Tag Archives: Tequila

Hot Happenings North of the Border!

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Attention Baja lovers! If you can’t head south, here are a few events coming up on this side of the border.

Chef Diego Hernandez of Valle de Guadalupe will be a special guest for the one-year anniversary of Crudo in Little Italy from 2pm until closing tomorrow, Thursday, Sept. 28. Click here for details. 

The 2nd annual Baja Bound Baja Travel and Lifestyle Expo takes place this Saturday, Sept. 30 from 12-5pm at Crown Point Park. Check out more than 100 exhibitors, food & drinks, speakers and live music. Get more information here. 

Mexico Gourmet: A Day of the Dead Food and Spirits Festival is coming Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 21 and 22, from 4-8pm at Fashion Valley. The event will feature chefs from Mexico, tequila, mezcal, beer, parades, and more. Click here for details and a 20% discount on admission. 

Michelin-starred Valle de Guadalupe chef Drew Deckman will finally open a San Diego restaurant! We just can’t get enough of his sustainable, community-based, rustic cuisine. Look for a February 2024 debut in North Park. Find more information by clicking here.  

And us? We’ll be heading to the Valle this weekend on a mission to visit some of the wineries we’ve never made it to in the past (yes, believe it or not, there are a few!) Stay tuned for a report..

A Tale of Four Food Fests – Part II

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Summertime brings fun food fests on both sides of the border! We visited the ¡Latin Food Fest!’s Grande Tasting, held this year at San Diego’s Embarcadero Marina Park North. The promoters put on LFFs in multiple markets, and they have an impressive line-up of big-time sponsors/exhibitors, including Big Green Egg, Coca-Cola, Dole, Obrigado coconut water (lovely pavilion!), got milk?/California Milk Advisory, FlatOut, Northgate Markets and Home Depot. Proof positive that major companies recognize the value of aligning themselves with the Latin culinary movement! But it’s disconcerting (and not welcoming) to enter a food fest and immediately be accosted by sales reps for satellite TV and solar; sorry, not cool. This year’s Fest was spread out, which was good, but there was a distinct lack of signage/map to help attendees find who/what/where. You just had to wander about! It seemed some of the advertised chefs and wineries were only in the VIP area, which was disappointing. Bummer: we never found Chef Martin San Roman or Little Italy’s Sirena. But we did eventually find our way to the Spirits of the Americas tent (despite lack of signage) where we found a mass of humanity – multiple long lines going every which way, snaking toward tables where thimble-sized pours of tequila, rum and sake were offered. It was SO crowded and SO chaotic! We finally found the cooking demonstration tent (again, despite the lack of helpful signage). And, I must say, the demo by Dominican Chef Martin Omar was one of the highlights of the afternoon. The other highlight? Meeting Chef Felipe Raul, now a Rosarito Beach resident. I expect to hear great things from him in the near future! Kudos to the organizers of the ¡Latin Food Fest! on securing so many big-name sponsors. But hey: you can learn a lot from the folks who put on Baja’s best food fests. Unifying signage across the top of each canopy/tent, provided by the promoter, will make it easier for attendees and will drive traffic to the food/drink purveyors. More tables (there were a scant few in front of the stage) will increase the attendee experience, make folks want to stay longer and return next year. And we’d like to see more Baja restaurants, chefs, wineries and brewers represented; San Diego is, after all, portal to one of the most fertile, interesting and explosive culinary hotbeds in the world.

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Chef Martin Omar from the Dominican Republic

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Chef Martin Omar’s dish of chicken with spices and parmesan cheese was delicious.

Next up: Fiestas de la Vendimia Paella Fest & Sabor de Baja. Stay tuned!

End-of-Summer Baja Blitz!

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We in the U.S. may be back to work and school, but the fun in Baja is never-ending. Here’s a quick look at happenings on the eatdrinkbaja radar screen. And I hope you’ll subscribe to receive future posts via email! Click on the “subscribe” button on the “rail” on the right side of my home page. Gracias!!

TJ Beer Fest11th Annual TJ Beer Fest this Friday 9/18 & Saturday 9/19. Caliente Stadium in Tijuana. About $12 in advance, $14 at the door. Organizers claim there will be 200+ beers. An event worth checking out!

Festival de Queso, Vino y Cerveza Artesanal this Saturday 9/19, noon – 9 pm at the Baja California Queso-Vino-FestCenter just north of Rosarito. FREE, but not sure – do you pay for your tastes? Live music! Local productos artesenales! And a good reason to check out the beautiful new Convention Center.

Ensenada International Seafood Festival this Sunday, 9/20, spotlights local restaurants and celebrates the treasures of the sea. We hear this will be across from Riveria del Pacifico on Blvd. Costero. We believe this is free; you pay for individual tastes/drinks, but usually prices are low and portions are grande. Warning: it is listed in San Diego Magazine, but we can’t find anything else about it online. Hope it wasn’t on hold this year due to . . .

Festival Baja Seafood, culminating in the Baja Seafood Trucks Festival Sunday, 9/27 from noon at the Museo el Caracol, which (I believe) is also acrossFestival Baja Seafood Trucks from Riviera del Pacifico on Blvd. Costero in Ensenada. FREE event; betcha gotta to pay for your tastes, but they are usually reasonably priced, delish and substantial.

 

Bajamar Wine Tasting, Saturday 10/3, 3 pm. Sounds like a nice event! Six wines from Nativo in Valle de Guadalupe, with food pairings and live jazz at Bajamar, north of Ensenada. Bajamar Nativo eventLooks like Nativo’s Benjamin Pena (one of our new BFFs) will be pouring and serving as your wine concierge. $50 for the experience.

 

7th Annual Fiesta de la Paella, Folklore y Vino, Sunday 10/4 from 1 pm. This event, in the Jardines del Riviera in Ensenada, looks fun! Paella Fest Oct 4 2015About $10, not sure what’s included. If you check it out, let us know how it goes!

 

Baja Culinary Fest, Thursday 10/ 8 through Sunday 10/11. This annual event toggles between Tijuana and Valle de Guadalupe. This year, looks like most events will be in/around Tijuana’s CECUT. Traditionally there is a public tasting event to close the Fest; Baja-Culinary-Fest-2we’ve been to them @ Encuentro & Vinas la Erre in the Valle, as well as @ CECUT in TJ. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more about this year’s events!

14th Annual Tequila  Expo Tijuana, Wednesday 10/14 – Sunday 10/18 – Right on Revolucion @ 7th, bigger every year and now five days!! A nominal cover charge ($6,tequila-expo-TJ mas o menos) gets you plenty of tastes from dozens of tequilarias. Food, full-sized beverages available for purchase; fun music and entertainment provided, and some of the best people-watching on the west coast.

 

Best Bet: Latin Food Fest

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This weekend’s Latin Food Fest is shaping up nicely. The Grande Tasting is Sat. 11am to 3pm @ the Port Pavilion just N of USS Midway. With food & bev included, it’s a good value for the $$, & a very fun scene. PLUS it benefits our local YMCA! Especially looking forward to Kokopelli, La Diferencia, Fortaleza & Pura Vida Tequilas, Lomita, Cava Aragon 126 & Vinisterra. And I hope to interview emcee Ana Saldana, national TV host & Chef of “Historias Sabrosas” on Canal 22, who’s doing  a cooking demo @ 1:10 pm. Will we see you there?

LFF crowd