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

Oxnard Salsa Festival--The Winners

The bowl of salsa at the left was a big winner at last weekend's salsa festival in Oxnard. 

Judges chose it as the best medium salsa in the professional category, which was open to restaurants and markets.  From there, it rose even higher, defeating 20 other entries to become the judges' choice.

Want to taste it?  You can do that at Margarita Villa in Ventura, the restaurant that submitted it. 

As a judge assigned to the "medium" table, I was amazed at what contestants considered to be a medium salsa. The seven entries in that category ranged from totally mild to excruciatingly hot. The Margarita Villa salsa was classic, a really pleasant salsa to eat with chips. 

The judging was followed by a VIP party at which the salsas were set out for everyone to taste and then to select a people's choice (above).

The people's favorite was a green salsa from Tresierras Supermarket in Oxnard.  

Other winners were Best Mild and Best Red, both won by BG's Cafe. The Best Green was entered by Vallarta Supermarket. The Best Hot came from El Dorado Mexican restaurant,  It's at top left in the photo, which shows how the salsas were presented to the judges, tagged with a number but otherwise anonymous.

The winner in the Best Special division was a strawberry salsa entered by The Kitchen in downtown Oxnard, where the judging took place. 

Clos de Tres Cantos--It's Spectacular

What on earth is that cluster of giant boulders, a behemoth encampment high in the hills?

It is Clos de Tres Cantos as seen from the highway through the Guadalupe Valley. The sight is enough to stop traffic, if there were much of that on this road. 

Get closer, and you'll find one of the most architecturally astonishing wineries in the valley, a stunning composition of rocks and cement.

Clos de Tres Cantos opened in September, 2014. It was designed by architects Alejandro d'Acosta and Claudia Turrent, whose innovative work can be seen in other valley wineries. D'Acosta is the brother of Baja wine pioneer Hugo d'Acosta.

In the courtyard (at top) you could well be in a Mayan temple.

These concrete chairs look as if they were set out for some preternatural cocktail party or, more appropriately, wine tasting.  

The pyramid-shaped structures, made from local rock, harmonize with the hills of the valley. Interesting details include this wine bottle niche in a wall.

More wine bottles form an interior panel that glows in the light.  

Not everything is rock and concrete. Here is the tasting room, where visitors gather around a wooden communal table. Owners María Benítez and Joaquín Moya are second and third from the left.  

Grapes are purchased because the winery is so new. The wines have philosophical names such as Tu Mismo (yourself), which is a blend of four red grapes; Duda (doubt), a blend of Carignan and Mourvedre, and Nada (nothing), a Tempranillo-Petite Sirah blend.

Nada's label (above) matches its name. Why call it that? Because "nothing can be anything" is the answer.  

You couldn't have ordinary food in such a winery. And there was nothing ordinary about the appetizers prepared for my group by chefs Javier Suárez (above) and Francisco de Landero.

Seared tuna on rosemary stems served as dippers for a melted mixture of four cheeses in a bread bowl. The cheeses came from the Ramonetti cheese cellar in Real del Castillo in the Ojos Negros valley. A fig and tomato marmalade on the side lightened the rich taste of the cheeses.

Centolla (king crab) mixed with Dijon mustard and dill was spooned onto jicama slices (above).

And here is shrimp on crisp pork rinds (chicharrón) with green apple and peppers. 

Clos de Tres Cantos will open a restaurant in August. Then, you'll be able to sit outside and enjoy a view like this while you eat and try the wines.

It you order Duda (above with Joaquín Moya), read the back label. It tells you to taste it and then "doubt everything and find your own light." That saying, from the Buddha, may sound wise, except that there's nothing to doubt about Clos de Tres Cantos becoming a major stop on the Baja wine route. 

East LA Meets Napa--and Bordeaux

It might seemed odd, finding Bordeaux wines at East LA Meets Napa, where the focus has always been on Latino food and wine.

Nevertheless, a special tasting room was set aside for grands crus, a premier grand cru classé, a Bordeaux supérieur and the like, with a couple of women to pour the wines and comment on them (at top). 

But this wasn't really odd, considering how France has influenced Mexican cuisine. The bolillo came from the baguette. Flan is actually crème renversèe au caramel. And we wouldn't be celebrating Cinco de Mayo if the invading French hadn't been defeated by a Mexican army at Puebla on May 5, 1862.

So AltaMed, which stages the annual benefit to raise funds for its health care services, was right on track.

The tasting spread through the wide open spaces of the Union Station and Metropolitan Water District courtyards. Even there, the French connection continued.

One of Mexico's elite winemakers, Victor Torres Alegre (above), greeted tasters in the enclave devoted to wines produced in Mexico. Torres Alegre was the first in his country to earn a doctorate in enology. And guess where he got it? The University of Bordeaux. 

Previously winemaker for Château Camou, he now has his own winery, the Vinícola Torres Alegre y Familia in the Guadalupe Valley. Above are two of his wines. 

The Torres Alegre 2011 Del Viko white blend, composed of 70% French Colombard and 30% Chenin Blanc, is made according to French methods and without oak, he said, A charming wine, it easily stood up to a spicy ceviche tostada from El Coraloense (above).

The 2005 Guarda Especial La Llave, a Cabernet Franc and Merlot blend, spent 24 months in French oak. Selected grapes first underwent 15 days of skin contact at cold temperature, then went through an exceptionally long, slow fermentation of 45 to 60 days--so as not to extract hard tannins, Torres Alegre said.

During vinification, sweet tannins from inside the grapes were extracted naturally by the pressure of the grapes, not by mechanical means, he said. The wine was released in 2014.   

What would you eat with such a wine? Something with foie gras, possibly, and that was close at hand, slices of pan dulce with foie gras butter and piloncillo from Broken Spanish. The slices weren't as pink as in the photo, caused by the early evening light. 

ALXimia Winery from the Guadalupe Valley was also present. Its French connection is chef Martín San Roman, who opened La Terrasse San Roman at the winery last year.

From Mexico City, San Roman was graduated from l'École Lenôtre and worked at Fauchon and Le Meridien hotels in Paris. Returning to Mexico, he opened Tour de France in Tijuana and later Rincón San Roman on the coast.

Food at the new restaurant is Baja Provençale but includes classics such as pâté maison Terrasse, les escargots à la Bourguignonne and soupe à l'oignon. The signature dessert is a cake composed of crepes and white chocolate.

ALXimia wines to go with his food include the 2012 Magma, a blend of Carignan and Garnacha (Grenache). It's held by Alvaro Alvarez Parrilla, director general of the winery and winemaker. 

Not far from ALXimia's booth, chef John Sedlar, now at Eloisa restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico, served cannelés. This is "the significant dish of Bordeaux," said Sedlar, who went to Bordeaux to attend the Fête le Vin.

Crusty outside and custardy inside, the little cakes were served with tequila cream, tequila caramel sauce and a dab of candied green chiles--not classically French, but perfect for East LA Meets Napa.

Great Mexican Food at Doña Esthela's

If you want real down-home Mexican food in Baja, you'll head for the countryside and La Cocina de Doña Esthela.

This unpretentious restaurant is on the wine route only a few minutes outside of Ensenada. Always crowded with locals, it's open for breakfast and lunch, which continues until 6 p.m. 

What you must eat is borrego tatemado (above), a dish notable enough to be featured on the restaurant's business card. It's lamb roasted at high heat in an outdoor beehive oven, emerging juicy and so tender it falls into shreds, some of them crusty and chewy.

On the side, you'll get a bowl of lamb broth to spoon over the meat, which you can eat plain or wrapped in handmade flour or corn tortillas (above). Either way, you'll be in heaven.

Or you might order machaca (shredded beef jerky) with eggs (above). It's equally delicious and available daily. Other specialties are limited to certain days, such as beef birria, cooked in the outdoor oven on Saturdays and Sundays, and cazuela, a beef stew, on Tuesdays. 

The day for pan dulce, baked in a wood-fired oven, is Friday. The selection includes conchas, coricos, which are corn-based breads typical of northern Mexico, and empanadas stuffed with pumpkin or pineapple. Above is a clay oven located inside the restaurant. 

Every day, you can have freshly made queso fresco, served with chips and salsas (above), and almost any Mexican egg dish you could want.

With your breakfast, be sure to order cafe de olla--ground coffee cooked in a clay pot with cinnamon and sugar and served in a clay mug (above).

Dona Esthela (above) started out with a tiendita (a small store), then cooked food for workers building Hacienda La Lomita, a nearby winery. This evolved into opening the restaurant, but the tiendita is still there, attached to the building.  

All are welcome, including some unexpected visitors. In the photo above, look just to the right of the table leg. What you see is a hen who came in through the back door to search for crumbs.  

A discriminating customer, she rejected the flour tortilla scrap that I gave her but gobbled every bit of corn tortilla she could get. That's how good Doña Esthela's tortillas are. They're naturally sweet from the corn, unlike any I have found at home in Los Angeles. 

The address of La Cocina de Doña Esthela is Rancho San Marcos el Porvenir, Domicilio Conocido S/N, Ejido El Porvenir, Baja California. Open Tuesday through Sunday, the restaurant is on a dirt road that branches off the free highway from Tijuana to Ensenada. If you can't find it, go to Hacienda La Lomita and ask for directions. Or call (52) 646-156-8453.

Dream Away at Cuatrocuatros in Baja

If you dreamed up a place where you could get away from everything except glorious views, total peace and air so fresh it shocks city lungs, it might look like this.

Only this isn't a dream. It's the bar at Cuatrocuatros, a hotel, winery, real estate venture and event venue at El Tigre, near Ensenada.

Every seat is spectacular. Looking in this direction, Ensenada would be down the coast at the left. 

A landlubber? Then perch on tall wooden bar stools and look toward hills inhabited by bobcats, coyotes and wild deer.  

The bar is accessible only by a dirt road so rough and winding that no one who's had a drink or two could handle it. Therefore, Cuatrocuatros provides transportation.

Another spot even more isolated is on top of a hill lined with grape vines. This is the place for presenting engagement rings. The groom-to-be could hardly stage the presentation as a surprise.  Everyone involved has to be driven to the top in an off-road vehicle.  

If you have a cool few million, you could buy land from Cuatrocuatros and build a house, which will entitle you to a share in the winery. Wine production is only 700 cases, and the wines are sold only at Cuatrocuatros.

The first release was in 2009. Current releases include an appealing semi-sweet Grenache made from old vine grapes. It was blended from the 2013 and 2014 vintages, one year with oak age and one without.   

Although not far from the Guadalupe Valley, this area is a different microclimate, two miles from the ocean and cooler, says Andrés Blanco, who overseas the bar and other hospitality facilities.

Whereas harvest has already started at some vineyards in the valley, the harvest at Cuatrocuatros won't start until the end of August or early September.

Blanco himself is a winemaker. Above, he's pouring a blend of Tempranillo, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, a handsome red from 2011.

The 2013 Sauvignon Blanc, which spent some time in French oak, is typically peppery and vegetative. It's a stunning wine from a vineyard close to the ocean.

Cuatrocuatros wines have no labels. Instead, their identity is sandblasted onto the bottle (above). It's another elite aspect of this development, where you can rough it in  glamorous cabanas rigged up like tents--unless, that is, you prefer to build your own luxury ocean-view hideaway.

Meanwhile, you can stop buy and pick up a bottle of wine. The address is Carretera Libre (the free road from Tijuana to Ensenada), km. 89, in El Tigre. Call first if you want to buy wine or go to the bar, which is open only on weekends. The phone is (52) 646-174-6789.