Taqueria El Paisa courtesy of @js76wisco
La Lupita courtesy of @formersushichef
Review forthcoming.
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We had a really fun trip. Ate some okay things are the resort…and had much better luck when we left and went into town.
The Oyster Bar in the marina was only okay…but open late by the time we made it out for dinner. The best thing I had on the menu was their oysters in aguachile sauce. Fresh and bright to compliment a great, creamy oyster. Not sure what varietal but they were similar to Blue Points to me. I wouldn’t recommend anything else…I tried a couple of things and they were either weird or completely hammered.
ACRE
This was knock-your-socks-off stupendous. Food and service was great.
Some of my photos did not come out so great.
The house cheddar biscuits were served with a honey lemon compound butter that combined to give you a salty-sweet opener much like a delicious kettle corn.
Soft shell crab taco was very good. We saw this on the menu at more than a few places so maybe it’s a Cabo thing?
Tomato tartare…if you have the chutzpah to list this as the first appetizer on your menu, it’s gotta be good…and it was! I want to preference that every single dish was solid…but this was a banger and the best dish of the night. It was sweet, salty, umami, sour…different textures served on a flour tortilla toasted to be a cracker. Mix it all and top your cracker like a crostini.
Mixed beets…a dish of bright jewels on a plate. One of the prettiest plates. It had been a trip of little vegetable content so we needed to make up for lost time.
Grilled romaine…it seems that everyone in Cabo has some form of grilled Caesar salad on their menu. This one has pistachios as part of the dressing and garnish base with a strong anchovy aroma, which I quite enjoyed. It did not have much of a grilled flavor to me and I’m not entirely sure it would have made things better.
Wagyu tacos…to this point, this was the best taco we had on the trip.
Short ribs…solid…roasted vegetables cooked to a tender crisp with creamy mashed potatoes with lovely braised short ribs.
Charred octopus…super tender and charred at the same time…this is the best octopus I’ve ever eaten paired with a duo of sauces. One sauce was a rich and spiced mole and the other a sweet plantain sauce accompanied by roasted root vegetables. This dish was so good!
Mixed berries sorbet with farm fresh berries…very good. I was pretty stuffed and anything more complex would have killed me.
Frozen key lime pie…frozen lime custard covered with torched meringue with a sprinkling of shortbread crumble. It was super good!
A surprise coconut panna cotta with a dark chocolate cake that was just the right amount of sweet. I normally find coconut desserts too artificial, but this panna cotta had a dreamy creamy texture and was quite natural.
The cocktail game here is strong. I highly recommend hitting up their seasonal cocktails. I had the fresa/strawberry which was refreshing and garnished with a house made slice of strawberry fruit leather…it was delicious.
The Uber ride from the marina was quite the adventure. It was a bit sketch after we turned onto the unpaved and windy road where, at times, we had to pull over and share with oncoming traffic. We were buoyed by the fact that the car was at least following signs saying ACRE. The resort is almost in the middle of nowhere away from the plush beach resorts that most flock to.
We loved ACRE and if we were going to liken it to somewhere in LA…I think it would sit along the lines of Rustic Canyon and Hatchet Hall. Going at night is a production…dimly lit restaurant and bar that makes you feel like you’re in the jungles of an island paradise. Super friendly service and casual Pop music vibes.
I’d like to return during the day to see what the resort looks like with their treehouses, animal sanctuary, and farm.
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For our final night we decided upon a taco night.
Taqueria El Paisa
About a half mile walk from our resort in the marina, El Paisa is what the locals call the tourist spot for tacos.
As you walk up, there are no doors or windows to this place…the open kitchen wafts the smoke and aromas of asada cooked over a charcoal grill and al pastor on a trompo. The folks manning the stations are hard at work…chopping asada orders a la minute and making fresh tortillas for each order.
This place is hustling with a line outside the entrance. Tables and seats are filled to capacity, but the turn around is high. People order, receive their food fast, dine and quickly leave. There’s very little lingering here.
I was planning on ordering 1 of all the things we don’t usually find at the taco places in LA, but I was overruled. So we ended up with more than I had anticipated on our taco tour.
Love that the condiment tray arrived first. Fresh salsas, guacamole, limes and cucumbers to dress your order to your liking. Everything was great…that red salsa burns so good!
Al pastor…very solid. They cut it directly from the trompo for each other. It arrives with onions and cilantro and I squeezed a little lime…and it was good to go.
Our plate of everything.
Center - sirloin crispy…the house asada served atop a fresh flour tortilla toasted to be a cracker. The asada juices can drip down your hand/arm if you are not careful as you bite down and enjoy the flavorful beef that’s got some great charred bits.
Clockwise from top - chicken tinga…didn’t try it. I figured that the asada and al pastor were the highlights here based on what was coming out of the kitchen.
Continuing clockwise - not on the menu but recommended by our server was a chile relleno taco topped with both asada and shrimp. Fresh flour tortillas topped with a slice of roasted pasilla chile, griddled with melted Oaxacan cheese before adding the proteins. It was fun and likely delicious because of its novelty.
Continuing clockwise - house asada/sirloin on a fresh flour tortilla. Solid…loved the smoke from the grill and the crispy charred bits.
Last taco - pidelo como quieras…which was served on a fresh corn vessel that was halfway between a sopa and a regular corn tortilla and topped with Oaxacan cheese before adding your choice of proteins…we chose the delightful asada and shrimp, again.
Great place! Thanks, @js76wisco.
For folks looking to go off the beaten path, we received a recommendation from our driver for a place called Maria Jimenez which is were the locals prefer.
La Lupita
We were stuffed from El Paisa and still went on with our plans hoping the half mile walk would help.
La Lupita is lovely with the giant tree in the courtyard and a live band playing on the second level balcony on a nice Sunday evening. Very relaxed, it’s a world away from the Señor Frog’s party scene where El Paisa is.
Still stuffed…we proceeded anyway.
The tamarindo margarita was great.
They also welcomed us with an amuse of their house shrimp broth…which was the purest and greatest shrimp broth I have ever had. Lots of fresh shrimp flavor and seasoned just right. Maybe we should have come here first.
Tortilla soup made with shrimp broth - had I known about the amuse, I probably wouldn’t have ordered the soup. With the fortification, it was more tortillas soup with little hint it was made with shrimp broth.
Tostada with kampachi & fried soft shell crab - the only problem with this guy was that the soft shell crab was an overcooked and flattened like a crepe. The kanpachi was lovely, fresh, and bright.
Grilled romaine - because well vegetables
Beef teriyaki taco and Cold tuna & seaweed tacos - that beef was great and that tuna was also very good…these were also stars. The game there is their tacos are different from traditional tacos and inspiration is drawn from a world on influences.
Thanks, @formersushichef! We’ll have to come back to try more things…or make this the first stop of the taco crawl next trip.
Bill Esparza recently did an IG Stories list of places in Cabo that I wanted to share and it includes some places previously mentioned by thread contributors:
La Revolucion Comedor
Manta
Tacos Gardenias
Carbon Cabrón
Tamales Doña Nina
Mariscos Las Tres Islas
Nick-San
La Esquina Choyera 1
Taqueria Rossy
Claro Fish Jr
La Oveja Negra
Birrieria Apatzingan
Wishing you future trips to Cabo full of delicious eats!
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