You know about Baja Med. And Peninsular Cuisine is on the rise. But what about plain old Mexican food?
Well, maybe not so plain the way two gifted young chefs, Eulogio Rivas and Edgar Olvera, are preparing it at Asao in Tecate.
Rivas (above, showing off his tattoos) and Olvera met at culinary school in Tijuana. Now they work in an open kitchen facing Asao's high ceilinged, serene dining room (at top).
"Our kitchen is Mexican. We use Mexican products. We are Mexican cooks," Rivas says proudly. Techniques are traditional too, not borrowed from any other country. But presentation is clever and imaginative and will make you think about Mexican food in a new way.
Here is their take on tacos gobernador, which they have reworked into quesadillas filled with shrimp and smoked marlin. These are topped with pico de gallo and set on a plate sprinkled with black salt. The leaf of Mexican oregano behind the purple flower perfumes the entire dish.
These tomatoes are crosshatched with nopales strips that have been "cooked" following indigenous tradition by rubbing with salt. This "prehispanic salad," as the chefs call it, has updates such as a pesto of almonds, Parmesan and epazote added to lightly grilled tomatoes. The shredded leaves mingling with pico de gallo on top are oregano, epazote and spinach.
For the yellow sauce, the chefs cooked lemon peel for eight hours and then prepared an emulsion with olive oil. The cheese cubes are local queso fresco.
An estofado, or stew, of vegetables accompanies local rabbit in a slightly sweet red wine sauce (above). The stew includes eggplant, sweet peppers and mushrooms. The wine came from the Guadalupe Valley.
And here is Mexican beef rib eye on a dark sauce that will really wake you up. It's made with double strength brewed coffee and instant coffee powder. If you take sugar in your coffee, you'll like this, because the sauce is sweetened too.
At the upper right of the plate is chard with chipotle and tomato. Powdered chiles form the crumbly path leading to it.
Traditional Mexican food without rice and beans? Almost. The beans were reserved for dessert (above). Sweet and warm, they're under a layer of aniseed atole. On the plate are tiny crisp buñuelos sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.
Asao is part of the Santuario Diegueño, a complex that includes a boutique hotel, another restaurant and an event center. It's on a hill at the edge of town that is so close to the border you can see it from the parking lot.
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