It's not too much of either.
That's amazing, yeah.
It's a powerful spice seasoning that they've added in and a lot of butter, but it doesn't oddly ironically, it doesn't cover up the flavor of the seafood.
Scoop on some of those peppers and potatoes.
A chalice onto a crab chalice.
I think it moved.
Oh, man.
It's so buttery, right?
Those bell peppers are delicious, too.
I'm hoping I can break it and it'll just come out.
A nugget.
Okay, so the tendon part came out.
Let's see if I can push the meat out.
Oh, nice.
Oh, nice.
You gotta be careful and delicate.
If you're in a rush, it's going to break.
It's all going to go very badly.
Oh, look at that.
Oh, dude.
Nice skills, man.
It looks so good and uniform that it looks like a fake piece of meat.
Imitation.
It almost looks like imitation crab.
They don't really give you many tools.
Caress it.
Be gentle.
My fingers are sliding.
Bathe it in the butter seasoning.
Oh, man.
This is a bite.
What a bite.
You ready?
Ready.
Cheers.
Oh, it's so sweet.
It's heavenly.
Oh, wow.
It doesn't really get much better than that.
No, that is outstanding.
I mean, this is one of the high points of my life.
I'm kind of stunned.
I mean, what do you, with food, like what moments really transcend this?
I mean, we've all had like good street food.
It's very satisfying, but something like this, it just doesn't come around all the time.
And this kind of preparation is so unique, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Not to mention the presentation.
I don't think you could think of anything else that you'd possibly want to be eating in this setting, in this location, overlooking the bay ships containers, cruise ships in the background.
This is the only thing I'd ever want to be eating is a tray of seafood.
Fantastic.
That's all.
And I'm very, very happy.
Okay, should we make a taco?
Yeah.
That ratio of three tortillas to 20 pounds of seafood.
Yeah, right.
Oh no, there's like four tortillas.
A tortilla?
Sure, thank you.
You know what you do is you just like throw your tortilla down. and you can just grab.
Now this may or may not work, but I think it actually worked pretty well.
It's a high level move.
All right, I want to mix up everything in here.
So we've got some potato, some of the vegetables, shrimp.
We have a seagull on the side of us waiting to try to get a bite.
Boom.
All right.
Grip it and rip it.
Here we go.
Let's do a turn around reveal to the camera.
Let's do a squeeze of lemon.
That's fantastic.
I got you.
Okay.
I got you.
Yeah.
Shower it in lemon.
Wow. and whatever else is on your fingers at the same time will come off into your taco.
I got something hanging.
Oh man.
Wonderful.
Oh, the habanero salsa.
My hands are, okay, I'll hold the bottle.
My hands are so slippery.
You got it?
There you go.
There we go.
You want me to pour it for you?
Yes, please.
Here we go.
Douse it on.
This is habanero salsa.
San Pedro's very own.
Okay, that's good.
Oh, it's like sticky.
You can see it's like thick.
You can smell that aroma.
It's more like bright and fruity.
Not too spicy, but good.
Lemon makes it so fresh.
Yeah, it's just a little bit warm.
Yeah.
I'm feeling it.
Wash that down?
We need to wash that down.
Cheers.
Cheers, man.
Cheers.
I'm running out of places to wipe my hands off.
Yeah, that's how you know it was epic.
You are doused, you really went for it.
We're gonna sit here.
We're gonna well Keep on rummaging our way through the pile, the mountain of seafood tray, but really highly recommended.
So good.
And we still have a lot to eat.
Thank you, by the way.
This was awesome.
Great idea and great selections.
All the choices you made worked out.
You chose the fish.
I get 5% credit for choosing this fish, and that was good, too.
Very good.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks to Sunny for joining us for this huge meal.
Man, these peppers and onions at the bottom... Dude, there's all this too.
...are unbelievable, just melting, so tender.
Mmm.
Oh, that squeeze of lemon.
You there at three?
Okay.
Que es un cariño tío que pasa I wanna say we did it, oh no, you revealed, we failed.
Guys, there's still like, there's like five pounds of food left in here.
We did our best, but man, that's a lot of food.
I love how it's interactive and you choose what you want.
They fry it up in front of you.
You have this just smoldering tray of seafood and butter and spices.
Amazing experience and great company.
Yes, for sure.
Always good to hang out with Sonny.
And you guys probably already know him, but best ever food review show.
That's right.
And check out his humorous cultural food videos.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
And that's gonna wrap up this video.
We wanna say a big thank you to all of you for watching this video.
Remember to click thumbs up.
Leave a comment below.
Let us know which seafood you'd want to try, or if you've been here to the San Pedro Marques, let us know.
And remember to subscribe for lots more food and travel videos.
So thanks again for watching, and see you on the next video.
Bye guys.
