Baja Fresh

I have been eating at Baja Fresh since the mid-nineties when a location opened up in Westwood, California while I attended UCLA. One night a week, our fraternity would bring in Baja Fresh burritos for dinner and they were always a huge hit.

In 2002, Baja Fresh was sold to Wendy's for $275 million. These were the dark days for the chain when the fresh ingredients were replaced by a fast food model. The chain was sold to a private investor in 1006 for $31 million. There are around 300 locations operating today.

Despite having eaten about 100 burritos from BF in my career, I have never ordered their tacos. This weekend, I ventured out and tried one each of their fish tacos, one grilled and one "baja style." They were served in a combo with rice and pinto beans.

I found the grilled taco to be very good. The baja style fried one was not as good only because it did not stay crispy, it got rather limp and mushy. Both use mahi mahi and have cabbage, pico de gallo, and a "tangy avocado dressing."

A solid effort and if you get the grilled fish tacos, pretty good. Side note, at 250 calories/taco, they are a way better choice than my usual order, a steak burrito ultimo which has 950 calories.

Baja Fresh
Website

Vegas Roadtrip Report

Road Trip. Las Vegas.

Enough to strike fear into the hearts of most mortals, however, an opportunity to experience new things. When those things are of the fish taco variety, you can come home to your spouse with a clear conscience.

I traveled along with a group of about twenty for a Bachelor Party in Las Vegas. I will spare you (and me) stories of the rest of the weekend and focus solely on Friday night's dinner at the Pink Taco in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. You've heard of it, you've laughed at the name, how was the food?

The fish tacos were very good for Las Vegas. Nothing earth shattering compared to SoCal, but a solid effort nonetheless. Fresh tortillas, battered and fried fish (it only says fish on the menu and the drinking blocked any memory I may have had of the type of fish), a great serrano-cilantro salsa, cabbage, and pico de gallo. A solid effort and no disappointment considering the environment.

I am glad that the table doesn't show the number of empty beer, margarita, and tequila shot glasses on the table so that this entry is not completely ignored. Next time you are in Vegas and want a fish taco, you won't go wrong with the Pink Taco.


Website
Pink Taco
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, NV

Las Casuelas Nuevas

I have had a very long relationship with Las Casuelas Nuevas in Rancho Mirage, California. My family and I have been traveling to the Palm Springs area for holidays and weekends since the early 80's. Typically we all go to Las Casuelas Nuevas at least once a trip for the big night out. I have gone from the kids menu to the large house margarita and probably have eaten a metric ton or four of their chips.

Las Casuelas (the original) was the first Mexican restaurant to open in Palm Springs (1958). Las Casuelas Nuevas (this location) was opened in 1973 and is claimed to be the first Hacienda-styled dinner house in America. I have never been to Las Casuelas Terraza (opened in 1979) or Casuelas Cafe (1992). The restaurant is like a large house with a big open pation (where we eat on this trip) and several rooms, each with a little different ambiance.

I ordered the Fish Tacos under the "Taco Platters" and selected one grilled and one "Baja style" (fried). For $15.25, the plate includes mahi-mahi tacos fried or dusted with achiote seasoning and grilled, rice and beans. The tacos themselves are the standard double-corn tortilla affairs with the fish, and then a smoky Chipotle Cream sauce and jicama cole slaw.

My wife had the chile verde and our friends had carnitas and fish tacos. I have had the carnitas and chile verde many times and had some orderer's remorse when the food arrived. The carnitas looked positively succulent and dripped with pork fatty goodness. I told our companions about our search for the best fish taco and we spent some time comparing notes on where they felt the best came from. (Note: if I get down near Del Mar, I apparently need to try the Brig).

Both of us that had the fish tacos were disappointed. To be fair, they were fine, and when ordered with good friends, sitting outside on the patio on the front-side of a long weekend in Palm Springs and with a HUGE goblet of margaritas to wash it all down, I am not sure that they could ever be bad. But, in the search for the best fish tacos, all of those outside influences must be ignored and the fish must swim on its own.

To that end, the Chipotle Cream Sauce was pretty good, the tortillas were good and the fish itself was prepared well. It was just missing something to make it qualify as the best. What that is, I can't tell you, but they fall within the ever growing pool of forgettable fish tacos that will do the trick if you need fish tacos and aren't looking to be wowed. The ulitmate question is always "will I order them again?" The answer here is no...that doesn't mean that I won't keep coming back to one of my favorite restaurants in the Desert, it just means that I will order something else and only enjoy being there rather than deconstructing the food.

Website
Las Casuelas Nuevas
70-050 Highway 111
Rancho Mirage, California 92270
(760) 328-8844

Del Taco

I love Del Taco. Let me say it again with the full knowledge that it may destroy my culinary credentials with everyone, but I love Del Taco. In the war between Del Taco and Taco Bell, I would choose DT 99 out of 100 times (the 100th time is when there is only a TB within several miles). Throughout my High School and College Career (and, sadly, still) if I am eating fast food after 10:00 pm, it is Del Taco. I have seen friends take down $18 worth of DT and then walk back up to the Counter for more (OK, it wasn't just friends, I did it too, but there was tequila involved).

My usual order is two chicken soft tacos (the best in the business in my opinion) and some sort of burrito. Every once in a while, I mix it up with their crispy fish tacos.

I have ordered the Crispy Fish Tacos at Del Taco may times and while they are always very good, I usually just consider them a starting point (or mid-way point) of a Del Taco multi-course Fiesta. So it was with rapt, laser-like focus that I enjoyed a fish taco with the goal of reviewing it here.

The setup is standard, double corn tortillas, cabbage, pico de gallo, and VERY crispy breaded and fried Halibut with "special sauce" (basically mayo and lime). Extra credit is awarded to Del Taco for including a lime wedge, a nice special touch that fish tacos costing triple sometimes forget to include. They are great for what they are, mega-chain (in SoCal), fast-food attempts at Mexican food. On the plus side, they are just about the crunchiest fish tacos I have had. On the negative side, they are very small and really don't have much fish to them, they are really fried batter tacos with some fish in them.

Del Taco's website.
Various locations. For list, see here.

Jalapenos

Jalapenos is one of those ubiquitous Mexican restaurants that line the many strip malls of Orange County. That is not to say that it isn't great Mexican food, just to say that you sometimes need to brave the Stepford-like malls of the Irvine Company (and Ladera Ranch in this case) to get good food.

I have been to Jalapenos many times, but previous to this visit, I had only ever ordered the Chile Verde or Chile Colorado (both excellent dishes, the latter being a smoky, spicy treat unique from many other places).

The fish taco is listed on the menu for $2.35 and is described as coming with cabbage, tomatoes, cliantro, onions and white sauce in a soft shell. And, in fact, it did.

The fish (Tilapia) was lightly breaded and friend and was a very good specimen of the lightly fried fish taco. The size of the taco was larger than most and the overall flavor was great. All in all, a better than average fish taco that I will eat again.

6404 Irvine Blvd
Irvine, CA 92620
(Woodbury Shopping Center)
Locations also in Tustin, Irvine, and Ladera Ranch
Website

George's Mexican Food

It was 2:00 pm and I hadn’t had lunch. I was running around trying to get my two year old son a Thomas the Train crossing arm that he desperately wanted and that took me far from Irvine to the mean streets of Westminster (and incidentally, if you need ANY model train paraphernalia, go to http://www.arniestrains.com/). On my way back to the freeway along Edinger, I saw the bright sombrero of a grinning man beckoning me to come in to George’s. Despite it having a drive-through, I parked and walked inside to better feel the ambiance and enjoy the fish taco as George would have me do it.

I walked into the empty restaurant (although there were several cars in the drive through) and perused the menu. I have to admit that there were so many good looking menu options that I wanted to order a torta or a carnitas burrito, but, this is the year of the fish taco, so I soldiered on and ordered the 2 item combo with two fish tacos and rice and beans for $5.49. I inquired from the less-than-friendly lady behind the counter what type of fish was used in the tacos and she informed me that it was Tilapia. For those that don’t know, Tilapia is a freshwater, tropical, white fish that is a bottom-feeder like a catfish, however, most are farm-raised and good for you since they are low in fat and high in Omega 3 and 6’s.

I watched as the cook took a Styrofoam, 3-part “picnic” plate and piled up refried pintos in one part, Spanish rice in another part, and prepared four corn tortillas on a steam press. She waited for a cook in the back room to produce two 5 inch fried filets of fish through a pass which she then placed into the double tortillas and added a white crème freche (or Crema) sauce, a shredded cabbage mix, and pico de gallo. She added two lime sections and a handful of chips and handed me the plate.

Upon inspection of the fish, I found that it had a thick, bright orange breading that appeared to feature several spices and that the fish inside was somewhat slimy and had shrunk from the crispy outer shell. The tortillas were larger than most and the filet of fish in each taco was much larger than most.



The overall flavor was ok. Nothing special. I found the consistency of the fish within the breading (the sliminess) a tiny bit off-putting, but overall, it was a mediocre fish taco. The chips were above-average and the rice was one of the few Mexican rices which I actually ate and found to be tasty (no doubt from the overall fat content since it appeared to be completely covered in oil). Overall, it was a passable lunch and well priced, but left me thinking that I should have ordered a carnitas burrito…

I checked out their website and it says that they have been doing it for 25 years. I found their website to be pretty impressive for a drive-through Mexican food place. My only criticism is the opening video where a clearly Caucasian voice says, “Our food is Bueno and picante!” with no attempt to add any sort of accent and with a funny way of saying “bueno.” They should have told her to roll like the newscasters who speak perfect English until they pronounce a Spanish word and roll their r’s into oblivion. They even have a twitter feed and online coupons. Now if they could only improve their fish tacos…

George’s Mexican Food
6581 Edinger Avenue
Huntington Beach, CA
http://www.georgesmexicanfood.net/index.php

Steelhead Brewery, Irvine, CA

Tonight I sampled the fish tacos at Steelhead Brewery in Irvine. The menu features: 'Three corn tortillas wrapped around our beer battered Alaskan halibut, topped with cheese and shredded cabbage, served with guacamole, salsa, black beans and wild rice.' $13.95

The tortillas were small and marginal. Of the 3, one was blue corn and 2 were yellow. The fish was the same fish from the fish and chips and had a delightfully crunchy exterior. The fish itself was relatively tasteless...not in a bad way, just very flavor neutral. Our waitress suggested I add some of the chipotle tartar sauce served with the fish and chips. I complied and her reco and found it to be a great addition.The sides of beans and rice were marginal, but ultimately unnecessary since the 3 tacos were very filling.

My Bombay Bomber IPA was a great foil for the richness of the fish and very hoppy in its finish.

We need an overall ranking system and categories.

Next time here I will try the grilled fish tacos.

Our waitress suggested the following:

Aloha Grill in CM

Eat Chow in CM

Catalina Fish Kitchen in CM

Steelhead Brewery
4175 Campus Drive
Irvine, CA 92612-2618