My quest for Baja-style fish tacos in the Bay Area is finally over. After visiting El Beach Burrito (EBB), I have decided to hang it up and go into retirement. What? The best are in the Outer Sunset? Could it be that those delicious Baja style fish tacos – corn tortilla tacos stuffed with a light, crunchy beer-battered filet of tender flaky whitefish topped with just the right amount of cabbage and tangy sauce – have been at Judah and 44th Avenue all along? On the contrary, these were so far from Baja style that I’ve decided to throw in the towel.
Coming from San Diego, a staple of my diet was fish tacos. At least one dinner a week consisted of fish tacos. Back there, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill was the backup plan for Baja-style fish tacos, if you were desperate for a quick fix. Upon coming to San Francisco, there were plenty of burrito joints, but nowhere for Baja style fish tacos. In fact, the word Baja hardly ever turns up on the menu, even in the Mission. So for the past three years, I’ve been searching high and low for the Holy Grail. The closest entrant came from Flying Fish Grill in Half Moon Bay, but everything else has fallen disappointingly short.
I should have learned from the time that we went to La Playa Taqueria (also in the Outer Sunset) that proximity to the ocean has no correlation with quality of fish tacos. But this time I had heard that EBB served good Baja style fish tacos even if the menu didn’t specifically say Baja-style. (Then again, Flying Fish Grill didn’t specify Baja-style either.) My fingers and toes crossed, I approached the uninterested lady at the register and asked, “Are the fish tacos Baja style?” “Yeah, sure,” she replied while cleaning her fingernails. “Ummm, yeah. Run out of here while you still can,” the voice of reason within me cried. Throwing caution to the wind and listening instead to the growling of my stomach, I ordered the Two Tacos Dinner (8.95). Lucky opted for the regular chicken burrito after learning that they were out of carnitas ($5.85). Strike one! As we waited for our food, I went to the salsa bar, which is sometimes the make-or-break determinant at a Mexican food joint. Even if the food is just average, fresh salsa can bring almost anything back to life. But they were out of pico de gallo. Strike two! We hadn’t even eaten and already this place was on the ropes. Ten minutes after ordering, we took our food to go because the décor, or maybe I should say lack thereof, with fluorescent lights and several unbussed tables would have made me lose my appetite.
Lucky’s burrito was one of those average burritos that could have benefited from some salsa. It was priced like a super burrito at La Fonda (let’s not even compare the price to burrito shops in the Mission) but stuffed unimpressively with beans, rice and tomatoes. While the chicken did have that tasty chargrilled flavor, it was overly dry and not so generously present. Though unscientific in its measurement, it is quite simple to tell whether Lucky likes her burrito. If she does, she can finish the whole thing no matter how big it is. Let’s just say I had the other half of it for lunch the following day.
As for my meal, it was strike three! The dinner was advertised as including rice, beans, tortillas and a salad. The rice was dry and flavorless, so I had to mix in the refried beans to make it somewhat edible. The salad did not even deserve to be called that. When I saw it, I thought it was just lettuce and sour cream that was supposed to be added to the tacos. The only tortillas that it came with were the ones used to wrap the tacos. And the tacos themselves were not Baja style. No light batter, no cabbage or tangy white sauce. Defeated, I took a bite hoping that the fish tacos were at least OK. Well, they were just that: OK – small filets of white fish grilled and placed in corn tortillas, As I quietly ate my tacos, my inner voice laughed, “I told you so.”
And so, I’m calling it quits. If I’ve learned anything from my quest it is: 1. Don’t ignore that inner voice of reason. 2. Good Mexican food does not exist in the Outer Sunset; and 3. Good fish tacos do not exist north of Half Moon Bay.
Originally published: www.ucsf.edu/synapse/articles/2007/Nov/15/elbeach.html
No comments:
Post a Comment