A Life Worth Eating

Mar 30

Mar 30 Cenaduría Sinaloense La Espiguita

If there were one rule to remember while eating in San José, it's this: if a restaurant says "Sinaloa," it probably has really good food. As the nearest land mass across the Mar de Cortez, Sinaloa is the neighboring state to Baja California Sur. This explains why a large portion of San José's residents are Sinaloan: they moved west during Baja California Sur's massive development thirty years ago. With them they brought the tastes of Sinaloan cuisine.

Cenaduría Sinaloense la Espiguita is the restaurant of Sinaloa native chef Sandra Luz Zepeda. It's a local place visited by residents who live in the adjacent Colonia Chamizal. Here, a tabletop stereo plays Sinaloan banda while Señora Zepeda takes orders and returns to the kitchen to prepare them. The outdoor restaurant serves a variety of antojitos, meats, and soups including red pozole. But what the restaurant lacks in fancy decor it makes up for in flavor. I find myself visiting "La Espiguita" pretty often.

Mar 23

Mar 23 Mariscos Cepy's

Adam Goldberg

Mexico

Mexico's rich and diverse cultural history lends to uncountable regional dishes. Nearly every small town across the country has its own specialty or rendition of a National dish. Recently added to the UNESCO world heritage list, Mexican cuisine has at once some of the most complicated and simple recipes in the world. This dichotomy of complexity -- where hundred-ingredient mole sits alongside raw fish garnished with nothing more than lime and salt -- makes Mexican food so incredibly unique and delicious. In coastal towns like Los Mochis, Sinaloa where seafood is easily caught, simple shellfish becomes the crux for local cuisine. (Actually as it turns out, Los Mochis has great just about anything.) It's no coincidence Chicago's Rick Bayless named his seafood restaurant Topolobampo after the port a few miles west of the city center. Don't expect anything fancy: in Mexico, flavor and ambience are often inversely correlated.

Mariscos Cepy's, a small restaurant at the end of a residential block, is always crowded. This is partly because of the exceptionally fresh shellfish, but also because Mexicans know how to take their time and enjoy the afternoon. There's never any rush here, and a few cold drinks and outdoor seat in the sun makes time stand still.

Mar 22

Mar 22 Taquería Liliana

Adam Goldberg

San José del Cabo

I always thought a taco implied a hardshell. At least in the US, I grew up with the crispy yellow pre-folded U-shaped shells that were stuffed to the brim with ground beef, iceberg lettuce, flavorless tomatoes, and buried in orange cheddar cheese. Only after visiting Mexico (a lot), I learned, or at least I thought I did, that truly authentic tacos consist of double-layered soft corn tortillas -- each no bigger than 6-inches in diameter -- dotted with a sprinkle of meat. Turns out this was wrong, too. The contrast of authentic tacos being smaller in size with a soft shell versus the oversized crispy-shell impostors is overly simplistic. The texture, size, shape, and filling of authentic tacos varies tremendously. Some of Mexico's most delicious tacos are in fact hard-shelled, native to regions like Los Mochis and Baja California Sur.

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