Go Thee To Baja! Baja Culinary Fest Oct 11-14

October 11-14 is the 2nd annual Baja California Culinary Fest! Thanks to the generosity of Chef Javier Plascencia, I was able to attend the 1st annual festival last year and with more experience, this year's is promising to be even better. There are many different events over the four days, from special dinners, a gastro tour of Tijuana, a visit to the Ramonetti cheese cellar, a festival in Rosarita, and many more.

It all culminates in a festival at the Galerias Hipodromo. Last year's festival had some of the best restaurants in Tijuana, and this year will probably have even more. Instead of paying an all inclusive ticket, last year attendees buy tickets for each item purchased.
From a whole leg carved on-site by Cheripan, Tijuana's premier Argentinean restaurant.

There was a great chocolate clam cocktail from Catavina (it's a type of Mexican clam, there's no chocolate in it!)

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Crispy Empanadas and Pickled Pig's Feet at Panchita (San Felipe, Baja, Mexico)

You find gems in unexpected places. Even in places you already expected to be good, you can still find unexpected dishes. Such was the case with Cenaduria Panchita in San Felipe.

During the last Baja trip, our host took us to Panchita for the best empanadas in town, but to our delight we also found ... pickled pig's feet! This specialty of Jalisco was quite a treat, with the bright pickle flavors counteracting the fatty pig's skin. Very different than the sweet Chinese style I'm used to.

Of course, there are the empanadas. After all, that's what Panchita is locally famous for. They also serve taquitos and other things, but I didn't find those particularly memorable.

Here, the meat-filled empanadas are fried (according to Street Gourmet LA, this is more Baja style than Jalisco).

What I really loved about these empanadas was the thinner skin, and of course the crispiness from the frying. These were some of the best empanadas I've had recently. I wish I could've taken some back to LA but they would've gotten soggy. I guess I'll just have to return to San Felipe to have them for breakfast!

Iced Jamaica, much needed in the hot San Felipe summer

Cenaduria Panchita
Calle Ensenada #201
San Felipe, Mexicali, Baja California
Mexico, CP21850

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LA Street Food Fest Summer Tasting, Back on July 21

The LA Street Food Fest returns to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday, July 21. The full vendor lineup hasn't been released yet, but usually the vendors from previous years would come back, so check out last year's highlights to know what to expect!

The term "Street Food Fest" has been defined pretty loosely, since now it's not just food carts/stalls/trucks, but also various restaurants and dessert shops participating.

And it's not just LA, the Food Fest also brought some of the best from Baja, including the uni tostada from La Guerrerense in Ensenada. They may just be making a repeat appearance this year. This little seafood cart has been featured many TV shows recently, so if you haven't had the time to drive down to Baja, try it locally at the food fest!

One of the best chefs in Baja, Javier Plascencia is also coming back this year. Last year he brought a lot of goodies, including these grilled oysters topped with sea asparagus. I don't know why the line wasn't longer at this booth, but hey, better for me.

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El Balcon: Alta Cocina in San Felipe (Baja, Mexico)

Unlike the more metropolitan Tijuana, there aren't too many high end dining options in San Felipe, a sleepy town during the off-season. Still, there is at least one, and a very good one at that.

El Balcon Cocina Artesanal opened in Jaunary this year by Chef Julio Cesar Gonzalez Zetina who had previous worked at the Ritz Carlton in Cancun and researched Mayan culinary traditions for the university there. Now he also teaches the subject at the local university after a recent move from Ensenada.

El Balcon wasn't a fancy restaurant, just a few cute tables outside on the second floor of La Plazita, and an outdoor kitchen. Thick tortilla chips are accompanied by a bold housemade salsa.

Our lunch tasting began with an Aguachile de Cazon (dogfish marinated in burnt chili sauce and green sauce, smoked tuna, sea asparagus and "Huaxes" (toasted seeds), grasshopper, verdolaga

We have had plenty of bounty from the Sea of Cortez, but this was the first time in San Felipe that we had it raw. The fresh dogfish carpaccio reminded me of kanpachi and both of the chile were so good that despite not being able to eat that spicy, I had to finish the entire plate (while downing plenty of water).
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Giant Cactus! Valle de Los Gigantes in San Felipe, Baja California,Mexico

People think of the beach and ocean when they think of San Felipe in Baja California, Mexico, but it is also a desert. A desert with giant cacti!

Thanks to Street Gourmet LA, I went along on a media trip to San Felipe this past week and saw these giants with my own eyes.
Valle de Los Gigantes in Rancho Punta Estrella features gigantic sahuaros, which are only 6 mm when it's a year old but can grow for 2000 (yes, 2000!) years!

They don't produce the first seed until they're about 75 years old, and after that it will go on to produce millions, but maybe only one will survive until maturity. Well, when "maturity" in the desert amount to thousands of years, that's not so surprising ...

For size comparisons:

See Street Gourmet LA with his camera to the right? It's not that he's far away in the background, that really is how big that cactus is.

I don't know why this one didn't sprout any branches, but it sure grew to be a lot taller than the rest!

San Felipe gets really hot in the summer months (March is the ideal time to vacation here), but it was definitely worth the trek to see them.

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Cebicheria Erizo (Tijuana, Mexico)

Chef Javier Plascencia from Tijuana can be likened to Wolfgang Puck in Los Angeles, dominating the Tijuana dining scene with numerous restaurants. Capping off the weekend-long Baja Culinary trip this past year was a tasting at one of these restaurants, Cebicheria Erizo, specializing in fresh seafood (including, of course, ceviches). Seafood from fish to octopus to clams are displayed in refrigerated cases as you enter; daily specials written on the blackboard above it. For our visit, though, we left it up to Chef Plascencia to serve us whatever he wanted.

To whet our appetite was a shot of leche de tigre with cucumber, fish jerky, and sea urchin (erizo de mar, the restaurant's namesake) hidden at the bottom.


Following up was a bowl of lightly spicy callo de hacha, Baja scallops with chicharrones

Instead of scooping up ceviche with tortilla chips, why not take it to the next level with chicharrones? Better yet, can we replace salad croutons with chicharrones from now on?

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Mariscos El Mazateno (Tijuana, Mexico)

My last trip to Tijuana with Street Gourmet LA took me back to Mariscos El Mazateno, a Sinaloan seafood taqueria. I came here on my first trip to TJ, but back then I was even weaker to spicy food as I am now so it was nice to revisit and enjoy it even better this time.

The must order here is the Taco Mazatena (shrimp/camarones enchilado), a taco packed full of fresh, crisp, lightly spicy shrimp. If you walk by the kitchen, you can see them cooking the spicy shrimp in a giant pot.

Dress this with the available condiments including cabbage, crema, pico de gallo, and a bottle of house made spicy green sauce made with avocado and serrano chili. The shrimp taco to end all shrimp tacos!

The meals start with a styrofoam cup of shrimp consomme.
While waiting for our tacos, they served us a plate of seafood cocktail including shrimp, octopus, scallops, and more.

If you have room for another after the heaping shrimp taco, try the smoked marlin taco, equally stuffed to the brim.

The pulpo/octopus was also popular among the other diners.

The tacos here cost up to 40 pesos (around $3) and considering how much seafood you get with them, it's not bad at all. Whatever the price may be, the taco mazatena is a must try!


Mariscos El Mazateno
Calzada Tecnologico,No. 473-E
Tomas Aquino
Tijuana,BCN

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