Mexico: La Guerrerense
It's not a secret that I hate the taste of alcohol. Even tiramisu makes me cringe. However when CEK suggested going wine tasting in Valle de Guadalupe during our weekend in Mexico, I was tempted by the possibility of making a detour to Ensenada, which is just a bit further south.
I didn't know much about Ensenada, but a quick Google search made it clear that we couldn't go there without stopping by La Guerrerense. A local favorite made famous by Anthony Bourdain, La Guerrerense is a street cart that serves ceviche, ceviche, and more ceviche.
Hell yes. That's my kind of street cart.
We decided to head straight to Ensenada in the morning for breakfast and then hit up Valle de Guadalupe in the afternoon. The drive from Tijuana to Ensenada took approximately two hours. We arrived around 10:00am and were ecstatic to find parking right around the corner from La Guerrerense. Unfortunately, it wasn't open yet:
To kill some time, we browsed in a gift shop nearby. Not ten minutes later, we returned to find La Guerrerense completely swallowed by a crowd of people:
Everything on the menu basically only required assembling, so though the line looked scary, it moved fairly quickly. We jotted down all our orders on one phone and had CEK order for the group in Spanish.
La Guerrerense is known for its ceviche tostadas. RW and CEK each ordered two, while my sister and I shared three. Our first plate came with CEK's shrimp ceviche (25 pesos or around $1.40) along with RW's and our campechana (100 pesos or around $5.50):
The campechana was from the special tostada menu, hence the heftier price tag. It included beautiful large chunks of shrimp, octopus, scallops, mussels, and clams:
Guh. How gorgeous is that?
Our second plate was just as awe-inspiring. Clockwise from the top, there was the pescado (fish), the ensalada de jaiba (crab salad), the pulpo (octopus), and the erizo (sea urchin):
Every single one was only 25 pesos. Hot damn!
My sister and I got the pulpo and the erizo. Even though the pulpo was amazing, the erizo was by far the most memorable. I would've never expected a ceviche to be warm. Ceviches in my mind had always been bright and tart and refreshing. The erizo ceviche was warm, creamy, and almost heavy like a tomato cream sauce. I could imagine it being delicious on warm bread or even as a pasta sauce.
I couldn't resist adding on almejas en su concha or clams on the half shell (50 pesos or ~$2.80):
And pata de mula or blood clams (40 pesos or ~$2.20):
You just can't go wrong with seafood as fresh as that.
I love how unpretentious La Guerrerense is in spite of its fame. There are no tables. You eat either sitting on a chair along the wall or more likely, standing in huddles in the sidewalk. They trust you to return to the cart after you finish to recite what you ordered and pay. The owner, Sabina Bandera, who now has a sit down restaurant and sells her own house wine and sauces, is right there at the back of the cart, ready to ring you up with a smile.
CEK wanted to buy some of La Guerrerense's salsas as souvenirs. $20 got her three salsas handpicked by Sabina Bandera as well as a cup of agua fresca de pepino:
Instead of water with a hint of cucumber, this cucumber and lime concoction was sweet and tart and everything I had hoped for at Kokopelli the night before. This will be what I will dream of on every hot day to come.
Though a tad expensive by Mexican standards, La Guerrerense is positively a steal by American ones. If I ever find myself in Ensenada again, for sure I'll be back in line at La Guerrerense. And I'll keep getting back in line until I've tried everything on the menu. There were so many more ceviches that I wanted to try. Abalone, sea snail, sea cucumber, fish pate...the list is endless!
Ugh...just thinking about it is making me drool on my keyboard.
La Guerrerense
Av Adolfo López Mateos 917
Centro, 22800 Ensenada, B.C., Mexico
+52 646 174 0006
http://laguerrerense.com/
I didn't know much about Ensenada, but a quick Google search made it clear that we couldn't go there without stopping by La Guerrerense. A local favorite made famous by Anthony Bourdain, La Guerrerense is a street cart that serves ceviche, ceviche, and more ceviche.
Hell yes. That's my kind of street cart.
We decided to head straight to Ensenada in the morning for breakfast and then hit up Valle de Guadalupe in the afternoon. The drive from Tijuana to Ensenada took approximately two hours. We arrived around 10:00am and were ecstatic to find parking right around the corner from La Guerrerense. Unfortunately, it wasn't open yet:
To kill some time, we browsed in a gift shop nearby. Not ten minutes later, we returned to find La Guerrerense completely swallowed by a crowd of people:
Everything on the menu basically only required assembling, so though the line looked scary, it moved fairly quickly. We jotted down all our orders on one phone and had CEK order for the group in Spanish.
La Guerrerense is known for its ceviche tostadas. RW and CEK each ordered two, while my sister and I shared three. Our first plate came with CEK's shrimp ceviche (25 pesos or around $1.40) along with RW's and our campechana (100 pesos or around $5.50):
The campechana was from the special tostada menu, hence the heftier price tag. It included beautiful large chunks of shrimp, octopus, scallops, mussels, and clams:
Guh. How gorgeous is that?
Our second plate was just as awe-inspiring. Clockwise from the top, there was the pescado (fish), the ensalada de jaiba (crab salad), the pulpo (octopus), and the erizo (sea urchin):
Every single one was only 25 pesos. Hot damn!
My sister and I got the pulpo and the erizo. Even though the pulpo was amazing, the erizo was by far the most memorable. I would've never expected a ceviche to be warm. Ceviches in my mind had always been bright and tart and refreshing. The erizo ceviche was warm, creamy, and almost heavy like a tomato cream sauce. I could imagine it being delicious on warm bread or even as a pasta sauce.
I couldn't resist adding on almejas en su concha or clams on the half shell (50 pesos or ~$2.80):
And pata de mula or blood clams (40 pesos or ~$2.20):
You just can't go wrong with seafood as fresh as that.
I love how unpretentious La Guerrerense is in spite of its fame. There are no tables. You eat either sitting on a chair along the wall or more likely, standing in huddles in the sidewalk. They trust you to return to the cart after you finish to recite what you ordered and pay. The owner, Sabina Bandera, who now has a sit down restaurant and sells her own house wine and sauces, is right there at the back of the cart, ready to ring you up with a smile.
CEK wanted to buy some of La Guerrerense's salsas as souvenirs. $20 got her three salsas handpicked by Sabina Bandera as well as a cup of agua fresca de pepino:
Instead of water with a hint of cucumber, this cucumber and lime concoction was sweet and tart and everything I had hoped for at Kokopelli the night before. This will be what I will dream of on every hot day to come.
Though a tad expensive by Mexican standards, La Guerrerense is positively a steal by American ones. If I ever find myself in Ensenada again, for sure I'll be back in line at La Guerrerense. And I'll keep getting back in line until I've tried everything on the menu. There were so many more ceviches that I wanted to try. Abalone, sea snail, sea cucumber, fish pate...the list is endless!
Ugh...just thinking about it is making me drool on my keyboard.
La Guerrerense
Av Adolfo López Mateos 917
Centro, 22800 Ensenada, B.C., Mexico
+52 646 174 0006
http://laguerrerense.com/
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