Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe  In 2011, Minado Restaurant in Natick substituted tilapia for red snapper, and escolar was advertised as white tuna. A manager at the time explained that escolar was the American name for white tuna. In 2012, Minado changed the red snapper sign at its buffet to read “tilapia,” the fish it was actually serving. But “white tuna” was written next to the word “escolar” — as if the two were interchangeable. They are not. Minado staff did not return calls seeking comment.  Debee Tlumacki for The Boston Globe  In 2011, what East Bay Grille in Plymouth advertised as native scrod or haddock was actually previously frozen Pacific cod. A general manager at the time said the restaurant hadn’t yet updated the menu. In 2012, fish advertised as Schrod Nantucket or haddock again tested as previously frozen Pacific cod. Pacific cod was also substituted for the grouper on the menu. A general manager attributed the haddock mislabeling to a clerical error, and blamed the grouper misrepresentation on a supplier.  In 2011, the operator of Kowloon in Saugus said he was unaware that escolar was being served as white tuna and that tilapia was labeled as red snapper. In 2012, the restaurant had stopped serving white tuna, but DNA testing revealed striped bass on the menu was actually a cheaper, farmed hybrid bass.  In 2011, the owner of Doyle’s Cafe in Jamaica Plain said he thought he was serving Atlantic cod in a dish, but it was actually cod caught off Alaska and shipped east in freezer containers. In 2012, the fresh cod described on the menu again turned out to be previously frozen Pacific cod. The owner said he has since revised the menu to simply say cod.  In 2011, the H Mart supermarket in Burlington misrepresented crimson snapper for the more expensive red snapper, and escolar, which can cause gastrointestinal problems, was mislabeled as white tuna. At the time, an executive with H Mart blamed a supplier for the mix-up. In 2012, the supermarket sold cheap freshwater perch as pricier ocean grouper, and Pinjalo snapper was marketed as the more expensive red snapper. A company executive for the Asian grocery chain said he was investigating the mislabeling problems.
A year after a Globe investigation revealed restaurants and stores across Massachusetts were routinely selling customers cheaper, lower quality fish than they promised consumers, a new round of DNA testing shows that the vast majority are still mislabeling seafood. Over the past several months, the Globe collected 76 seafood samples from 58 of the restaurants and markets that sold mislabeled fish last year. DNA testing on those samples found 76 percent of these fish samples weren’t what was advertised.