Six more places to eat and drink in Ensenada and the Valle de Guadalupe (with a stop for coffee in Tijuana)

It had been a year since I’d been to the Valle de Guadalupe and Ensenada because clearly my brain was taken over by aliens and I forgot how much I love it there. It’s always the casual decadence that gets me: oysters many ways, an abundance of craft beer options, a morning mezcal with an uni/scallop tostada. It was overcast most days so there wasn’t much of a sunset to see but in a way that’s fitting for Ensenada, where the only measure of time should be your hunger or thirst. Until, if you’re lucky enough to be staying on the water, the sky is dark and the waves soothe your food coma into a good night’s sleep. Here are a few places I went to this time. 

TrasLomita

TrasLomita is like if someone designed a movie set of a restaurant in Valle de Guadalupe: hidden behind vineyards tables sat under fairy lights, cooks casually worked the grills, and water trickled into a lily pad-covered pond, where a little turtle perched on a rock stretched out its limbs as if in a yoga pose. The chef, Sheyla Alvorado, exemplifies the flavors of the valle: produce fresh from the garden, seafood galore, and depths of smoke.

The signature dish here is the chicken with perfectly crispy skin, tender meat (I mean who makes white meat that good?) and the essence of mesquite in every bite. But don’t miss the vegetables here— they’re worked on the grill too and the kale that came with the grilled octopus was silky and crunchy, as if put on the fire and then dipped in a layer of fat. We also started with the oysters grilled with bone marrow, pistachios, and sheep’s cheese melted on top. The dessert was tropical beach meets grandma’s kitchen: arroz con leche, cajeta ice cream and cold burts of guayaba fruit. So basically we kept it super light.

Tacos Fénix

You’ve probably visited this taco stand already as it is known as Ensenada’s best fish taco. In my many times visiting Ensenada I had not been here because my ex-boyfriend makes the best fish tacos I’ve ever had, and at the time had a Baja style taqueria in LA which I ate at constantly. I was always disappointed whenever I had a fried fish taco anywhere else. But not here. I was taking my parents on a beer crawl of Ensenada (read on) and these perfectly battered tacos were a necessary pit-stop. Tacos Fénix is celebrating almost 50 years in operation and it’s no wonder why.

Madre

Between our rum from Michoacan, locally made gin and a great bacanora, we feasted. It’s here where my parents immediately got the vibe for restaurant culture in Ensenada: it’s fine dining but without the pretension, where being a coastal city and not far from the border lends itself to a blend of pride for local ingredients and exploration.

We started with a mixed tiradito sprinkled with local seaweed, and oysters with melted chile tatemado butter. For our main I’m glad we tried the quail as well as one of my signature happy-place meals in the region is a breakfast plate of over easy local quail eggs in Rosarito. The tender meat came with a guayaba mole and a soft quail egg.

My favorite surprise of the night was the gin and tonic, a botanical treat made with TJ-based elmira gin and laced with dill, dried fruits and lime zest (the gin on its own is enjoyable too). They serve an affordable pre-fix meal for lunch, a la carte dinner, and it’s good to know that they are open Monday nights too. 

Cervecería Doble C

A new location for these guys who were priced out of their previous spot on the water, this definitely felt like a work in progress in terms of ambiance. Then again, that’s not usually why people go to breweries. There are picnic tables inside and a terrace overlooking the port on top.

They had three beers on tap: a hazy IPA, a sour mango and the cleverly named Cabrown porter. Ensenada can get cold easily, so a light porter was exactly my mood while the sun set. 

Lucky Irish Pub #4

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve found myself in an Irish pub in a foreign country next to a Bon Jovi poster, under the glow of a Robbie Williams live-in-concert video wondering how the hell I got there (although let’s be honest, probably a cute guy). But the times when an Irish pub has opened up to an oceanside beer garden with taps of the best craft beer in the region? Only once at the totally originally named Lucky Irish Pub. Located off the highway in El Sauzal, if you walk through the original pub you’ll find a garden with 80 beers on tap sectioned by brewery and a kitchen window serving Baja-style pub food (oysters, ceviche tostadas, other non-wing and jalapeño popper things). If you want to sample from Baja’s craft brewers, this might be the best place in the whole area. On Tuesdays beers are 50 pesos.

Savory

This is a health-oriented breakfast place in the same building as Barra D Cafe and Mezcaleria La Penca. I am normally not a hotcake girl because I reserve pancake time for my 4-year-old twin nephews in Topanga, but if you want something healthy and hearty to start your day I would get a verde smoothie and a stack of whole grain hotcakes topped with fruit here. 

On your way out: Pichino’s in TJ

If you read my blog regularly you know that I am a sucker for a cold elaborate coffee drink in Mexico— something about always being hot and in a food coma. There’s a damn good one here called the espresso fizz: espresso, lemon juice, simple syrup, pineapple shrub and soda. It got me through TJ and over the border line after a long day (and weekend) of food and drinks. This is a new spot by the cocktail guys at Nortico, which you should also visit but more on that in another story coming soon. 

Talking perseverance, sisterhood and Tlacolula’s gastronomy with Oaxacan Cocinera Tradicional, Catalina Chávez

I met up with Catalina Chávez at a gas station in Tlacolula, Oaxaca, where she and her husband picked me up in a tuktuk and immediately took me to eat ice cream. The day only went up from there. Catalina is a cocinera tradicional, which means she’s part of a group of women who are passing down the ancestral cooking traditions from Oaxaca’s eight regions. At the recent “encuentro” where women from all over entered their ceremonial dishes into a competition, Catalina won third prize with her mole enchiladas. Celia Florian, the organizer of the cocineras, introduced me to her when I asked to interview a cocinera not far from Oaxaca city. 

After enjoying a cone of leche quemada and tuna ice cream (a staple here), we followed the sweet scent of a fresh bread where she insisted I take a bag of Tlacolula’s pan de yema home. Fairly quickly we were out of the town center and climbing up a dirt road, Catalina with the kind of grace that allowed her to sway and bump in the back while holding her posture and a cone of melting ice cream perfectly upright. 

She lives in Colonia Tres Piedras (three rocks), marked by three Flinstone-looking boulders. At the time her comedor was still under construction, so we sat in the shell of the dining room and Catalina told me about her life. We talked for about two hours: about her sister’s passing to cancer, embracing life as a cocinera, motherhood, and yes, about food. Here’s an abbreviated version. At the end she fed me a plate of mole negro, glistening over a pile of white rice. It was perfect.

How did you learn to cook?

I’m the third generation of cooks in my family. This chef asked me once if I went to culinary school and I said yes, I studied at the best school possible: because when you mess up you get a slap on the head! With an onion, with a chile, with whatever is in the kitchen.

My mom had a strong personality. She became a widow when I was 11-years-old. My dad was an alcoholic. She said that all she thought about was how to get food on the table for her kids. Imagine: you have an alcoholic husband, you have to get food on the table, you have to take care of your kids, you have to clean, and all that pressure falls on you and you don’t have any way to let off steam.

I told my mom in the end that I understand. My grandmother was a widow too. You understand eventually that they had to figure out how to do what they needed to do and that shaped them. It shaped me too, because I saw that if you work hard at a job you can provide for what you need in life.

It seems like you see cooking as more than a job — do you think being a cocinera tradicional has always been valued by Oaxacan society?

Since I was a girl helping my mom in Tlacolula, I remember the cook leaving the kitchen: dirty, sweaty and dead tired, everyone turns around and looks. No one values that you just fed 300 or 500 people. I was embarrassed to say I was a cook.

One time this woman asked me who I was and she said, “Oh the cook” with a negative tone when I told her my mother’s name. I remember it. I saw her a while later and she said, “so you became a cook too.” And I said yes, and I’m proud of it. I like it. I’m passionate about it, I love representing the gastronomy of my town. And also— I’d like one of you to try and do one single thing that I do. And she had no words.

How does your husband support your work?

One time my husband got upset because I came home from cooking really late. He said if I didn’t stop going like I was going he would leave. I told him, I don’t need you and I will continue with or without you. From that point on, he got it and has been supportive. I wasn’t changing. It’s complicated to be a mom, wife and worker. But everything is possible— it’s tiring but it’s possible. We as women have to work harder. 

Why be part of the cocineras tradicionales?

This really is a project for women. I admire Cecilia [Celia Florian], she could be very comfortable living her life without doing anything else. But she’s doing something beautiful for us. There are women cooking in more isolated areas who need ways to make income. So we need more projects that support our work as cooks. It’s women supporting women.

Apart from that, they are also trying to rescue a diet of unprocessed foods. Maseca is taking over, but when we were little my grandpa and my dad would bring in sacks of corn— it’s such an amazing flavor to eat corn straight from the field. People aren’t growing agriculture like they used to here, and people eat so differently now. That’s why the cocineras tradicionales is important: so many of the diseases we deal with now are because we are hurried and eating fast food. 

What’s the difference between your mom’s food and yours?

My grandmother and my mom have the same recipes, but they do change a little when they are passed down. Everything is still made artisanally and by hand, but I think the “sazon” that we have is different. My grandmother is 97 but she still notices details when they’re off according to her. 

You represent Tlacolula with your cooking, what kind of dishes should people try here if they want the real deal?

Tlacolula has an intense gastronomy. We are known for our moles: coloradito, amarillo, verde, negro. In Tlacolula we have the custom that when someone dies we make mole de luto, a chichilo mole. Higaditos are also very traditional, with chicken, onion, tomato, miltomate, chicken stock. Just when the vegetables are boiling you add eggs, but if the eggs hit the bottom it doesn’t work so you have to very careful. Also, barbacoa is typical at important events too.

What about the rest of your family, are your siblings cooks too?

My siblings all crossed [the border]. I remember one night my sister said she was going to leave, but I told her I wouldn’t leave my mom. That night my mom came home and my sister was gone. She was 16 years old, I was 13. She’s still there 27 years later. She said she was going to build a house here and she did, it’s beautiful but she’s never returned. I stayed to work with my mom. There was one day when she said “we’re doing ok, you could go back to study”, but I said no, I liked my work. And since then doors have opened. I have an 18 year old in college and a 14 year old as well. And thanks to the cocineras tradicionales, I got a 10 year visa. Imagine that. 

Find Catalina Chavez in Tlacolula at:

MO-KALLI Restaurante

Donají 48, San Isidro, 70400 Tlacolula de Matamoros, Oax.