Mitch’s Seafood (Taco Tuesday!)

Oct 292012
 

Tacos are serious business in San Diego (duh), and the best way to celebrate the abundance of tacos? Taco Tuesdays! Many restaurants offer all-day Happy Hour pricing on drinks and cheap tacos on Tuesdays. Our go-to is S’s favorite, South Beach Bar & Grill, but last week our friends suggested we try Mitch’s Seafood.

Located on the harbor, it was a very casual yet busy place. You could sit at one of the tables inside, or along the “counter” on the pier, looking at the water and sailboats. It was dark already by the time we arrived, though, so I didn’t get a good photo.

Taco Tuesdays at Mitch’s means all-day $2 fried fish tacos and $3 grilled fish tacos, and $1.50 Tecates. They list the catches of the day on a chalkboard near the ordering counter, and the menu also includes sandwiches and soups. We started off with some chips and salsa.

Chips & salsa

The salsa was flavorful but slightly too watery for my liking. Another wish? Warm chips. I’ve been spoiled by places such as Roberto’s, so now I take off points for non-warm chips.

New England clam chowder

S and I decided to split a cup of the New England clam chowder. I was hoping to try the Manhattan clam chowder that my friend M recommended, but they didn’t offer it that day. I’m not a big fan of NE clam chowder, so I gave this an okay. S enjoyed it, though, and there were plenty of clams in the cup.

Fried calamari and shrimp tacos

I ordered two tacos, the beer-battered rock cod and shrimp. They got my order wrong, though, and I received a calamari taco at first. I snapped a photo before asking them to correct my order. (And I subsequently forgot to take photos of the cod tacos, haha… fail.) I really enjoyed the shrimp taco – the shrimp was really fresh and tender. I liked the rock cod, too, but there was a bit too much batter.

My friend actually ordered the calamari taco, and he really enjoyed it. I tried a piece of the calamari, and it was crispy and well-seasoned.

Some of our friends liked this place better, but S still prefers South Beach. I do like the salsa there better, and they have more offerings (in particular, the shark tacos). But the fish and shrimp at Mitch’s are really fresh (and probably better than South Beach), and definitely worth checking out.

Happy Hour offerings

Mitch’s Seafood
1403 Scott St, San Diego, CA
(619) 222-8787
http://mitchsseafood.com/

[SD Pacific Beach] Awesome fish tacos at Oscar’s Mexican Seafood

Aug 022012
 

I’ve heard about Oscar’s Mexican Seafood for a while and was super excited to try it out a few weeks ago.  My friend was pretty spot-on with his description of it as a “shack in PB, not in the beach-y part.”

There’s a tiny counter for ordering, kitchen behind, and seating outdoors.  Oh, and of course, there is a large assortment of hot sauces.  All kinds.

The menu includes fish, shrimp, and steak tacos, tortas, and a few sides.  I picked the smoked fish taco and shrimp ceviche.

Smoked fish taco, $3.50

Wonderful smoky flavor on the fish, made me want to buy some fish myself and fire up the grill.  Topped with shredded lettuce and some salsa, and of course, in true Californian fashion, two big slices of avocado.

Shrimp ceviche, $3.50

I did not expect the ceviche to come in a plastic cup, but hey it’s under four bucks and absolutely delicious.  The shrimp was fresh and tender, and the lime juice really brought out the sweetness.  Again, huge avocado slices on top.

Homemade beans, $1.50

Seemed like everyone was ordering these, so S decided to get one, too.  It’s a little different than the refried beans I’ve had elsewhere – less mushy and more… bean-y?  I thought it needed a bit more salt.  And are you surprised by now to see avocado slices?  Haha.

I thought it was a really great meal overall, very affordable and very filling (you can’t tell from the picture but the taco was pretty sizable).  I’ll be back to try some of the other tacos!

Oscar’s Mexican Seafood
703 Turquoise St., San Diego, CA
(858) 349-8181

http://oscarsmexicanseafood.com/

[SD Logan Heights] Tacos from Las Cuatro Milpas and playing some more with LR4

Jul 132012
 

I’ve heard S talk about Las Cuatro Milpas for quite a while now, and I’ve always wanted to try it.  But it only opens until 3pm and is closed Sundays, so we haven’t had the chance to check it out until a couple of weeks ago.  Per his suggestion, we arrived around 1:30 so that the line would be shorter, but it was still quite a wait.

It was truly a gorgeous day in San Diego, though, so I didn’t mind too much.

It was my first time in this area of San Diego.  It had a small-town, charming feel to it.  I love how the restaurant is basically located in the midst of a residential neighborhood – our friend said that it reminds me a bit of Taiwan; business and home are all in one place.

It was perhaps appropriate, then, that Las Cuatro Milpas is a family business.  According to San Diego Reader, it has been around for nearly three decades.

I couldn’t help adding a filter to get the “family-owned restaurant” feel.

The menu is simple.  Tacos.  Roll tacos.  Tamales.  Chorizo with eggs.  Rice and beans.  You get one choice of meat and that is pork.  (Actually, you can also get chicken tacos.  But everything else is pork-only.)

Tacos are $1.50 each – freshly fried shells, braised carnitas, shredded lettuce, queso enchilada.  Add in your own cilantro and onions.  Simple and ridiculously flavorful.

Roll tacos are five for $4.25, topped with sour cream, shredded lettuce, and queso enchilada, served over a bed of salsa – probably homemade.  Again, freshly-fried shells and delicious, flavorful, juicy, tender meat.

This is definitely one of the best tacos I’ve had, right up there with Chubby’s in Durham and Tacos el Gordo in Chula Vista.  Unlike Tacos el Gordo (or many other taco joints in San Diego), Las Cuatro Milpas isn’t “California-nized” – no avocadoes here, and this is more like the tacos you would find in Mexico.

The bottom line?  This is really a must-try – I promise, it’s worth the long lines.  (Actually, if you arrive around 2pm, there usually isn’t a line anymore.)  I will definitely be back for more.

Las Cuatro Milpas
1875 Logan Ave, San Diego, CA
(619) 234-4460

Open Mon-Sat, 9am-3pm

[SD Mission Hills] Late dinner at La Lucha Libre

Jun 152012
 

SK has been telling me about La Lucha Libre taco shop for a while, but since it’s a bit far from where we live and usually pretty crowded during normal meal times, we didn’t make the trip until a recent night, when it was past 9pm and we still hadn’t eaten dinner.  Since I had a Mexican food craving, he suggested that we try out La Lucha Libre.

The shop is pretty small.  A line forms from the door to place your order, and the seating area is about 30 people at most, I’d say.  There is a special “Gold Booth” that seems to be for reservations only(?).  At nearly 9:30pm, it was still pretty crowded and we managed to snag 2 seats at the counter.

Menu board

The menu reminded me a bit of El Zarape’s, mostly because of the “Surf & Turf” burrito and tacos.  There are also some other speciality items that are a bit less common.

I ended up with a Surf & Turf taco (SK tells me that this is the favorite here), and TJ Corn.

Surf & Turf taco: marinated steak, shrimp, “special sauce”, $3.85

The taco was delicious – actually taste a lot like El Zarape’s, since their “special sauce” also had the tomato-y, mayo-y, chipotle-y mixture.  The steak and shrimp were grilled nicely (although the steak was a bit dry), and the grated queso enchilada on top added plenty more flavor.  It was also a pretty big portion, and also sort of difficult to pick up and eat.

By the way, each meal comes with tortilla chips (with refills!), so we also tried out their salsa bar.  My favorite was once again the salsa roja, but the creamy guacatillo(?) was also really good.

TJ Corn: queso enchilado, mayo, chili, & lime, $1.50

Before this meal, I’ve only had the Mexican “corn in a cup” once, at the Mira Mesa farmer’s market, and I loved it.  The salty cheese plays off the corn’s sweetness, and the creamy mayo just holds it all together.  Add a touch of lime to balance out the chili, and this is one of my favorite ways to eat corn.  Then again, it’s hard for me to resist corn – I pretty much love it prepared any style.

The bottom line?  I really liked La Lucha Libre, and I totally understand why there’s always a crowd.  The price is great, and the food is delicious.  I would definitely recommend it if you haven’t been here yet, and let me know when you’re going so I can tag along ;)

La Lucha Libre Taco Shop
1810 W. Washington Street, San Diego, CA
(619) 296-8226

http://tacosmackdown.com/index.htm

Hours:
Sun-Thu  11am-11pm
Fri-Sat  11am-2:30am

[SD Chula Vista] Revisit to Tacos el Gordo (and new camera!)

May 292012
 

Yes, you read the title correctly: I have a new camera!  SK (who has been super helpful and supportive) and I have been reading up on photography, and with the prodding of a few friends, I finally made the splurge and bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF3 with a 14mm pancake kit lens.  Many of the photos from the previous post on food in Texas were taken with the new camera, and I must say, I fell in love with it pretty quickly.  It is compact, easy to carry, and pretty user-friendly.  Of course, I am still learning how to take beautiful food photos, but I have a pretty good teachers (shout-outs to IC and MC!), and all of you dear readers for feedback and suggestions :)

New baby

After coming back from Texas, the first place where I ate was Tacos el Gordo in Chula Vista, straight from the airport.  I’ve already mentioned that this is (in my opinion) the best tacos Mexican food I’ve ever had, and every time I visit, it only reaffirms my love for it.

Here is a menu, for your reference.  The counter is divided into several “stations” – a section for adobada, another for cabeza/lengua/sesos/buche… you get the idea.  Tacos are about $2 apiece.

I ordered my two favorites:

Pork adobada taco

Beef cabeza taco

The pork adobada is really amazing.  It is roasted on a vertical spit (see below) that’s topped with a pineapple.  My theory is that the pineapple does two things: the juices add an extra layer of flavor to the meat, and the acid makes the meat even more tender.  The vertical spit is turns slowly so that the meat can slowly cook to tender perfection. (FYI, this is the same method used to cook gyro meat.)

Adobada vertical spits

The cabeza is also a favorite of mine.  The meat is not as tender but tastes “crunchier” instead.  In contrast to the cucumber-yogurt sauce for the adobada, the cabeza taco is garnished with salsa verde, which, paired with the onion and cilantro, actually gives a pretty refreshing taste.

And of course, fried green onions and peppers are always free:

Fried green onions and peppers

Last time I visited, there were only the yellow variety of peppers.  This time there was also a green kind, and that thing is hot.  The yellow ones, I can eat the whole thing (skin + seeds) pretty calmly, but I was gulping water even before touching a single seed of the green peppers.  Haha.  Very exciting, but probably not for the not-so-spicy-inclined.  Green onions are eaten with some salt and lime juice – perfect.

Yep, this is still the best Mexican food I’ve ever had.

Tacos el Gordo
689 H St., Chula Vista, CA
(619) 691-8848

Hours
Sun-Thu  10am-12pm
Fri-Sat  10am-4am

[SD La Jolla] Puesto Mexican Street Food

May 192012
 

I was actually recommended to this restaurant by my boss, who described the tacos with the “crispy cheese.. it’s something different.”  Crispy cheese?  I had to check it out.

Located in downtown La Jolla, Puesto is decorated like a cute, fusion-y, fast casual restaurant.  It is brightly lit and open to the outside, which is pretty typical of San Diego restaurants (ahh the good weather…)

The menu is pretty simple: you choose salad bowl, guisado bowl (guisado = grilled foods), or tacos.  You pick your guisados, salsa, toppings, etc., and they assemble it as you desire.

I ordered two tacos, a carne asada and a huitlacoche.  I’ve never had huitlacoche, or “corn truffle”, before, but when I read about it, I knew I had to try it.  (This is going to sound a little gross, but I promise you that once you’ve tasted it, you’ll think it’s awesome.)  It’s basically a fungus that infects corn, called corn smut in the US.  Somehow, the Mexican farmers who discovered this fungus attempted to cook it – and found it to taste pretty darn good.  I owe these people a great big THANK YOU because huitlacoche is delicious.

The tacos are served on a cute little tray:

Two tacos, $6.45
Carne asada & Huitlacoche, with crispy cheese and avocado

Yes, that crispy layer you see is cheese.  They basically take shredded cheese and cook it on a griddle until a crispy layer forms on the bottom (kind of like cooking hash browns actually).  Then, fold the guisado into the cheese, place cheese into the tortilla, and voila – you have a perfectly neat little taco.

If you order the guisado bowl, you could add a variety of toppings (I think you can do that on the taco, too, but I didn’t really want anything).  SK chose lettuce, corn, and tinga, a hibiscus-chipotle-onion mix, for his carne asada guisado bowl.

Guisado bowl, $8.95

There were also several salsas, which we could sample.  They are, of course, homemade, and tasted pretty different from the ones I’ve had at burrito joints around here.  We ended up choosing the pistache, which is a pistachio and jalapeno mix, and tomatillo roja, a spicy red salsa.  SK liked the pistache a lot, but I preferred the tomatillo.  But all the salsas are pretty interesting, and I would recommend asking for samples and venturing into the unfamiliar… :P

The bottom line? I really liked the food here, even if it is a bit on the pricey side for “fast casual”.  They really brought a new twist on Mexican food (as I knew it, anyway), and it was delicious!

Puesto Mexican Street Food
1026 Wall St, La Jolla, CA
(858) 454-1260

http://www.eatpuesto.com

Hours:
Mon-Sun 11am-9pm

[SD Miramar] Roberto’s Taco Shop

Mar 212012
 

SK and I are always searching for good Mexican food.  Of course, our favorite remains Tacos el Gordo in Chula Vista, but it’s a far drive, and sometimes we just want a good, filling burrito.  His current favorite is Lolita’s Taco Shop on Clairemont Mesa Blvd, where the carnitas burritos are “soo gooooood” – I actually don’t think they’re that good, since I prefer juicier meat and I find the carnitas at Lolita’s on the dry side.  But that’s a matter of personal preference, and I’m not reviewing Lolita’s here…

We tried out Roberto’s Taco Shop on Miramar Rd. – actually, we had meant to go to Rigoberto’s down the road, so Roberto’s was a total accidental discovery.  We were actually pretty disappointed at first, but once our orders arrived, were pleasantly surprised.

Tortilla chips, $1.85

My favorite part of these tortilla chips is that they were warm.  Such a simple thing makes them so much better.  There were 3 types of salsa: spicy, mild, and verde.  I actually liked the mild one the best (shocking!) because it had the most complex – the spicy salsa had no flavor other than… well, spiciness.

Carne asada burrito, $4.50

(Yes, I took a bite of it before I took the photo.  Let’s just say that it was intentional…)

I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be delicious!  There was plenty of guacamole, which should be appealing to you guys (I’m personally not a huge fan, though it’s starting to grow on me).  The meat was actually pretty good, too.  I also tried a bite of SK’s carnitas burrito and can’t really decide which one I liked better – it was very juicy, but I also like the beefiness of the carne asada.

Anyway, I’m very glad that we happened upon Roberto’s.  I talked to my friend about it later and he said that this place can be hit-or-miss, but clearly we went on a “hit” night.  They are also open 24 hours, so I hope that next time I come (probably for a late-night snack), it’ll be as good as this visit!

Roberto’s Taco Shop
6780 Miramar Rd., San Diego, CA
(858) 530-0800

Hours
24 hrs/ daily

Amazing tamales at Cactus Taqueria (Solano Avenue)

Jan 072011
 

Back in Berkeley! My friend DZ and I decided to go out to Solano Ave. for dinner one evening, and he made several suggestions, but we finally settled on Cactus Taqueria (I suppose I was still craving Mexican food after getting back from Socal). When DZ told me that this place had good tamales, I knew that I had to give them a try – tamales are one of my favorite Mexican foods. They offered a few different options: corn & roasted chiles, chicken & green chile, chicken & red mole, and turkey & black mole. I suppose I’ve never really had an authentic tamale before (always had Tex-Mex tamales), so I just arbitrarily decided on the chicken & red mole. They come in orders of two or three each, served with pickled onions, tamale sauce, salsa, and some sort of sour cream. At two for $5, I thought it was a decent deal:

Chicken & Red Mole tamales

The verdict? They were the best tamales I’ve had in a long, long time. Usually the disappointing part of a tamale is the masa (the starchy dough) – it sits out for too long and becomes dry and crusty. Not the masa on these tamales – it was soft and fluffy, absorbed some of the juices from the fillings, and as a final touch, just a hint of corn from the corn husk wrappers. Steamed to perfect texture. The fillings were decent, too – I’ve never had mole sauce before so I don’t have a point of comparison, but I can tell you that the chicken was well-cooked and very flavorful. In fact, I barely needed to add any sauce. (Although the sauces were very tasty as well.) Other tamales just will not cut it for me anymore after this!

Oops, how could I have forgotten? Tacos el Gordo in Chula Vista

Jan 062011
 

I cannot believe that I almost forgot about the amazing Tacos el Gordo! Definitely one of the best meals of the SD trip. So, if you google ‘Tacos el Gordo San Diego’ you get half a dozen results, but supposedly the location on H street (I don’t even know if all these are related, actually) is the real deal. So we drove out all the way to Chula Vista for these tacos. I thought to myself on the way there, ‘these better be worth it.’

And my, were they worth it. There were a lot of different taco fillings, some of which (ok, most of which) I couldn’t understand because the menu was in Spanish (a good sign, of course). So, I had to look most of them up (thankfully Wikipedia has a great entry on tacos – ha!). There were: carne asada; cabeza (beef head muscle), sesos (beef brains), lengua (beef tongue); tripa (fried pork tripe), suedaro (tender beef), buche (fried pig’s esophagus); adobada (‘shepherd style’, with pork and beef); and some more that I can’t remember. You could also get grilled green onions and peppers, and help yourself to sliced radishes and limes.

Tacos & grilled onions @ Tacos el Gordo

I learned from Sid that the proper way to eat the grilled onions is to squeeze plenty of lime juice over them, then sprinkle with salt. It was delicious.. I love green onions (In fact, I can’t believe I used to hate it as a kid!).

Pork taco adobado

And this, my pork taco adobado, was the favorite taco of the evening (I also tried cabeza and tripa). So this is how the meat was cooked:

Tacos adobados

You can’t see too clearly, but that is meat on a vertical rotisserie. The chef trims the meat off the rotisserie directly onto the tortilla. Apparently it is similar to how the Greeks prepare gyro meat. Well, this is pretty genius and delicious.

The other tacos were pretty good, too.. the cabeza was very juicy and tender, and I didn’t like the tripa as much because they were a little too chewy and not crispy enough for my liking. Everything was seasoned pretty well, and it all felt very authentic. Anyway as you can tell, I loved this place.. it was too bad that I only went once. I am making it a point to eat here every time I visit SD. And at $2 a taco, the pricing is pretty decent. (Although even after 3 tacos each, Sid and I weren’t full and split an order of animal-style fries at In N Out… :P )

Chubby’s Tacos

Dec 142009
 

I am the worst blogger ever.
The past who-knows-how-many-times I have been to Chubby’s Taco’s, I have either forgotten to take pictures or bring my camera/ phone altogether… but finally, today, I remembered… after taking a bite out of my tamale, that is…
Anyway, Chubby’s is one of my favorite Durham eateries! I was first attracted to the salsa bar (thaaaat’s right folks, salsa bar) – all freshly made, all very delicious. Of course, the first time I went, I tried every single kind, but I have narrowed down a few favorites: Bandido’s Salsa, Chile de Arbol, and the Habanero. The habanero is honestly one of the best spicy sauces that I have ever had, by the way – and that’s speaking for all the Asian spicy foods that I’ve eaten…
The amazing salsa bar at Chubby’s.
I usually order a taco and make it a meal, which comes with rice and beans (black or refried) and a bag of corn chips. However, recently I have discovered that their tamales are quite good, so pictured here is my meal from today, tamale with spicy chicken tinga:
I have also ordered the smothered tamale, which is the same thing but with chili, shredded lettuce, and tomato on top. I think I prefer the regular tamale, to be honest…

Tamale, refried beans, rice.
But of course, if it is your first time here, you must try the tacos. I really like the carnitas or spicy carne asada. My friends also highly recommend the fish tacos – the chipotle cream sauce does look very delicious.
If you haven’t made your way down to 9th street yet for taco and salsa, you are definitely missing out. You’ll get a great meal at an unbelievable price. And you’ll probably see me there, sampling another flavor of salsa… (yes, I am easily entertained).
Price: $5-10

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