Where to buy the best-tasting, highest quality seafood online

If you're vegan or vegetarian and are looking to add some kelp to your diet, there are plenty of places to order it online. Here are some highly-rated brands we know of, but haven't tested:

Sequoia: Fresh by the pound, dried, freeze-dried, in seasonings, in supplements, Sequoia offers California seaweed just about every which way.

Barnacle Foods: Salsa, hot sauce, pickles, seasonings; Barnacle Foods offers a sampling of Alaskan kelp prepared many different ways.

Salt Point Seaweed: Salt Point Seaweed offers two dried edible kelps — California wakame and kombu — as well as nori flakes and a few different snacks.

Maine Coast Sea Vegetables: If you're looking for raw sea greens and kelp in bulk, this place has the widest range of offerings we've found. They also sell several dried snack options, as well as seasonings and sushi nori.

New Jersey-based Rastelli's, which has been around since the 1970s, may be known for its meat, but don't sell them short when it comes to seafood.

The shrimp is perfectly processed and we can't recommend it enough, but the salmon is the real winner here.

It's brought in from Scandinavia, and is sushi grade, to which yours truly can attest. I tried three different fillets as sashimi at three different times and was consistently wowed. If you want the best Atlantic salmon you can find, and you're looking to make sushi or sashimi, this is the spot to get it.

If you're after Maryland blue crab in all of its delectable forms, ginormous U-10 (10-count to a pound) sea scallops, or shrimp the size of your palm, Crab Place been the place for online seafood supply since its inception in 1997.

We tried crab cakes, shucked oysters, fresh oysters, shrimp, and some of the largest scallops we've ever seen. Everything was good, but we really have to highlight the U-10 scallops. You'll want to follow the seasons and pick your seafood accordingly (seek out those massive scallops in winter and spring), but know that everything is coming right into port and shipping out to you almost immediately.

Also, a note to crab cake connoisseurs: do not be wary of these crab cakes. Though elsewhere they are almost always deceptively filled with bread crumbs and/or mayonnaise, The Crab Place's are the real deal.

If you want the freshest, highest-quality lobster or scallops from the chilly waters off of Maine, Get Maine Lobster is the place to shop.

Lobsters are plucked from the water the morning of the day they're air-mailed to you — ours nearly kicked the box off the kitchen counter upon receipt — and tails are never more than a few days out of the water by the time you get them. The same goes for the scallops. I ate them raw last night and they were fresher than the ones I've had at most sushi bars.

You're going to pay a premium if you go with Get Maine Lobster, and while other brands' lobsters are flash-frozen and of high quality, Get Maine Lobster's offerings are undoubtedly the best and the freshest. The brand also touts being the only certified Fair Trade lobster purveyor on earth.

Wild Alaskan Company is a monthly (or bi-monthly) subscription membership that offers a choice selection of wild-caught finfish from the waters off Alaska. Salmon (silver, king, or sockeye), white-fleshed fish (usually halibut or cod), or a combination of both will arrive in six-ounce, flash-frozen, individually-wrapped pieces.

Our favorite is the Wild White Fish Box. The fillets are perfectly packaged and vacuum-sealed, and as far as frozen seafood goes, it is top-notch.

The salmon, which is skin-on, has been a little hit and miss for us, and we've had several pieces arrive with the vacuum-sealed bag broken, resulting in brown and oxidized meat. This wasn't a reason to discard the fish or discount the brand — it happens from time to time, as vacuum-sealed bags can break in transit — but we encountered the same problem twice. However, other pieces of salmon from the same boxes turned out to be some of the best we tried.

Still, our favorite option is the Wild White Fish Box. These fish were skinless and perfectly filleted, and this is why we recommend Wild Alaskan Company.

Sizzlefish is another subscription-based service, but it's much more affordable than most, starting at $6.99 per serving.

The brand specializes in North Atlantic seafood, and the cod is right up there with Sea to Table's. Cod, which is increasingly substituted with Alaskan black cod and true cod, is not the easiest thing to find anymore, but it's worth seeking out when and where you can.

Our other favorite options are the (Alaska-caught) salmon and halibut, as well as the North Atlantic cod. You can get weekly, fortnightly, monthly, and even once-every-five-week deliveries of 12- or 14-serving boxes, and shipping is included.

Thrive Market is a membership-based grocer that's almost like a small-scale, high-quality, web-based Costco. Most of the retailer's items come in bulk, making it a great option for families looking to stock up on seafood.

That being said, it's also handy for larger one-off purchases by individuals with enough freezer space — as long as they use the subscription for other grocery items to offset the $60 annual membership fee.

Standouts were the superbly peeled, deveined, and vacuum-sealed shrimp, and the salmon. The scallops aren't the best or the freshest you'll find, but they are flash-frozen, which means no excess water or chance for oxidization.

Lobster Anywhere has been in the game for more than 20 years.

The brand specializes in more than just lobster, but first things first: if you are looking for truly colossal lobster tails, look no further. These things are about the size of your forearm and are more than enough for dinner for two, or maybe even three.

Lobster tails will come neatly in-shell, which is a perfect way to broil, grill, or even sautée them. The tails won't be flash-frozen, but lobster meat tends to stand up to regular freezing better than, say, fish.

The brand also offers outstanding Gulf of Maine redfish, which you'll be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, as well as hearty lobster bisque and clam chowder.

And if you're after live lobster, you're going to get the best deal here, with live 1.25-pound lobster coming in at $26.95 plus shipping.

Sea to Table leaves you with the most information about your catch right on the label. You'll know exactly how and when your fish was caught, as well as where it was landed, and you'll get a very reasonable "best by" date.

We like how expertly Sea to Table vacuum-seals cuts of seafood. You'll find delicately-handled fillets and scallops, with nothing broken, nothing mangled, and no unsavory bits like oxidized meat or bloodline, which tend to be offensively pungent upon thawing (and don't do your health any favors either).

Sea to Table isn't just the most accountable brand we found, it offers some of the more sustainability-minded catches. Think skate (an oft-overlooked finfish in the US; a delicacy across the Atlantic), Gulf of Maine redfish, and West Coast Dover sole. Try it all.