There are disreputable seafood restaurants who pass off something that is definitely not scallops, as scallops. Can we at least agree to that? I know it’s so, I’ve had it happen to me before.
There are, but here’s what they are selling:
Fish cakes flavored and compressed to look and taste like scallops. Kinda like fish sticks are to real fish.
There is artificial ‘crab meat’ (that I actually like better!)that a local restaurant sells in different recipes, but they tell you up front what it is. It looks and tastes like crab, but is actually just fish processed to resemble it.
Shark meat is a premium. It would be like taking sirloin steak and grinding it up to sell as hamburger.............
Scallops are like tofu, they take the flavor of what they are cooked with-I like mine pan fried with bacon.