Friday, January 20, 2012

Cebicheria Erizo (Tijuana, Mexico)

Chef Javier Plascencia from Tijuana can be likened to Wolfgang Puck in Los Angeles, dominating the Tijuana dining scene with numerous restaurants. Capping off the weekend-long Baja Culinary trip this past year was a tasting at one of these restaurants, Cebicheria Erizo, specializing in fresh seafood (including, of course, ceviches). Seafood from fish to octopus to clams are displayed in refrigerated cases as you enter; daily specials written on the blackboard above it. For our visit, though, we left it up to Chef Plascencia to serve us whatever he wanted.

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To whet our appetite was a shot of leche de tigre with cucumber, fish jerky, and sea urchin (erizo de mar, the restaurant's namesake) hidden at the bottom.
Uni ShooterSea urchin

Following up was a bowl of lightly spicy callo de hacha, Baja scallops with chicharrones
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Instead of scooping up ceviche with tortilla chips, why not take it to the next level with chicharrones? Better yet, can we replace salad croutons with chicharrones from now on?


Next is a marlin tostada with avocado
Marlin Tostada
Baja's smoked marlin is like the ham of the sea, meaty and smoky. If you've never tried smoked marlin before, please do so.

This was our third stop of the day and we were quite full, but as amazing courses kept coming, we couldn't stop eating. It was especially hard to stop snacking on these sea bean tempura
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Spicy, tender pulpo (octopus) taco finished off the savory part of our meal.
Pulpo Taco

Chef Plascencia had also prepared a little dessert for us: blackberry tamale. I previously had this at his other restaurant, Villa Saverios and it was even better than I had remembered
Blackberry Tamal
Maybe because this time I was not as stuffed, the tamal seemed lighter than before; a nice little palate cleanser.

Cebicheria Erizo is another gem by Chef Plascencia. With all the other fresh seafood on display, I'm looking forward to a repeat visit.

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Our guide/coordinator and host Bill Esparza and Chef Javier Plascencia

Cebicheria Erizo
Ave Sonora No 3808-11
barrio Chapultepec
Tijuana, BC
Tel 686-1564

1 comments:

streetgourmetla

I love your idea of replacing croutons with chicharrones. I'm with you. So glad you attended this trip.

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