Life & Food

a Javier Plascentia dish

If you're planning on spending the afternoon of June 23 watching a baseball game (the Dodgers will be in San Diego anyway) or catching a matinee of World War Z, you maybe haven't been paying attention. You have tacos to eat. TiVo the game, watch the movie later, after you've spent the better part of the day stuffing yourself with sea urchin tostadas. From about noon to 5 p.m. Tacolandia will be going on in the Hollywood Palladium parking lot. Because these days the best food is mostly found set up outside on concrete, isn't it. And there will be mariachi music. And Miss Latina Los Angeles. We could go on.

And while there will be plenty of stellar folks from this town, there will also be four chefs who've trekked up from Baja to bring you their remarkable cuisine. (Next time, maybe go to them, right? Tijuana is only 150 miles away.) Turn the page for a brief preview of what you'll be eating in a few weeks.

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See also: Anthony Bourdain Told Me to Go to Baja. So I'd Be OK There. Right?
See also: Anthony Bourdain's Baja Episode of No Reservations Will Make You Want to Cross the Border Immediately
See also: OC Weekly's Column Tijuana Sí!

You're going to Tijuana, and you want to eat. That's a very good plan, considering some of the food world's heaviest hitters (Bourdain, Zimmern and the like) consider it a gastronomic destination hotter than habaneros in a heat wave right now. But you also want to see the town, preferably beyond the touristy Avenida Revolución (though close enough that picking up the "I heart TJ" t-shirt you'll inevitably want is still an option).

Lucky for you, we prayed to the Baja gods and were blessed with Bill Esparza, L.A.'s favorite reverse coyote, who agreed to let us join up with his tour of the Tijuana Food Fest -- one of the closing events at the second annual Baja Culinary Festival that took place last Thursday through Sunday. There, we got to sample some of his top picks for Tijuana street food all in one place.

The bonus of attending an event like this with Esparza was he cut to the chase. We headed straight for the craft brews, OK, in part because it was 90 degrees and we were thirsty, but mostly because beer is burgeoning in Baja, and worth getting a feel for. He made sure we sampled two tortas, each completely different but both delicious enough to induce an eyebrow furrow and silent nod as we chewed. And because you can't hit up TJ without eating tacos, he led us to the most (deservingly) buzzworthy ones around. We've parlayed all that knowledge into a Google map so that next time you cross the border, you'll know where to find all the same good stuff we did.

Even better, all four of these spots are relatively close to each other, so you can park your car and walk to each, or employ pretty cheap cabs. Either way, we give you the the Tijuana neighborhood grub crawl.

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A. Scattergood

La Guerrerense's sea urchin tostada, in Ensenada

Baja cuisine is habanero hot right now, with food personalities like Anthony Bourdain (who said the region "feels like Tuscany") and Andrew Zimmern elevating the area's chefs to national prominence. If you've been stuck salivating stateside, unwilling or unable to make the jaunt south of the border, then consider yourself in luck, because some of Baja's top talents are bringing their skills to Los Angeles.

Starting Sunday, Sept. 16, John Sedlar will be inviting three Baja chefs to Playa to debut a series of unique a la carte dishes, with ingredients sourced from his brand-new rooftop garden, Cielo Verde. The first guest (at Playa from Sept. 16-18) will be Sabina Banderas of La Guerrerense, a seafood restaurant near the Sea of Cortez which cleaned up at this year's LA Street Food Fest, winning the "Best in Show" award for her tostadas topped with sea urchin, clam and sea snail and slathered in her super-hot homemade salsa.

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A. Scattergood

La Guerrerense's sea urchin tostada, in Ensenada

Leading up to this year's Best of L.A. issue (due out Oct. 4), we'll be counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes.

74: Sea Urchin Tostada at La Guerrerense.

Sure, you can eat Sabina Bandera González's glorious seafood tostadas here in Los Angeles, at the L.A. Street Food Fest, say, where last weekend they won the top award. Or at last year's same event, where her sea urchin tostadas were named Best Original Dish. But Gonzalez's stunning creation is best appreciated while standing in the sun next to La Guerrerense, her street cart, on the actual Ensenada street where it has been parked for much of the last half-century. If your idea of fun is driving across the border with Bill Esparza (maybe Andre Guerrero is driving; maybe Evan Kleiman is riding shotgun), then chances are you're among the initiated.

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Photo courtesy of Marcelo Castro and Nidia Palacios

See also: Anthony Bourdain's Baja Episode of No Reservations Will Make You Want to Cross the Border Immediately.
See also: 'Stick a Fork in It' column Tijuana Sí!.

The promise of wine country that's "like Tuscany" right in our own backyard of Baja is enough to have many of us running for the border, but it turns out that wine may not be the only reason to visit the famed Valle de Guadalupe.

Cheese connoisseurs (or, those who are simply looking for a good queso to go with their vino) will be pleased to learn that just southeast of the wine route near the town of Ojos Negros is La Cava de Marcelo -- a more than 100-year-old artisanal cheese cellar, wine and cheese tasting room and all around gorgeous place to spend an afternoon.

We're especially lucky it's so close by considering it's the only cheese cellar in Latin America open to the public.

Marcelo Castro, who is the fourth generation cheesemaker and owner of the farm, was gracious enough to give us the story behind the place and his craft via email, with the help of translation assistance from his employee Nidia Palacios. Turn the page to read our short interview.

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djjewelz/Flickr

See also: Anthony Bourdain's Baja Episode of No Reservations Will Make You Want to Cross the Border Immediately.
See also: 'Stick a Fork in It' column Tijuana Sí!.

If you're up for a spur-of-the-moment trip across the Mexican border (and who isn't these days?), this weekend would be a good time to go, as in, Sunday, Tijuana will play host to the annual Caesar Salad Festival, put on by Caesar's Restaurant on Revolution Road.

Raise your hand if you knew the Caesar salad was born in Baja. OK, OK, foodists. We see you. But this is a little-known story. The Caesar salad is a staple on Italian menus everywhere, so one might assume it was first made in some Roman kitchen. A nod to Julius Caesar, maybe? It's an easy mistake, but many say no. The man behind the salad is actually Italian transplant to Tijuana Caesar Cardini. Or at least one version of the story goes that way.

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Flickr/prayitno

See also: Anthony Bourdain's Baja Episode of No Reservations Will Make You Want to Cross the Border Immediately.
See also: 'Stick a Fork in It' column Tijuana Sí!.

Like many Southern Californians and, of course, Anthony Bourdain, we've been relatively obsessed with Baja lately, especially upon hearing that its wine country both "feels like Tuscany" and/or is "like Napa, only better," depending on which region you feel more like one-upping.

This preoccupation led to a conversation with Jim Pickell, CEO of Baja.com, during which he gave us dozens of tips on where to eat, stay, booze and beach all over Baja, most of which are available in detail on his website. The greatest scoop he gave us, however, was that of Fiesta de la Vendimia -- an almost monthlong wine festival and raucous party in Baja that nearly no Americans seem to be aware of.

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Via Travel Channel

Anthony Bourdain relaxing on a Baja beach

The Baja California episode of No Reservations begins with a soundtrack of gunshots and sirens peppering news reports of violence in Tijuana. But against this noise we see Anthony Bourdain strolling into town looking unafraid. He knows what you're thinking: "Wait, isn't Tijuana dangerous?"

The short answer, we learn, is there is no short answer. Yes, it's been a hotbed for drug-related violence in recent years, which has caused Americans largely to stop going. So what does one find just over the border these days? A city that's stopped caring, apparently, about catering to our vices and is now in the midst of a renaissance, especially when it comes to the culinary scene.

Bourdain also reminds us in this episode that Tijuana is merely stop one on your Baja excursion, if you're wise, and that a journey further south will land you in wine country that "feels like Tuscany."

In other words, our SoCal backyard is blooming again, and watching this show will make you want to frolic in it.

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