Fernando Lago Makes Fish Art at a Fish Market
I dropped past the much-loved — and for good reason — Rosarito Fish Market Deli in northern San Fernando recently for some takeout. I was reminded of the degree to which a large chunk of the restaurant experience…is actually being in the restaurant.
These days, at Rosarito, you identify your gild at a table that sits in one of the doorways, pay for your food, and when information technology emerges — properly pronto for the heat in the Northern Valley can be daunting — you catch your numberless, blitz them to your car parked simply a few steps away in the lot and endeavor not to tear into the shrimp and ceviche on the way home. Which can exist more than of a challenge that you recollect.
The food is great as ever. The seafood is wonderful, every bit good a gustatory modality of Mexican coastal cuisine as y'all'll notice here in SoCal. Only still…I missed the music. I missed the crowds. I missed the beers, consumed in Coronitas out of water ice-filled tubs. I missed the sense that by driving north, I had really driven southward — southward of the border, that is, and well beyond.
Ah well, someday. And hopefully, someday soon. Light a candle…
In normal times, Rosarito is less a market, and less a cafeteria, than it is a hugely pop, noisy, cheerful, joyous fish house — a restaurant that wouldn't be out of place on the beach in Mazatlán, or almost the bars in Cabo. Coming upon information technology in a San Fernando mini-mall would be a surprise — were it not that so many bully restaurants in the Valley are institute in mini-malls. Hereabouts, mini-malls are how nosotros scroll.
But then, there's nothing particularly mini about Rosarito — not the space, not the carte du jour, non the portions, not the buckets of Coronas. When the world reopens, this volition exist a restaurant to go to with friends and family unit, as many equally you can gather, and then you can order an abundance of dishes. Chances are skilful that, later on studying the menu — which sits over the counter stretching from one side to the other — you'll be properly befuddled past what to gild. It all sounds then good. Far as I can tell, it all is so good.
Mexican seafood offers a wonderful world of flavor and happiness — often overlooked by our many taco and enchilada houses, where stuff from the sea is on the menu every bit a 2nd thought, a gesture for those who don't desire to spend an evening earthworks into lots of guac, and lots more refried beans and nicely cooked rice.
At Rosarito, seafood is the purpose, the driving force, the raison d'être. It'due south what you go here for. And you won't be disappointed.
Every bit I said, to order these days, you go to the counter where you tin can absorb yourself in the brightly colored giveaway carte du jour, before committing yourself to more fish than may seem wise. But and so, with reports suggesting that oceanic fish may i solar day exist extinct, you may besides indulge before we all have to live on Soylent Green.
If you crave simplicity, and a sort of culinary purity, yous'll do well going for the seafood cocteles — big ice cream sundae sized orders packed with fish stuff, onions, lime and sauce. At that place are eight of them, all of them giving you a lot of fish for the money, and all coming in 2 sizes: "medium" and "big." (There is not "small." Kind of similar olives.)
Most of the cocteles include camarones — shrimp — perfectly textured, fully flavored. There's nothing banal hither. You tin get the camarones by themselves if y'all wish. Or mixed with octopus, oysters and abalone. Calculation oysters makes for a fun mix of textures. Calculation octopus and especially abalone makes for a chewy experience. Not a bad one. But the abalone in particular tends to need some masticating. It always does.
At that place are lots of lime slices along with a tostada, and some little plastic packages of crackers. Y'all get crackers with pretty much every dish on the carte. I guess it's only a tradition.
And indeed, those tostadas can also be found as a dish on the menu, topped with a dozen different seafood options — including imitation crab. (I don't love surimi, simply I estimate information technology'southward how it is goes these days; real crab is condign a serious luxury particular, and faux keeps getting more real.) And likewise my favorite Mexican seafood dish, aguachile, which I've loved since I starting time encountered it lo' these many years ago.
In case you lot haven't experienced the wonders of aguachile, in its original form information technology was just camarones (of course!) flavored with republic of chile peppers, lime juice, table salt, cilantro, cucumber and onion. It's substantially ceviche, but with a lot more heat — information technology can be downright flammable in terms of peppery goodness.
At Rosarito, it comes six ways — traditional camarones, camarones with octopus, camarones with scallops ("callo de hacha"), camarones with octopus and abalone and so forth. Information technology'south one of those dishes that seems too hot to consume on first bite. Just then, your oral fissure settles in for the ride. And it's a good i.
There are many platters of seafood, in many cases battered and deep-fried, and very crunchy too. Just honestly, I lean strongly, after the aguachile, to the caldos — fish soups, 5 of them, in a broth so fishy expert, it would be fine all by itself. In that location are oversized dishes chosen "tostilocos," and a ceviche/michelada mix called a "cevichelada."
I've eaten a lot of meals along the west declension of Mexico, and don't recall ever encountering these creations. In that location'southward an irony that to find seafood this good — and artistic — I go not to the shore, but to the due north stop of the San Fernando Valley. When Rosarito is fully open, there's Spanish music on the big screens…and a section of old school style vending machines — including 1 of those globelike jawbreaker machines. Gum and camarones? Not for me. The glue ruins the taste of the beer. And that would be a crime.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
Rosarito Fish Marketplace Deli
- Rating: 3 stars
- Accost: 1534 San Fernando Route, San Fernando
- Data: 818-361-7227
- Cuisine: Mexican Seafood
- When: Breakfast, dejeuner and dinner, every mean solar day
- Details: Beer and more beer; no reservations
- Atmosphere: More a casual eating place than a fish market, this local favorite draws a constant and loyal oversupply for big plates of seafood done south-of-the-edge way in a zillion unlike preparations, all tasty, and very fine with a bucket o' beer.
- Prices: Well-nigh $xx per person
- Suggested dishes: eight Seafood Cocteles ($12.49-$22.99), 12 Seafood Tostadas ($four.99-$7.25), half-dozen Aguachiles ($13.99-$22.99), 5 Seafood Tacos ($1.85-$4.45), 5 Seafood Caldos ($9.49-$17.49), 5 Seafood Tostilocos ($seven.49-$9.49), 19 Seafood Platos ($seven.99-$39.99), 4 Cevicheladas ($thirteen.99-$nineteen.99)
- Cards: MC, V
Source: https://www.dailynews.com/2020/08/26/seafood-has-a-south-of-the-border-spin-at-rosarito-fish-market-deli-in-san-fernando
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