Fish Tacos

I will admit to being, shall I say, a trifle obsessive. That is, when I get interested or focused on a particular item, I will pursue it completely. This can occur with clothing, home decor, or more to the point here, with food.
Right now and for the last few months it’s been fish tacos. Fish tacos are just another type of taco, but as their own category really were virtually unheard of up until just a few years ago. The type of fish tacos I am talking about and captivated by are a new and improved type. They are commonly found in places like Baja (California) and sometimes considered “street food”, discovered by surfers and voyagers of that type.
Briefly, they consist of a warmed soft tortilla laden with thinly sliced cabbage and/or lettuce, a type of salsa known as “pico de gallo” which is usually fresh chopped tomato, onion and jalapeno peppers, served with a nice piece of grilled fish. Frequently served open-faced rather than rolled up, It’s light and healthy food! And when done right, delicious! New to Americans, no doubt Mexicans have been eating these for years. As the story goes about the discovery of this type of taco, my understanding is that on their trips south of the border, the surfer types so enjoyed the casual, delicious tacos they had that they created the market for them here, saying “why don’t we have something like this at home?” All of the rest of us benefit from their productive musing.
In my area the originators (or so we believe) are the Wahoos people. The owners of Wahoos fit the surfer mode and were also fortunate enough to be a part of a restaurant family when growing up so they had the background and business acumen to make it happen. The Wahoos tacos are some of the simplest of this category of taco. They have stayed true to the Baja/surfer roots. The Wahoos chain also offers other types of Mexican dishes but doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what they are; fast food with healthy and light touch.
Of course once something is successful, others will imitate; unfortunately it’s not just as easy as putting fish on a tortilla. The essence of this type of taco is for it to be light and healthy along with flavorful. There are many imitators who have added breading to the fish, and cheese to the finished product. But really, the trick is to keep it flavorful while simple. Not an easy task.
We have eaten fish tacos at different “healthy Mex” type of places. They’re usually not bad, but not necessarily great. Originally I took Wahoos as my template as to what a good “Baja” fish taco should be.
With that in mind, Steve and I have indulged in fish tacos in a number of places. We have a local place, La Fogata, within walking distance that is not part of a chain and considers itself healthy Mex. theirs has breading and some sort of spice that I don’t like though Steve likes them well enough so we go back. As a substitute I usually have their shrimp tacos which taste good even though they’re strictly not fish tacos. They also have a grilled veggie taco which is pretty good. Oh and the other thing Steve seems to like so well there is the condiment bar. Most Mexican places have them. Usually included are two or more types of salsas (hot sauce) sometimes cilantro (coriander) sometimes chopped onions. This one has all of that and also a pico de gallo salsa and a fresh corn salsa which consists of tomatos, onions, peppers and corn – sort of like a corn salad. This is s like a lagniappe for Steve. The tacos come on two colored tortillas, one of which I believe to be spinach so that gives it an additional healthy feeling.

That said, we recently discovered a new place in our area which now has most of our fish taco business. Unfortunately, not as close as La Fogata, and not as well known as Wahoos, but no matter. I am convinced theirs are the most delicious tacos I have ever had. The place is named Bear Flag Fish Company http://bearflagfishco.com and as the story goes started out as a fish market and expanded to include a few cooked items such as fish tacos, and other things that sound good like rice bowls with fish, fish sandwiches on C’est si Bon baguettes and other things, I guess. But I can’t get past the tacos, they’re so good! Theirs are made with a fish named Basa which I have never before seen or had. They grill the Basa so it tastes and looks like grilled fish with little charred edges and place it on a soft corn tortilla along withsome shredded cabbage and pico de gallo salsa, and avocado by request. It’s a testament to the place that I am willing to sit in a crowded noisy place with only communal tables to sit at and still enjoy the meal and keep going back. Although I admit that I will try to avoid Taco Tuesday from now on.

It’s now become sort of a challenge to see who has a really good version of fish tacos. The other helpful feature is that they are usually pretty low-priced so a good weekday meal. In the continuing experiment we have tried the fish tacos at our regular Friday night restaurant, Quiet Woman. The quality of theirs is consistent with everything else there, that is to say, quite good. But they’re not the casual “Baja” style that I’m expecting. We recently had fish tacos at another place that bills itself as “healthy Mex”, La Salsa . The tacos were good, theirs had cheese as well as the other stuff but not great. Another regular restaurant we go to is California Pizza kitchen. And would you believe that they too recently added fish tacos to their menu? Perhaps we are on the cutting edge here. Realistically I don’t imagine that CPK’s version will be terribly authentic, but I would expect it to be good and might be worth trying once, anyway.

In the meantime, I will continue to make my pilgrimage every two weeks or so to Bear Flag for the best fish tacos around. Could I make these tacos? Probably - but then I would have to shop for tortillas, salsa, fresh fish and then grill the fish and assemble it all. But why when I know where to go for the perfect one? I just think that there are certain things better eaten out or cooked by someone else. For me, pizza would fall into this category as would most Asian food. Arbitrary, I know but it works for me.