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Baja California 2010 Trip Redux - Street Food

This month has been ripe with challenges that have kept me distracted from blogging. I tend to cut down drastically on foodie experiences when things are stressful, so there hasn't been a lot of new things going on.

After losing my Aunt earlier this month, I've been looking through old photos, intending to compile them. In the process I found lots of great photos, mostly from 2010.

It seems right to do some retro blogging since it's the end of the year and we all are reflecting back.

So here begins a 4-part series on my July 2010 Baja California group trip with Bill Esparza, Street Gourmet LA.

Before the "tour" officially started, Bill already got us started off with these Gorditas de Nata snacks.



Street Food Tacos
Followed by pre-tour meal at Taqueria Franc. Between the group we took dozens of photos of the meat alone. I remember tagging myself on my friend Andi's high def Facebook close up photo of this meat!

Taqueria Franc - mulita

There were so many other fantastic taco places we went to, I left off the ones covered in prior Baja food posts, and a few we tried only on this trip. Out of many, the ones below stood out as unique.

Tacos Aaron - milanesa taco

Tacos Aaron specializes in stewed tacos. We had tastes of the above as well as eggs and nopales (cactus paddle) and my beloved smoked marlin tacos.

Things got crunchier at Tacos el Poblano, where we even had taco cones, wrapped in paper (think of sushi cones).

Tacos el Poblano - tostada

Tacos el Poblano - beef birria

I mentioned Tortas Wash Mobile on my recent posts, and how we really loved the original cart visit. Well here are some photos from the first time around.




The meat, after being grilled, sits on the pan in their own juices. Leading to the mouthwatering torta above, one of the best sandwiches I've ever had.

Their horchata (traditional Mexican rice beverage flavored with cinammon, sugar and lime) also was the best many of us had ever had. No chalkiness whatsoever.

Tortas Wash Mobile - horchata

Tacos Salceados 


We're still on tacos, but Tacos Salceados deserves its own category, offering exciting tacos and an open kitchen. The crowds below should attest to that.

I'll let the photos do the talking.












Seafood Street Food


For seafood lovers, Tijuana provides a vast selection of seafood, all fresh and plentiful, with no lack of seasoning available.

El Mazateno - condiments

El Conchal - ceviche mixte

El Conchal - aguachile

El Conchal - clams

Mariscos Ruben, another seafood gem, showed us even more local delicacies, lovingly prepared by these amazing women.

Mariscos Ruben - crab tostada

Mariscos Ruben - seafood gratin

Mariscos Ruben - crab taco (with flour tortilla)

We didn't only try these exceptional street seafood options. We also devoured a private dinner at Chef Javier Plasencia's Erizo Cebicheria, which I posted about in detail.

Erizo Cebicheria - Chef/Owner Javier Plasencia

We not only had the place to ourselves, but Chef Plasencia introduced each course to us. Following are some highlights from the memorable, multi-course meal.

Erizo Cebicheria - Pisco Sour Coco

Erizo Cebicheria - margarita

Erizo Cebicheria - sea urchin capuccino

Erizo Cebicheria - octopus carpaccio

Erizo Cebicheria - swordfish tacos (cochinita pibil style)

Sweet Treats

Adjacent to the El Conchal cart, we cleansed our palates from the paleteria (ice cream shop). I tried the rich and creamy rompope, an eggnog type Mexican beverage, ice cream in the plastic tubes (center of photo).


We also visited Teposnieves, sampling fantastic flavors like tequila con limon, nata (cream), queso (cheese) and fruit and chile topping sauces.


My flavors were queso, tres leches and cajeta (goat's milk caramel).


If you'd like to read about the trip from this year, you can find the posts at the following links:

Baja Culinary Festival

Baja Street Food

Baja - Erizo Cebicheria

Baja - Unplanned Adventures

Baja - Mision 19

In the meantime, I'd like to wish you a joyous holiday season.

Baja Culinary Trip - Street Food (Part 2)

Today I continue with the Baja culinary weekend, once again out of chronological order. On Sunday, the group was treated to an epic street food crawl in Tijuana, led by Bill Esparza and Javier Plascencia of some of their favorite spots.

Since last year's trip I've only dreamed of such a crawl. And what a delightful way to end our trip.


We enjoyed a light breakfast at Plascencia's restaurant, Caesar's. Orange juice, coffee and platters full of authentic sweet breads (not the meaty kind). Great way to prep our palates and tummies for the next couple of stops.

Many of us walked over to the nearby churros stand for another fix (the 3rd time in this trip alone for some of us).


We took the bus uphill to another part of town, the barrio of Tomas Aquino. Bill Esparza covers El Mazateno, this Sinaloan taqueria beautifully in his post.


Very soon upon being seated, they served this divine sopa de camaron (shrimp soup). I'm a sucker for broths that have strong shellfish flavor, but add to that the chiles, herbs, a squeeze of lime and it hits the spot in a beautiful way.


They also graciously brought out platters of mixed seafood ceviche on the house (you can see a couple of the shrimps and avocado on my plate). The dish also contained pulpo, or octopus.

My friend Andi and I shared the fish taco which we dressed with finely shredded cabbage, crema and chile sauces.


This bounty of gorgeous, plump shrimp is half (yes HALF) of the Mazatena, or cameron enchilada (spicy shrimp) taco, one of their signature dishes. Andi and I shared this one too.


Dressed with the same condiments, it becomes even more mouth watering. That house made green sauce comes in a squeeze bottle. It contained avocado, serrano chili and other herby ingredients.


On the last trip we had a couple of smoked marlin tacos, but the tacos de marlin here really rocked! It's one of the few things that I refrain from adding anything extra because it's so masterfully seasoned.


The little bits of corn kernels and other veges liven up the savory fish. And the corn tortillas meld perfectly and mellow out the smokiness.


Somebody from the other end of our long table brought over some tender octopus filling of one of their tacos, which we enjoyed very much.


On the last trip we discussed that if we could have one street food stand or cart back home, it would be the Tortas Wash Mobile cart.

On this trip we stopped at their other brick-and-mortar location bearing the same name.


This near perfect sandwich of juicy beef, tomatoes, pickled red onions and avocado stuffed between perfectly light, crusty bread really is hard to beat.

I took half of it to go and even a couple of hours later, it didn't miss a beat.

The next post covers the culmination of this epic food crawl. Yes, we ate more even after this!