No Fog Here, Just Good Eats

A fellow Sacramentan who is helping to coordinate a rendezvous for her family in Los Cabos in February has emailed me some questions about Mexican wine and restaurants and markets in San Jose del Cabo. They will be staying on the “corridor,” the beachside strip of resort hotels and timeshares between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, but they expect to frequent San Jose more than Cabo. I’m guessing that other Northern Californians are planning to escape the area’s chilly temperatures and persistent fog for a few days in Los Cabos, where it’s overcast right now but still edging into the 70s. Thus, in hopes of being helpful I’m posting here my response to her:


- As to your interest in exploring Mexican wine, be aware that quality is wildly uneven and that prices can be stunningly high. I just came from the gourmet shop La Europea across the transpeninsular highway from the landmark Las Palmas hotel in San Jose del Cabo. Their selection of Mexican wine is extensive and varied, but also pricey. They are well stocked with releases from the usually reliable Mexican brands Monte Xanic and L.A. Cetto. But they also carry several Mexican brands new to me, including one with a 2004 zinfandel for 875 pesos (about $75 in U.S. currency) and a 2005 nebbiolo for 1,295 pesos (about $110). When I win the lottery I’ll be able to report on what they’re like. In the meantime, I’ll be sticking pretty much to Chilean, Argentine and Spanish wines, which are the wines most readily available, most attractively priced and most consistently reliable in Los Cabos. However, for a special dinner at which I would like to show off what the Mexican wine trade is capable of achieving, I’d select a wine by Casa de Piedra, Adobe Guadalupe, Vinedos Malagon, Vinisterra or Roganto. Good, solid representations can be found at $40 to $60 for those brands. And I’d stick to warm-climate grape varieties, like petite sirah, tempranillo and especially grenache. Also, you may want to stop by the wine shop La Casa del Vino de Baja California, which stocks only wine made in Baja California. It’s in Plaza del Cabo, along the transpeninsular highway just south of La Europea. Starting at 7 p.m. each Tuesday, the owner oversees a tasting of four Baja wines. The cost is 200 pesos per person.

- As to restaurants, you asked about Casianos. As with your friends, it’s one of our favorites, though we haven’t yet checked it out this visit. It’s in a peculiar location, a lifeless office and shopping complex along Bahia de Palmas east of the transpeninsular highway and just northeast of the Las Mananitas development. Owner/chef Casiano Reyes cooks what he calls “spontaneous cuisine.” The menu, in other words, changes daily, and by our experience includes two prix-fixe options. Stylistically, the food is Nuevo Mexican - duck on a plantain tortilla, lobster and chile peppers in filo pastry, sea bass on a pineapple puree, tenderloin on sweet-potato puree. The setting is smart, the service prideful and precise in explaining dishes, and the wine list captivating, though dear (the 2006 Russian River Valley pinot noir from Clarksburg’s Bogle Vineyards was listed at 750 pesos (about $60 for a wine that generally was selling for around $14 in the Sacramento area). We enjoyed the restaurant immensely, and this year it could be our Valentine’s Day destination.

Our overall favorite fine-dining restaurant, however, remains Restaurant H, a small but exquisitely designed and operated place in the heart of San Jose del Cabo’s art district. The father-and-son team of Luis Herrera Blanc and Luis Herrera oversee a compact menu of what they call “modern rustic” Mexican cookery. It’s the first place we hit when we return to San Jose del Cabo and the last we visit before returning to Sacramento. The food just seems to be getting better and better, and the other night we had our best meal yet there. If it’s still on the menu, be sure to order the heirloom-tomato and roasted-beet salad, sweetened with goat cheese and a fruity vinaigrette. The kitchen even knows how to glorify pan-seared chicken breast, keeping it moist while jazzing it up with smoky chile peppers, asparagus, mushrooms and a sweet-potato puree. In the past, we’ve enjoyed such entrees as pan-fried chicken with a curry of tomatillos and poblano and jalapeno chile peppers, grilled pork chop with a green herb sauce, chorizo and a white-bean puree, and local sea bass crusted with sunflower seeds over a sweet and creamy sauce of corn, potato and peppers. I’m not crazy about Restaurant H’s wine list, but the corkage is a not unreasonable 200 pesos. Book well in advance, and hope you get a table with Daniel as your server.

Other San Jose del Cabo fine-dining restaurants we plan to revisit this stay include the spirited El Matador in the neighborhood Colonia El Chamizal, where the menu ranges from traditional Mexican to contemporary European; Maison del Angel in the art district, not so much for its shaky service but for the appeal of its open courtyard and the force and tradition of its Mexican cooking; and La Dolce Restaurante Italiano on the central plaza, simply because a body can go only so long without sauteed calamari and competently turned out thin-crust pizza.

- As to more casual everyday dining spots, we’ll be meeting friends at Guacamayas in a week for our first visit during this stay. It’s very basic but almost invariably very crowded, thanks to the quality and value of its traditional Mexican cooking. It’s in either the Pescador or El Chamizal neighborhood. It’s an adventure to find, but somehow I always eventually get there. The food court at Mercado Municipal, the traditional central market in San Jose del Cabo, is very reliable for inexpensive Mexican dishes, especially for breakfast and at lunch. Rossy Taqueria where Pescador intersects with the transpeninsular highway long has been a favorite outing for simply prepared but generous fish, shrimp and scallop tacos, but go for lunch, not dinner, when, for some reason, quality slips in everything from service to the assorted add-ons at the salsa bar.

- As to where to buy fresh seafood, I’ve had good luck at the Mercado Municipal, which includes two fish stalls. The snapper and shrimp looked especially appealing today, but the selection at both places was wide. The market also includes a couple of meat purveyors, including one, Marlena, that has excellent Oaxacan mole, as well as other prepared sauces. There are also a couple of produce stands, as well as a shop stocked with school uniforms. From Boulevard Mijares, the main north/south street on the east edge of downtown, head up Doblado and watch for the market just off to your left.

- If your stay here includes a Saturday, make your way to the farmers market on the northern outskirts of downtown. Don’t eat beforehand. It includes an array of vendors selling blended juice drinks, grilled chicken, pastries and the like, as well as fresh produce, though most of the stands deal in arts and crafts. I’ve found produce prices to be surprisingly high there. I paid 20 pesos Saturday for a bunch of Swiss chard no larger or more attractive than a bunch that cost 10 pesos a few days earlier at the new Mercado Organico along the west side of the transpeninsular highway just north of Las Palmas.

- If you will be in San Jose del Cabo on Super Bowl weekend be forewarned that that’s also election weekend in Baja California Sur, which means no sales of alcoholic beverages. Alarmed that this could mean no cerveza during the game, I last night asked a principal of the popular Shooters Sports Bar just off the square downtown if that means no Super Bowl party come Feb. 6. No, she said, business is expected to be as brisk as ever. She said the Super Bowl and the election overlap every few years, and in the past authorities have said they could stay open and pour drinks as long as they don’t serve Mexicans, a tradition they expect to continue next week.