I love the food in Baja, though these days restaurants there seem to be generally more expensive than those of similar quality in the Bay Area. My favorites in the area (Mi Cucina and Café Santa Fe on the nice end and Gardenias Tacos for great-shimp-tacos–no-atmosphere) would rate higher on a Mexico- or Baja-only scale, but the top end doesn’t compare to what we have here and I have tried my best to keep the ratings in that broader context.
Just a few blocks from the eternal frat party strip of Cabo San Lucas’ marina sits a small-looking cobalt blue building-front that belies the scale and energy of the restaurant behind the wall. The family that runs the bustling Mi Casa has the “su casa” vibe down pat. With fans hanging from the thatched palappa whipping up a gentle breeze, the restaurant is comfortable enough to feel like your own Mexican living room, albeit with a whole lot of equally white, happy strangers enjoying the traditional fare at nearby tables.
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Tequila Restaurant, in the sleepy town of San Jose del Cabo, is more than just the drink of national pride and joy. It’s also one of the most highly regarded additions to the local gourmet culture. The restaurant is well-versed in both, with an offering of over fifty varieties of its namesake drink by the glass or bottle, conveniently sorted by aging classification and rated and annotated, and a killer menu. Both are carried off with great service in a palm and giant mango tree garden scattered with rustic lanterns and filled with salacious smells from the kitchen.
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Felix’s has a salsa bar. Not the dancing kind. The kind the has 20+ different salsas to choose from. This makes me very happy. It’s fun, really, having lots of interesting things to taste. The only bummer is that you only get six glasses to fill, so you’re forced to choose (though you can always go back). On our visit, the options included black bean and papaya, roasted habanero, mango, tomatillo, “pink salsa” (chipotle sour cream), and so many others!
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As a non-meat-eater, I never really saw the point of tacos. Now I’ve seen the light: it’s delicious ingredients plus interesting fixings that make tacos so good!
At Gardenias, each shady table is laden with nine topping options, including various salsas, guacamole, limes, and chilies. The fish and shrimp tacos, both fried in a remarkably light, fresh way, were both fantastic. BBQ pork, BBQ beef, and chicken were all excellent as well. We even tried cactus, which came in a heaping pile of what tasted a little like green beans. Apparently cactus is good for you, but I would rather have had another fish taco. Quesadillas were heavy on the cheese and not as exciting as the one I had at Habanero but still delicious.
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The most Cuban things about Havana are the name, The Buena Vista Social Club playing after the jazz stopped, and the Mojitos on the menu. The closest the actual menu got to “Cuban influenced” was a special called Voodoo Chicken, which seemed more Cajun-American than anything but tasted good nonetheless. The rest of the menu consisted of things like Steak and Onion quesadillas (also tasty), stuffed pork chops with spinach and gnocchi, and two pasta dishes. As long as you steer clear of foods that seem out of place here (pasta) the entrees were all surprisingly good. Just don’t go expecting traditional dishes like black beans and fried plantains. Read the rest of this entry »
I have no idea why this place at the end of a dirt road that’s really no more than a small kitchen and a large collection of heavy metal tables and chairs set in the sand a few feet from the Pacific and shielded by umbrellas is called The Office. I certainly wouldn’t mind this being where I went to work everyday. Although most trips to Los Cabos are all about relaxing, it’s still worth visiting The Office at least once.
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For our first night in Los Cabos, before the arrival of the rest of the clan, we headed to the site of one of the nicest hotels and reputably best restaurants in the small town of San Jose del Cabo for a wonderfully pleasant evening. This phot from The New York Times doesn’t do the romance and charm of the place justice.
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I have read that it’s sunny in Los Cabos all but fifteen days a year. Seeing the brown hills, cacti, and abundance of restaurants that have no option but to close down completely in bad weather, the forecast of a week with highs in the eighties is far from surprising, but reassuring nonetheless. We’re here with Oren’s family for Thanksgiving. It’s a surprisingly easy getaway to another world via a two and a half hour flight from San Francisco. We’re staying at the Sheraton on the beach on the corridor between the frenetic tourist haven of Cabo San Lucas and the calmer, more Mexican San Jose del Cabo. It’s not only a phenomenally good deal (read, free, thanks to Oren’s travel-savvy mother and a particularly nice deal Starwood offers at some hotels: 5 nights and 50,000 airline miles for 70,000 Starwood points), but it’s also a place where I would be reasonably happy paying for a room, at least so far. More to come on the place later in the week. It seems that Cabo may be almost as good a place for food-lovers as it is for sun-worshipers. We are here armed not only with a handful of mostly glowing articles from the likes of The New York Times and Wine Spectator, but also a skinny and enthusiastic guidebook to good eating in Los Cabos. With a week of relaxation, beautiful blue water, perfect weather, good meals, and cold beer ahead, there’s little more we can think to ask.
