Tacos Fish, La Paz BCS

Due to the running of a small cafe that rarely makes or sells tacos, my taco tasting days have slowed to a crawl (jaja.)

Sure, I live in Mexico currently and I visit LA every other month, but lack of time and also a new fear of amoebas and parasites from street food have slackened my motivation. Bill Esparza, I don't know how you do it, but I'm glad you do because reading about food on your blog is almost as exciting as eating it!

That being said, I FINALLY made it to a place I've been hearing about for a while. My good friend Isabel, an incredible Mexican-Lebanese chef and Bed and Breakfast owner speaks highly of this place. "What's it called?", I asked her. "Tacos Fish", she replied. What? That's not a name. Is that the name? Wait... What?

"Where is it?" I queried. "Oh you know, somewhere in La Paz, we can never remember where until we are there." Hmmmm.... so uninspired by the name and lack of directions, I pushed it to the back of the 'must try' list. Which I admit is a very short list for me down here.

As a restaurant owner, I go to La Paz alot more now than I did before. La Paz is the capital city of Baja Sur and sports world class fishing and diving reefs. It's very Mexican. It's no Cabo. They don't speak English readily or cater to retired fools though they do have a Walmart and a Home Depot.

Sooooooo.... I accidentally drive by it about 5 times in 2 weeks and my aging, taco-fogged brain goes, "Wait! That place is something! Wait. But the name is dumb but yeah right Isabel's place." Twice I try to go on a Monday, they are closed. Finally I go on a Saturday and guess what? It's effing FANEFFINGTASTIC. Really really REALLY good.

Crisp, clean, friendly, efficient, cheap, high quality, great salsas. DELISH. Solid, flakey, juicy fish and shrimp tacos AND deep fried crab tacos. Oh yeah. It was almost like being at Mariscos Jalisco. Not quite but almost.

"Soooooo goooooood." This is my 'sous chef' Jose Manuel immitating me with a funny American accent (he speaks no English) when I really like something.

That was his final verdict on these tacos. Mine too. Coming soon to Cabo but until then, this page has directional info for La Paz location. www.tacofish.com

El Fogón, San Jose del Cabo

I have been craving and devouring the AMAZING Pastor tacos at Guacamayas (3 locations) in the Cabo area for 5 years now. I am a big fan. I have NO COMPLAINTS. Not only is their Pastor rocking, the rest of the menu is awesome too.

OK. I have one complaint. They are not open for lunch. (except for the new location just opened 1/2014 near the Marina)

Recently someone told me about an "amazing" Pastor place in San Jose. I assumed they meant Guacamayas, but no, they were talking about a place I'd never heard of: El Fogón, which means "the oven" or "the stove."

I trotted right over there. By trotted I mean that I drove an hour from Todos Santos, where I am currently living, to San Jose.

The verdict. Very good Pastor. Very clean. Very nice people. Open ALL DAY AND NIGHT. Nice Palapa seating too.... BUT.... not as good as Guacamayas in my humble opine. Not caramelized enough. No fun pineapple flipping tricks. No addictive sweet yet 'melt in your mouth' texture. Solid for sure but nothing to drive an hour for or even take a plane 2 hours S. of Los Angeles.

You can't see the Pina in this shot but it is there.

Extra melted cheese with your Pastor.

However, when in San Jose, they provide an excellent lunch or snack, especially during the day when Guacamayas is closed. They are located at the top of a one way street that starts in the Old Town square and goes straight up to the highway. It's the same street as the French Riviera Bakery and is called Manual Doblado. If you take it straight up, right before you get back to the Hwy you will see El Fogon on your right.

La Cevicheria on Pico Blvd. Can you say CALDO?

I came back to LA for about 3 days in February, I didn't have time to check out the new places people are buzzing about. Cortez was on my list and also Tacos Punta Cabras.

Luckily, my friend Justin, insisted that we catch up over ceviche. I had tried to go there many times as the Taco Maven and it was freakish how they were always unexpectedly closed (power outage, kitchen flood, somebody's bday) every time I tried.

Well. I finally made it there and I really enjoyed the soup. The taco was fine, but I'm living in Baja now and have become spoiled. A good taco, a fresh taco, a clean taco, but nothing to write home about especially if you live in Mexico.

But the soup. OMG Magee. That was insane. There are several options for broth flavor and I forget which one we actually had but I could have eaten 3 bowls of it. There it is pictured above in all it's rich broth and seafood glory. Lots of garlic too. Hello CRACK.

It's a very kid friendly place too with simple burritos, quesadillas etc. I enjoyed the ceviche, but it was the SOUP, SOPA, CALDO etc. that really floated my boat.

ox

El Borrego Viudo, Drive-In Taqueria in Mexico City

Mexico City is an AMAZING taco city.

The master of all Latin Food bloggers, Bill Esparza, has a BLOG full of info about eating there.

I tend to stick to the trendy areas of La Condesa and La Roma. Sort of like Santa Monica and Silverlake.

I was taken by a couple of awesome taco superfreaks to a DRIVE-IN taco spot at 2am.



It was crazy delicious and crazy fun. If you visit, you must put this place on your list.

San Diego, Taco Lovers Unite and Drive

lamb head, lamb heads, roly poly lamb heads.

San Diego is it's own special taco mecca. Perhaps because of it's proximity to the border.

It's too big an area to tackle in one outing, but I did eat some fun tacos while vacationing in Coronado for a few days.

I finally made it to Aqui es Texcoco. Bill Esparza told me about it and it's been on my list for a while. The guys there are pretty hilarious and the tacos were declicious. They specialize in lamb barbacoa aka bbq lamb (borrego en espanol.) You can have it all sorts of ways. They even make a middle eastern pita bread taco with dill-yogurt sauce.

Def. worth a visit.

On the way there I totally got lost because another place opened, prob trying to ride Texcoco's coatails. The are called Asi es Jalisco. They have birria, but the goat variety. Once I realized I was lost, I felt bad not ordering anything so I got some rolled tacos. They were a little too oily and too chewy but I liked the filling. Who knows, maybe their birria is the bomb.

Coronado doesn't really have too many good choices for Mexican. American is the way to go there with gourmet hot dogs and several vintage diners. But I did stumble on some edible tacos at Clayton's Mexican To Go.

It's just a little window next to the diner of the same name, but they have tons of choices for tacos and burritos and I really enjoyed the shrimp and the ground beef. The tortillas had a nice consistency and never got soggy.

Top of my list for next time is a WAY trendy place called The Carnitas Snack Shack. It's just over the bridge from Coronado in North Park on University Blvd. DANG that place looks good but I just couldn't bust a move over there as I was stressed getting ready to drive down the Baja Peninsula again. But check out this pic from their website! Sheesh.