When Slashfood alum Nick Vagnoni wrote about fish in Florida restaurants being served under misleading guises a year-and-a-half ago, we thought that officials would take care of the problem. Apparently, a year-and-a-half later, the problem is still around. The Statesman Journal is reporting that restaurants in many parts of Florida are still passing off Asian catfish, tilapia or other cheaper species like emperor fish, hake, sutchi, bream and green weakfish as grouper. It's not the other fish are unhealthy or taste bad. In fact, it probably tastes just fine. It's that real grouper costs something like $20 a pound and the other fish are much cheaper.
Why don't restaurants just serve whatever fake grouper they're serving as what they really are?
The St. Pete Times recently did some DNA testing on fish sold as grouper by several restaurants in the Tampa Bay area. Of the 11 restaurants sampled, six were found selling less expensive fish like tilapia, hake and catfish in their grouper sandwiches and entrees. One restaurant was passing of frozen, imported tilapia in their $23 "champagne braised black grouper." Most of the restaurateurs and fish wholesalers quoted in the article attempt to pass the buck, saying they thought the fish they were selling was, in fact, grouper. I just have to wonder how a chef could not know the difference between a piece of tilapia and a piece of grouper. 
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