Mexico: Cabo Cuisine

Posted by Degan on November 10th, 2010

Note: this post was imported from EthnicEats.ca

Before any trip, however short. I take exploratory measures into scoping out the restaurant scene and a dive vacation to Cabo San Lucas was no exception. I was dismayed by the amount of American chains listed – Hard Rock Cafe, Burger King, Häagen-Dazs, Harley Davidson Cafe, and Hooters – and then again by the Cabo one-offs created for tourists – Cabo Wabo, Giggling Marlin, El Squid Roe, Billygan’s Island – but I figured that just meant that the back-alley taco shacks were so busy with locals they didn’t have a web presence. Right?

That turned out not to be the case. Cabo is a Corona town. Literally, the area around the marina is coded “the Corona Zone” and everything in it caters to Americans.

I don’t know how to summarize my feelings on this kind of travel without going sideways on a rant, but let me just say that travel to me is exploring other cultures. I do not consider America to be an ‘other’ culture.

My first meal was a carne asada that Salsa and Agave in Vancouver would have put to shame. I considered it lucky we planned to spend so much time underwater. Also that we had a lot of readily accessible tequila.

But slowly a few gems started to reveal themselves. We ate breakfast at Cafe Canela every day, including on the last day when I had the most delicious dish, huevos divorciados:

Huevos Divorciados (Divorced Eggs) is “two fried eggs separated by a column of chilaquiles (although sometimes, refried beans with tortilla chips are substituted). Typically, one egg is covered in salsa roja, while the other is covered in salsa verde, giving them distinctly different and complementary flavors”. Chilaquiles are fried tortilla chips and the whole thing is just so good. I’m going to make it at home soon.

We had a lot of fish tacos, which I discovered I don’t actually like that much. The ones above were at El Caballero at Cabo Pulmo, a dive site, but Matt reports that the best ones were at Tacos Gardenias. I can report that the ones I had: chicarron (pork rind), nopalito (cactus), carnitas (shredded pork) and shredded beef (pictured at the top) were also excellent. Yes, I ate 4 tacos in one sitting. Leave me alone, they were delicious.

Probably the best restaurant we found in Cabo was Mi Casa, recommended to us by our dive master. Here was a carne asada worth its salsa, BBQ’d short rib in sauce, huge glasses of tequila and an afternoon nap waiting to happen.

La Mesa Poblano proved to be another after-diving find.

I had the mole combo; chicken mole, tortilla with salsa and machaca (dried beef strips) and cheese, cucumber, avocado and refried beans. I also had a clericot to drink.

Matt had 3 al pastor (marinated pork) tacos and beer and I’m pretty sure we had another afternoon nap.

Edith’s was not particularly delicious, but it did have a beautiful bar under a palapa roof, and a fine tequila selection:

La Fonda was similarly beautiful and it had chapulines.

Just when we were starting to despair again, we headed up the peninsula to La Paz to go diving with whale sharks. We were buoyed up by the fact that this town actually looked like Mexico (well, more like Mexico anyways) and people spoke Spanish and there might actually be good Mexican food here. But my face drooped and then drooped some more when we were referred to a sports bar, an Italian place and finally a steak and seafood joint.

We took matters into our own hands and just started walking out of down until we reached Super Burro – casual taqueria chain that translates as “super donkey”.  It was so good! It reminded me of Tacos Guaymas in the U.S. except you could smell the smoke from the BBQ out back at this one. Just look how happy Matt is and he hadn’t even started eating yet.

It was a fantastic trip. Can’t say we’ll be back but I’m definitely glad we went.

More photos of food here and the whole trip is here.