Photo by Michael A. Gardiner
Torta de aguachile
I’m passionate about street food. I’m also passionate about fine dining. And I’m really passionate about street food done with a fine dining attitude. And that is precisely what I found at Taqueria Criollo (2nd between Floresta and Espinoza) in Ensenada.
Criollo’s signature dish is a shrimp aguachile torta. One would have to look long and hard to find a great dish more improbable than that one. The words make sense: tortas are great, shrimp’s great and raw shrimp marinated briefly in citrus as an aguachile is great. They just don’t make sense all together. Think about it: the concept of a raw shrimp sandwich doesn’t exactly sound great.
And yet, when Criollo’s chef, Guillermo “Memo” Barreto—formerly of El Sauzal’s El Sarmiento restaurant—noticed bread was also served alongside tuna carpaccios and ceviches, the idea of putting raw shrimp inside a bolillo roll in classic torta style suddenly made all the sense in the world. The result is a remarkably balanced dish: the depth of flavor from the shrimp, acidity from the aguachile, heat from the chiles, bite from the radish, creaminess from the avocado and the grounding of the bread. Each element of the flavor of the dish both complements and contrasts the others yielding a singular flavor profile. It is a truly great dish. It’s stupid good. I actually suppressed giggles as I ate it.
Roadside guisado-style taco stands are ubiquitous in Mexico. And at the heart of Criollo’s menu are the guisos (stews) that can become the featured elements of their tacos, tortas and chilaquiles (corn tortillas cut into chips, fried and then stewed in salsa). They also have more specific offerings in each category. One of my favorite bites at Criollo was the taco of Portobello mushrooms with mole. A take on a classic southern Mexican dish, presented with chef-like flourishes, it was hard to say whether the mole was playing a supporting roll to the portobellos’ star turn or the other way around. Another top taco was Borrego tatemado, roasted lamb shredded and served with cherry tomatoes and thinly sliced radishes. The message was clear: a taco that was all about the depth of flavor of that lamb.
Chicharrones—not the ubiquitous supermarket snack food masquerading under that name, but richly stewed pork skins—made for a particularly good chilaquile. Criollo presents chilaquiles that are stewed separately in both red and green salsas with puréed black beans and garnishes of sour cream, lightly pickled onions and cilantro (either with or without an egg). A Chamorro-style machaca (shaved beef shank) offers a near overload of intense, savory, beefy flavor that gives the chilaquile heft.
At the core of everything, Criollo is all about classic flavors, particularly from the south of Mexico or from Sinaloa (similar to much of Baja’s food) on the northern mainland’s coast. Those flavors are deep, and grounded in cultural history and tradition. But what sets Criollo apart is the precision of the execution, definition of those flavors and the cheffy flourishes that complete the picture. It’s a picture to be seen and tasted.