EatMx: Real Mexican food, at home and on the road

Spicy Steak Straight from Baja

Here is one of those simple, homestyle Mexican dishes that are as comforting as they are delicious.

Only this recipe isn't from a home but from a resort, Villa del Palmar at the islands of Loreto in Baja California Sur.

I think of resort and hotel food as bland and "safe," tailored to please tourists wary of anything spicy and unfamiliar. But that isn't the case at Villa del Palmar.

The food I had there was so good that I wish I could find its equal at home. But at least I have a few recipes like this one for steak in spicy tomato sauce, given to me by Angel Ruiz Gutiérrez, the food and beverage director.

PUNTAS DE FILETE
Steak in Tomato-Chipotle Sauce
From Villa del Palmar 

1 pound trimmed flank steak
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large white onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 pound tomatoes, chopped 
1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo, chopped 
1/3 cup cilantro leaves, chopped

Cut the steak into 3/4-inch chunks or strips. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the meat and cook until browned and any liquid has cooked away, 12 to 13 minutes.

Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until the onion is tender, about 6 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Lower the heat. Add the tomatoes, the tomato sauce and chipotle chiles and simmer until the tomatoes are softened into a sauce, about 20 minutes. Stir in the cilantro.

Serve with rice.

Makes 4 servings.   

Kokopelli Tacos Show Up in L.A.

My one chance to eat at Kokopelli, the Tijuana street stand famous for its grilled seafood tacos, ended in nothing at all. It was late, and the stand was closed.

The happy ending came this week, almost a year later. Guillermo "Oso" Campos Moreno, who started Kokopelli with his brother, Pablo, and Orlando Miguel del Monte, came to Los Angeles with Baja tourism people promoting the area's attractions.

The meeting took place at Rivera, where chef/owner John Sedlar opened his kitchen so that Oso (at top) could make mini versions of his tacos for media people listening to the Baja spiel.

First up was smoked marlin and potato in Yucatecan pibil sauce (above), garnished with avocado, pickled red onion and pineapple sauce. Wonderful smoky, spicy stuff on a chip.

Then came halibut ceviche with passion fruit, avocado, a peppermint, basil and lemon sauce and black chia seeds on top (above). Nice and light after the smoky tastes.

Back in the kitchen, Oso was grilling octopus, which he combined with Mexican pesto sauce, pickled red onions, avocado and peanut sauce (above).

What's in Mexican pesto? If your garden includes hoja santa and papalo, you can make it. The other ingredients are poblano chile, cilantro, garlic, red wine vinegar and Baja olive oil.

Then Oso took a chance. "I have one more dish that I have never done before," he said. The risk was worth it.  The new dish was mahi mahi on a circle of nopal cactus with a pipián sauce that included pine nuts, ancho and morita chiles (above). The white sprinkles on top are amaranth.

Can you imagine food like that from a street stand?  In other words, don't miss Kokopelli on your next trip to Tijuana.

At the stand, tacos are 20 pesos, and sodas and consomme are 10 pesos--those are prices from last year. Instead of soda, the beverage at Rivera was Villa Montefiori Chardonnay 2011 (at right).

This winery was founded in 1997 in the Guadalupe Valley, producing red wines at first and now getting into whites. Crisp, fresh and non-oaky, the Chardonnay was excellent with the complex, spicy Kokopelli tacos.

Perhaps you can pick up a bottle during Vendimia, the annual Baja wine festival August 2-18. 

Kokopelli, Melchor Ocampo between 11th and Blvd. Agua Caliente, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. 011-52-664-674-4906.

Chocolate Clams--Baja's Seafood "Candy"

There's one thing you absolutely must do if you go to the coast of Baja California Sur. Fishing? Snorkeling? Kayaking? Diving? Swimming and sunning?

You'll do all those, of course. But what you can't miss is eating almejas chocolatas--chocolate clams.  They're named for the color of their shells, not any Hershey-like flavor. 

This is "the best place in the world for chocolate clams," says Roberto Cardazzo, executive chef of Villa del Palmar at the Islands of Loreto.

Cardazzo dives for the clams himself, then fixes them with butter, Parmesan and brandy, or buffalo mozzarella, brandy and chipotle.

Or he'll turn them into a soup that comes in a bread bowl (above) with a tracing of chipotle on top. 

If you're staying in the town of Loreto, eat them at Domingo's Place, a quirky gathering spot that's like a tropical jungle inside.

Domingo's brings out plates of almejas chocolatas gratinadas--baked clams with cheese and chipotle (in the photo at top). This seems like a favorite local way of preparing them, since Cardazzo does the same thing, although he laces his clams with brandy. 

Domingo's also makes chocolate clam chowder, and there it is (above) on a placemat that doubles as a map of the area.

These are the only clam dishes I could find on the menu. Domingo's special combination does include clams along with lobster tail, shrimp and scallops. At least the clams are on the Spanish side of the menu. The English side leaves them off to make room for a choice of garlic sauce or breaded.  

Domingo's Place, Salvatierra 154, Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Tel: 613-13-5-24-45.

Great Shrimp Tacos at a Baja Taquiza

Does this look like one of the best tacos you'll ever taste?

Probably not, because it's just three shrimp on a flour tortilla. But those shrimp are so remarkable you wouldn't want to smother them with gooey dressings and salsas, like Ensenada's famous fish tacos. 

Super fresh, fat and juicy, they've been fried just enough to give a slight crunch as you bite into them. Taco trimmings are on the plate underneath, if you want them.

The shrimp came from Bahia Magdalena on the west coast of Baja California Sur. That's the bay where you can see gray whales during their winter migration.

The taco, though, is on the other side of the Baja peninsula. You'll find it at Villa del Palmar, a resort at the Islands of Loreto about 40 minutes from Loreto itself. One of the restaurants there is Casa Mia (above), which tempts guests with a taquiza, or taco spread.   

Spend the morning swimming in one of six pools, then relax with a beer, tacos and maybe chips and guacamole too. 

The taco in the photo above is filled with a tasty mixture of carne al pastor and pineapple. Behind it are fresh salsa, beans and salad. 

If you're a steak lover, you'll want tacos de arrachera (above), filled with tender beef from Monterrey in northern Mexico. Notice that they're made with flour tortillas, which are very northern. 

Or you can choose chicken or carne asada tacos. Casa Mia has fish tacos too. I didn't get around to those, but judging by the fish I ate in Loreto, they have to be just as good as Ensenada's, if freshness is what counts. 

Coricos--Northern Mexico's Corn Cookies

The best coricos I have ever tasted were homemade. They appeared on a table of baked goods at a dinner in the city hall of El Fuerte, a colonial town in the state of Sinaloa. The dinner was organized to show off the foods of the region

Coricos are corn flour cookies that are popular in northern Mexico. Those at El Fuerte were ring-shaped, light and so tender I thought they must be loaded with lard.  But they were made with vegetable shortening, and only enough of that to hold together flour, water and sugar. They contained no baking powder or spices.

El Fuerte's coricos can't be duplicated elsewhere, because they require a white corn flour that is only available there. Known as harinilla, it's made from locally grown corn.

The cookies are baked in a wood-fired clay oven, which also makes a difference. You can just barely see them in the photo above. 

Another type of corico (at top) is a flat cookie, not ring-shaped. These turned up at the top of La Rumorosa, a winding, rocky, sharply mountainous stretch between Mexicali and Tecate in Baja California.

I saw them at Tacos Lalo, which is famous for its tacos a vapor--steamed tacos. Lalo's has been making these soft, moist, meaty wraps since 1973, and most drivers pull off the highway to get them.

That's mine (above), filled with beef, potatoes, lettuce, onions and salsa. (Read here what Street Gourmet LA's Bill Esparza wrote about Lalo's in OC Weekly.)

When I went to pay my bill, I spotted the coricos in a rack beside the order counter (far left, above). Lalo's doesn't make them. They come from La Nueva Fama Panadería, a Mexicali bakery that has been making coricos for decades.

These oval hunks of golden, crunchy goodness contain corn and wheat flours, sugar, eggs, vegetable shortening, baking soda and baking powder, which makes them very different from the El Fuerte coricos.

They're a commercial product, but that's not criticism. I was delighted to find them and to see on the label that they have a distributor in northern California. This means I may find them again one day, without the long drive to Tacos Lalo. 

Tacos Lalo, La Rumorosa, Baja California, Mexico. (No street address, but you can't miss it. It's on the left if you're heading toward Tecate from Mexicali, on the right, if you're traveling in the opposite direction. 

La Nueva Fama Panadería, Callejón Revolución 2391, Col. Simental, Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. (686) 556-23-36.

Ceviche with a Surprising Flavor

What kind of ceviche is this? Those are strips of dried mango on top; crunchy peanuts are mixed in, and the sauce is creamy and sweet, a blend of coconut milk, ginger juice and leche de tigre, the citrusy juices from marinating raw seafood. Habanero chile, green onion and cilantro are in there too. 

This is not some crazy Asian fusion dish, although it sounds like that. It's shrimp and squid ceviche at Erizo Baja Fish House & Market in Tijuana, which is chef Javier Plascencia's place. 

Far from a novelty, the combination reflects authentic "Tijuana taste," Plascencia says. Chinese food is so common in the border city that Plascencia grew up eating Chinese sweet and sour. "This is based on that taste," he says. 

To go with it, you ought to have a tamarind margarita, which, like the ceviche, is not Asian but totally Mexican.

The best tamarind doesn't come from Asia but from southern Mexico, says Plascencia. It's superior because the flavor is more intense than the imports you buy stateside. That's the kind of tamarind that Erizo uses in its tamarind syrup.

By the way, the chips in that little cup are notable too for their strong corn flavor. 

Erizo Baja Fish House & Market, Ave. Sonora 3808, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. (664) 686-2895.

Shrimp Hot Dogs and a Cool Coconut Drink

People go to Tacos Estilo Ciudad Obregón for dogos de camarón, which are shrimp hot dogs. This stand in San Felipe, Baja California, is named for owner Martín Mendoza's hometown in the state of Sonora.

The hot dogs are great--shrimp stuffed into soft buns brought from Sonora. The one above is loaded with condiments provided by the stand.

There are other good sandwiches too, like one that contains a fresh California chile that's been roasted, filled with ham and cheese and wrapped in bacon (at right).

The corn that you see on top comes from rajas, a mixture of green chile strips, corn and thick Mexican crema. It's in the condiment bar along with lots of other toppings. 

Or, if you want something familiar, you can have a hamburguesa with fries and a soda. 

 

The stand has two carts, one for sandwiches, the other for tacos. Mendoza, above, is cutting up carne asada for tacos. Lengua (tongue) and cabeza (head meat) are other popular fillings.

The time to go is night, when it's pleasant to sit outside after a hot day in this desert country and eat a sandwich or taco with a cold drink.

You'll find one of the best Mexican drinks you'll ever taste at this stand. It's coco horchata, or coconut horchata.

Ground rice is the traditional base for horchata. But in parts of Mexico such as southern Veracruz, people drink coco horchata that is made from ground coconut instead of rice.

And in Yucatán, there is pozole con coco, a Mayan drink of young corn ground with coconut. 

But the coco horchata at Ciudad Obregón (at right) is exactly what it sounds like--traditional rice horchata that is mixed half and half with the water from a fresh young coconut.

A truckload of green-hulled coconuts sits behind the stand, ready to be used for coco horchata. They come from Colima, I was told. 

Some of the tender, almost gelatinous, coconut flesh goes into the mix too. The flavor is deep and rich, with a faint, perhaps natural, saltiness.  

This cold, sweet, rich-tasting drink is so good that I was determined to reproduce it at home. The horchata part was easy. Click on the link for the recipe. For the coconut water, I bought a peeled young coconut at a Thai market and extracted the water and some of the flesh.

Poured in a tumbler over ice, homemade coco horchata is delicious. But I guess the only way to get the real flavor and the right atmosphere is to go to San Felipe and drink it at Tacos Estilo Ciudad Obregón.

Look for the stand at night on the street called Mar Caribe Norte. You'll know you're there when you see the twin hot dog and taco signs.  

 

A New Baja Chef Emerges

If you want to ace out other chef groupies, be the first to brag that you know this name: Julio César González Zetina.

You can say that Zetina (at top) is on his way to becoming the newest of the hot chefs in Baja California. And the first to work on the opposite coast of Baja from Tijuana's Javier Plascencia, who has been capturing most of the attention these days, and Ensenada's Benito Molina.

Dedicated to local products and indigenous cuisines, Zetina spent 10 years in Quintana Roo researching Mayan foods and culture and handling chef gigs in Cancún. Then he taught regional cuisines at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Ensenada. 

In January, he opened El Balcón Cocina Artesanal in La Placita, an upscale shopping plaza in San Felipe on the Sea of Cortez.

The restaurant occupies a breezy space on the upper floor looking out to the street, thus the name El Balcón (The Balcony). And it has a handsome tiled outdoor kitchen where González and his team put out extraordinary food.

Take, for example, the five-course lunch he produced the day I was there. 

It started with an aguachile of cazón (dogfish) marinated in green and red chile salsas (above) set off by a scattering of crisp sea asparagus, verdolaga leaves, chapulines (Oaxacan grasshoppers) and seeds from pods known as huaxes or guajes. Crisp tortilla cut-outs framed the plate. 

The next course (above) brought together foods from three regions. Yori muni beans from the Yaqui zone of northern Mexico were tucked inside thick oval masa cakes called tlacoyos.

On top, Zetina placed clams from the Sea of Cortez in a Mayan sauce, which tasted of the Yucatecan seasoning achiote. Lettuce leaves almost hid crisp crumbles made from beans and tuna.

Zetina and his sous chef, Marcelino Morales Villegas, are both from Puebla, so they were at home putting together a plate of shrimp with three moles--mole barroque, which tasted like a fruity, dark red Puebla mole, and green and red pipián sauces (above). Fried tortilla circles from the aguachile cut-outs top the cactus salad on the side. 

Ask Zetina how he makes a dish and he reels off a string of ingredients and spices more quickly than you can write them down. I did manage to get some of the components of the green pipián--pepitas, sesame, cumin and coriander seeds, green chiles, tomatillos, radish leaves and hoja santa.

After three courses of complex and spicy flavors, Zetina sent out vanilla ice cream scented with lavender flowers, accompanied by puffed amaranth on one side and chocolate syrup on the other.

And then a plate of Baja cheeses to eat with two fruit compotes (above). One combined orange and banana, the other fresh strawberries and jamaica flowers, infused with such spices as star anise, cinnamon, cloves, coriander and cumin. The crumbly mixture on the side includes pumpkin seeds, nuts and toasted coconut.

Instead of relying on what's available locally, Zetina brings in hydroponic and organic produce from the Guadalupe Valley. San Felipe fish markets supply him with freshly caught fish and shellfish.

And a wine shop in La Placita makes it possible to get good Baja bottles to go with the food at El Balcón.

At this lunch, J.C. Bravo's Palomino, a white wine from the Guadalupe Valley, coped well with a range of spicy and sweet flavors that would not have been easy to pair with a single wine. 

El Balcón Cocina Artesanal, Avenida Mar De Cortez 614-202, in La Placita, San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico.

Note: The restaurant is now on summer break. It will reopen in mid September when the weather starts to cool down. 

Have a Fish Taco Where They Started

San Felipe introduced the fish taco, or so its loyal inhabitants claim. If you want to try one where those people go, the place is Taquería & Mariscos Adriana on the malecon, facing the beach and the Sea of Cortez.

You won't meet Adriana. She's in Washington State. It's her mother, María Soledad Solorio Figueroa, who has run this stand for 24 years.

Here you see her, dipping pieces of fish in batter. Then she'll fry them until golden brown. 

María places the fried fish on a tortilla. Then you create the taco by adding the condiments she has set out.

There are plenty of salsas--one with avocado, another with cilantro, a chopped fresh salsa and a violently hot red salsa.

Tacos without that red salsa (above) aren't tacos, María says. She makes it with toasted pico de pájaro chiles.

If you can't eat anything that fiery, you can cool the taco down with shredded cabbage, thick crema and a cold beer on the side. 

Or she'll make you some ceviche (above) or a seafood cocktail with your choice of shrimp, oysters, octopus or clams, or a campechana, which combines them all. 

Taquería y Mariscos Adriana, Avenida Malecon 196, San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. 

A REALLY HOT RED SALSA
Inspired by María's salsa, but slightly different 

5 dried pico de pájaro chiles, or chiles de árbol 
3/4 pound roma tomatoes
1 serrano chile
1 large clove garlic 
Salt to taste

Toast the pico de pájaro chiles on a hot griddle until fragrant and slightly darkened, but not burned.

Place the tomatoes, serrano chile and garlic in a saucepan. Add water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil, uncovered, 5 minutes, until the tomatoes are softened.

Drain the vegetables. Remove the peel from the tomatoes. Cut off and discard the stem of the serrano chile. 

Place the tomatoes, serrano and pico de pájaro chiles and the garlic in a blender container and blend until pureed. Remove to a bowl and stir in salt to taste. 

Makes about 1 1/3 cups. 

La Vaquita's Mexican Mojito

Mariscos La Vaquita's bar menu has a sense of humor. Pay double for your first drink and the second one is free, it says.

This may be lame, and the cocktails are pretty rudimentary compared to the intense mixology in other parts of the world. Still, a Mexican mojito sounded promising.

To make it Mexican, the bartender put in cilantro instead of mint and tequila instead of rum.

The long green drink was fine on a hot evening, although it could have used more authority, meaning more tequila. I took care of that in the recipe below. 

Mariscos La Vaquita, Avenida Mar de Cortez and Puerto Peñasco, San Felipe, Baja California, Mexico. Tel: 577-2837.

MEXICAN MOJITO
Mariscos La Vaquita 

2 Mexican (key) limes
4 teaspoons sugar plus additional for rimming the glass
1 tablespoon cilantro leaves
3 ounces white tequila
3/4 cup ice cubes
3/4 cup club soda

Cut 1 lime in half. Lightly coat the rim of a tall glass with one of the halves, then swirl the rim in sugar to coat.

Squeeze the remainder of the lime into the glass. Add 4 teaspoons sugar and the cilantro leaves and muddle to blend the flavors.

Cut 2 slices from the remaining lime and add to the glass. Squeeze the juice from the remainder of the lime into the glass.

Add the tequila, ice cubes and soda and stir to mix.  

Makes 1 serving.