Turista Libre Taco Tour, Tijuana

It was never supposed to be the highlight of the entire California trip; just an afternoon pootling around Tijuana trying a few of their best taco stalls and back across the border in time for dinner. The initial plan was to go over under our own steam, pick up a taxi/driver and then tick off a few of the more notable street food places. Oh and perhaps a margarita or two; when in Rome and all that.

But then a little company called Turista Libre came to our attention, and so we thought rather than go through the stress and cost of organising our own lives, we'd hand over the whole messy business to the professionals. Founded by a US journalist who now lives in Tijuana, Turista Libre run various organised tours based on different themes; there's a baseball tour, a craft beer tour, a mega monuments tour, and, enticingly, a taco tour which seemed to have our names written all over it. For $50 a head we were told we would visit a handful of taco places, drink a few beers and take a few photos. Seemed like fun. We got a small handful of names together on Facebook, paid the deposit and put it in the diary.

By the time the day came, there were fully 25 people booked in for the trip. Wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends of friends, babies, dogs (actually no dogs sadly, Keith would have loved it) - of course it's obvious now, with hindsight, that everyone would want to be a part of a taco tour of Tijuana, but the way the group snowballed came as quite a (pleasant) surprise at the time. At one point I had to call up to check how many was too many. "We should be OK," came the answer, "the bus seats 30."

Bus? Ah yes, because what better way to travel in Mexico than genuine decomissioned public transport, which in turn was once itself an American yellow school bus. That's right, exactly like the ones you see on TV. I'm convinced the day wouldn't have been half as much fun without this battered old thing ferrying us around, so much more jolly than some hermetically-sealed limoliner, although admittedly air conditioning would have been nice at some points. Anyway, safely seated (well, seated, at least, and hoping the bus couldn't go fast enough to be a danger), a shot of tequila to the good, we set off for our first stop, Machatlán mariscos chávez.

As recently as 2009 this bustling courtyard and kitchen was a car mechanics. And in fact, take away the mobile grill, drinks cabinets and picnic benches and it could very easily go back to being one - who knows, maybe they're keeping their options open in case the bottom falls out the taco market. Based on their product though, they should have no need to. Bright white, perfectly-cooked chunks of meaty tilapia, each encased in a crunchy, dark-brown batter and bound by a lovely light mayonnaise salsa, these were about as good an example of the form as you could find anywhere in North America. They were churned out to our large and hungry party at such a rate that nobody received any that were anything less than piping hot. A video I took of the chefs looks like it had been speeded up; you'll have to take my word that these guys really are that fast:

Frenetic seafood taco making at Machatlán mariscos chávez

A video posted by Chris Pople (@cpople) on Feb 14, 2015 at 9:06pm PST

Next stop, after a short spell back on the bus and some more tequila, was the smoke-filled Las Ahumaderas Tacos El Paisa. We managed to occupy most of the seats inside this atmospheric old place, forcing hungry locals to use the bar that opened onto the street, but I'm sure nobody eating the food here dwelled much on the seating arrangements. The grilled adobada pork tacos here were just astonishing - moist, soft tortillas, freshly-pressed, contained a mixture of richly marinated pig and chunky guacamole (you've not tried guacamole until you've tried it with Californian/Baja-Californian avocadoes, they taste like avocadoes squared). They were served alongside nice fresh radishes and limes, as is usual, but also some lovely grilled spring onion/leek things, sort of like Mexican calçot. I'm sure someone out there can tell me their real name.

On a side note, while not enough to completely sour my memories of Las Ahumaderas, a tricky moment arose when someone gave me a can of Michelada to try. Michelada, in case you weren't aware (I wasn't) is sort of a Bloody Mary, but with beer instead of vodka. It sounds disgusting, because it is disgusting, but while a version made with top ingredients and nice craft beer is discombobulating but almost edible, the unholy version willed into existence by Heineken USA brand Tecate tastes like sweet, beery sick. I honestly don't know if there's a single more revolting canned product in existence, so in the interests of public awareness here's a picture of it so you can avoid it at all costs yourself:

Kids: Just Say No.

Anyway on with the tour. Actually not straight on with the tour. First a few of us raided a local liquor store for beer and aged tequila. Then it was on with the tour. It was about this point, as we lumbered back onto the bus loaded up like pack mules, one by one emptying our substantial haul into the cool box, that I started noticing the first fleeting expressions of concern cross our previously calm host's face. This could be why our next - impromptu - stop was a market, Mercado Hidalgo, a fascinating, sprawling indoor/outdoor place with more than enough going on to distract two dozen gringo from the booze for a few minutes, I'm sure was the plan. Except within about 30 seconds the majority of the party had settled inside a charming little taqueria and ordered a dozen frozen margheritas. Some time later (your guess is as good as mine) I somehow, speaking no Spanish, bought a giant block of queso fresco cheese from a market stall.

The atmosphere on the bus would now best be described as "carnival-like". Details are sketchy but somewhere in Mercado Hidalgo someone had found a stall selling bags of confetti, and was proceeding to turn the inside of the bus into a snow globe. The timing of this latest turn of events was unfortunate, as for reasons best known to Turista Libre our next stop was an unexpectedly smart fine-dining spot called Verde y Crema. Bursting into this clean, zen-like space like a confetti-strewn mobile Oktoberfest, I can still now, even through the fog of alcohol, remember the horrified expressions of the smartly-dressed couples and families who had quietly been enjoying a late lunch. I can tell you, because I have photos, our tacos here involved beetroot, queso fresco and coriander on some kind of dark tortilla and I'm sure they were absolutely as lovely as everything else we ate that day.

Events from here on are probably best left to the tequlia gods. I think there was an ice cream shop, desperately shoehorned in by the organisers in an effort to sober us up and prevent an international incident at the border. Inevitably, some of the group never made it that far, and splintered off to downtown Tijuana to carry on carrying on. I remember getting quite upset a terrified elderly Mexican woman wouldn't join me in the chorus to Let It Be. I remember very carefully putting cheese and tequila through the security x-rays but not picking it up at the other end. I'm pretty sure we brought back more babies than we left with.

I woke up with a hangover of the kind the 21st century has rarely seen, with confetti in places I didn't know I had and a distant unpleasant taste of Michelada in my throat. But despite all this, the one thing I am definitely going to do again the next time I'm in California is a Turista Libre tour of Tijuana. It is pretty much the most fun I've ever had for $50 and has not only reinforced my already all-abiding passion for Mexican cuisine but also opened my eyes to the vast possibilities of Mexico itself, somewhere that hasn't had the greatest press in the last few years but is still friendly, vibrant and easy to love. What a day, what a place.


All those amazing photos by Helen Graves, much obliged

10/10

Mision 19, Tijuana, Mexico

The trajectory of a high-end restaurant is very often the same. Open in a blaze of publicity with unrealistically low prices, parachute in all the best front of house staff you can get hold of just as long as it takes for all the eager early-doors critics and bloggers to write positive reviews, then once the hype dies down, jack up the prices and lose all your most expensive employees (and head chef). Then bring out a book.



As a blogger I'm often criticised for only visiting restaurants once in the first few weeks than never again, but if the alternative is having a slightly mediocre overpriced meal somewhere that used to be better, can you blame me? A representative experience is all well and good, but this is my money I'm spending (usually) and as I've repeated plenty of times before on these pages, going anywhere hoping for a bad meal (note: "hoping" is not the same as "expecting") is a recipe for disaster.

The good news, though, is that at least one fancy-pants haute cuisine joint, instead of sitting back on its healthy collection of glowing reviews and bringing a book out, has actually considerably improved over the last twelve months to become one of the most exciting and memorable meals I've enjoyed in a very long time. The bad news - for Londoners at least - is that the restaurant in question is in Mexico. But I thought it was worth a proper report here because Mision 19 really is good enough to bother crossing continents for, and because as many people as possible need to know that Mexican is one of the truly great world cuisines of the 21st century.



We started with a mini burger. Which was weird. Fortunately, this was the only thing that was less than spectacular, so it's easily ignored, but you still have to wonder what it's doing opening a tasting menu that was so accomplished in every other regard. A slightly stale bun, a bit of beef, some guacamole and I think some cheese. Pointless but hardly offensive. Just weird.



Normality was restored with this dainty bit of pickled tomatillo and radish. Attractive presentation on a little marble rock, and some powerful and recognisably Mexican flavours.



Beetroot and oyster doesn't seem like the most obvious match but this was actually a very clever frothy sweet beetroot salsa of some kind, on top of a raw oyster. The natural soiliness of beetroot was toned down by whatever they'd done with the dressing, and the oyster still managed to be the main flavour. Sorry about the photo - attempted a couple with flash on (we were in a sort of private bit near the kitchens so weren't annoying too many people) with even more disastrous results than normal.



A dish that had impressed us so much last year was even better in 2013 - a sort of scallop guacamole concoction served in a tall clear glass, with all kinds of different textures, colours and complimentary flavours. We particularly enjoyed an incredibly powerful blob of concentrated mushroom jelly lurking somewhere in the mix.



In fact, mushrooms of many kinds featured heavily in the menu that evening. It must be the time of year - Chef Javier Plascencia, credited with being a key player in the current resurgence of Tijuana cuisine and a fierce proponent of that international foodie buzzword "localism", and will use as many ingredients from nearby producers as possible. This next dish contained a good variety of fungi alongside some abalone, something I'd never tried before due to its prohibitive cost in most European restaurants. It was very good - firm but not too chewy, with a pronounced sweet flavour.



This risotto, too, came dusted with a layer of dried mushrooms which gave it a rather odd appearance. The flavour, though was incredible - one of the best risottos I've had the pleasure of eating anywhere in the world, ethereally light and perfectly seasoned and 3000 miles away from the stodgy savoury rice puddings that your local high street Italian would serve, both literally and figuratively.



Served in a very attractive glass bowl was a kind of deconstructed pork tamale, with pickles, herbs and ground corn. Pulled pork (sorry, "carnitas" as we're in Mexico) was moist and packed with flavour and it all made absolute sense as a portion of high end comfort food.



If you think this beef course looks good, if you think that looks like the most perfectly charcoal-grilled chunk of medium-rare sirloin, accompanied by some crispy confit shoulder and two gently blackened pieces of romesco broccoli, then you'd be right. It was good. But it was also way better than good - the kind of quality of beef I've had perhaps only once of twice in my life and always from Goodman steak restaurants in London or certain high-end joints in New York. Where other dishes at Mision 19 had been a balancing act of sourcing and technique, this pared-down presentation (just, after all, meat and two veg if we're being completely reductive) displayed a huge confidence in the product, and it's a confidence that was completely justified. A stunning dish, a highlight amongst highlights.



There were eight on our table that night, and so for dessert, rather than anything so prosaic as a soufflé and a couple of macaroon each we were treated to a full-size version of every dessert on the a la carte menu that day. I won't bother going into detail on them all - I can't, for one thing - but a strawberry and dark chocolate tart went down particularly well, as did a selection of Baja California cheeses.



I'd like to end it there, with eight very happy people rolling back across the border to Southern California stuffed and under $100 a head lighter after plenty of wine and some very good house cocktails. For that is indeed what happened. But I'd be doing you all a disservice if I didn't mention the one only real drawback of dinner at Mision 19, enough to lose them a couple of C&B points - the often shoddy service. For a place aiming at the heights of international gastronomy - and for the most part hitting a bullseye as far as the food on the plate is concerned - I would have liked wine glasses topped up (or at least letting us do it ourselves instead of keeping the bottles annoyingly out of reach), more effort made explaining the dishes (in English or in Spanish; we had a couple of fluent Spanish speakers but even they struggled with the rushed and mumbled descriptions) and more attention paid by the staff generally, who seemed to much prefer being huddled around the reception area chatting than clearing used cutlery, bringing water and so on.

But this is something for them to work on, and is by no means a situation that is cursed to continue. I distinctly remember a first visit to Can Roca back in 2007 which suffered from very much the same service issues even while the food was earning international attention, and even today it still has the odd Catalan moment. It's annoying, but somehow inevitable in the grand order of things, that the brilliance and individual talent of a chef like Javier Plascencia can be let down in formative years by the apathy of front of house staff, but give it a little longer and I'm sure they'll catch up. And when they do, there'll be no stopping them.

8/10