Showing posts with label baja med. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baja med. Show all posts

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Tijuana: Villa Saverios, Baja Med with a Touch of Italy

Finishing up the first day of our Baja FAM food decathlon, we ended up at Villa Saverios, an elegant restaurant headed by Chef Javier Plascencia with cuisine featuring Mediterranean influences and Baja California ingredients.

Despite having had many delicious tamarind cocktails throughout the day, the one at Villa Saverios was instantly my favorite.
The slightly tart cocktails was made with mezcal and Damiana (an herbal liqueur made with the damiana herb) and garnished with a tamarind pod. This cocktail proved the most well balanced of the day. The texture was quite icy and similar to a slushee, but more watery.
(The next visit we tried ordering their tamarind margarita, but I don't think it was the same ..)

Pulpo (octopus) carpaccio with arugula, tomatoes, nopales, olive oil, and grapefruit.
A nice light start, to the delight of our extremely stuffed stomachs. The pulpo had a wonderful texture and the use of grapefruit here was quite refreshing.

Next we were served a sampler of their signature dishes. From the right: Mijillon (mussel) cappuccino, pulpo encebollado, and "Tacos de Fideo"

Grandma's "Taco de Fideo." Think spaghetti taco. Corn tortilla is filled with sausage, spaghetti, salsa verde, greens, cheese, habanero, and Mexican cream
An impressive dish, not only on the creativity front but also the taste.

Braised short rib with Oaxaca mole, black Mission figs, port wine, and mascarpone mashed potato.
A lovely dish with very tender short ribs, the rich and sweet mole and a nice texture contrast from the fig half.

Chef Plascencia surprised us with his dessert also: blackberry tamale
Using corn masa, the dessert had a nice light sweetness and a prominent blackberry flavor. Despite tamale being a rather heavy dessert, I can definitely have a lot of this.

Even though we were already so full, I was glad we had this 'dinner'. Chef Plascencia's cuisine is innovative and well executed with restrained and balanced flavors across the board. Villa Saverios is lauded as one of the best fine dining establishments in Tijuana, and I can definitely see why.

Villa Saverios
Blvd Sanches Taboada
Esq. Escuadron 201
Zona Rio, Tijuana, Mexico
http://www.villasaverios.com/english.html

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Baja Med: A New Culinary Movement in Mexico

Food in Baja is not just about Mexican food. It isn't just about the various Spanish or Argentinean restaurants either. A unique and exciting culinary movement is slowly pervading Tijuana and Ensenada. Baja Med, a mix of Asian, Mediterranean, and Mexican cuisine with Baja ingredients.

And this is where it all started, La Querencia.

And here is the man who started it all: Miguel Angel Guerrero.
(Everyone also agreed that he was pretty good lookin!). He and Bill from Street Gourmet LA explained each dish and the Baja Med cuisine to us.

Though you couldn't see much from outside because of all the cars parked there, the inside is filled with interesting decor including these "flying" birds on the wall.
Our group of 20-something people were all seated outside, though.

It was a hot day in Tijuana and chef Guerrera perked us up with pitchers of Techape, a fermented pineapple drink.
This lightly sweet drink reminded me of the Indonesian fermented drink called legen and it's so perfect on this hot day that I think I drank 3 glasses of this (or more).

Having stuffed ourselves with suckling pig and Argentinean steak at Lorca and Cheripan, the light samplings at La Querencia were a nice change of pace.
We started with a plate of Beet carpaccio with goat cheese - a dish that would seem to be common these days were it not for the raw beets.
I never realized how different beet tastes when raw as opposed to roasted. While roasted beets are sweet, these were crunchy and tart and even tasted pickled to me.

Lengua (tongue) Carpaccio
Tender and flavorful, both thinly sliced tongue meat and the sauces/garnish were nicely done. This was drizzled with sea urchin cream, so how could I not love it?

Squash carpaccio with capers, fried nori, tomatoes, onions, seasoned with 9 chilis.
This fresh vegetable dish had some great flavors. Everyone loved the 9 chili confit and lucky for us this wasn't the last dish to feature it.

Cucumber cup filled with scallops, sturgeon, caviar, 9 chili confit oil, chipotle sauce, crispy chives and spring onions.
The scallops were local scallops and were very fresh and flavorful. The dish was mildly spicy and the cucumber cup served as the perfect palate cleanser. Everything in this dish came together perfectly - loved it. Too bad I was told this was an off-the-menu item!

Cornbread cake, sage sauce, tomato salsa, shrimp
We ended with a heavier dish, luckily it was small. I loved the sage sauce and the tomato and the cornbread was quite flavorful although a bit dry if it wasn't for the sage sauce.

At the end of this meal (the fourth one that day) we were all very pleased with how light the dishes were and excited by the innovation going on here that is pervading the rest of Baja. Who knew?

La Querencia
Escuadrón 201 #3110
Col. Aviación
Tijuana
Ph. (01152) (664) 972-9935 & 972-9940

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