One of the best parts of the Baja riding experience is the cuisine. Yep, there are great roads, the scenery is breathtaking, there’s whale watching like no place else in the world, the ancient missions and cave paintings are amazing, and the people are wonderful. But what might be the best-kept Baja secret is the cuisine. In fact, if you need an excuse to head south (not that anyone ever needs an excuse for a motorcycle ride), you might want to ride Baja just to sample the food. It’s that good.
One of the things Baja has going for it is that no matter where you are, you’ll never be more than a few miles from the sea. That means great seafood, and lots of it. Fish tacos are a Baja staple, but there’s more. Lots more. We thought it might be fun to share with you a few of our favorite Baja restaurants in a series of blogs organized by area. This first one will be the Rosarito Beach-Ensenada corridor. With that as an intro, here we go…
Rosarito Beach
Located about 35 miles or so south of the border, Rosarito Beach is a tourist town, but that doesn’t mean it’s all refrigerator magnets and velour Elvis portraits. There are two spots in this town that we love: The Rosarito Beach Hotel, and Susanna’s.
You can spot the Rosarito Beach Hotel from the cuota (the toll road heading to Ensenada). It’s one of the tallest buildings to your right.
If you’re thinking that hotel restaurants are both overpriced and mediocre, you’d be correct most of the time, but the Rosarito Beach Hotel is the exception. If you stay at the Rosarito Beach Hotel you get one meal free (they’re smart, you may not want to go anywhere else after that first one) and if you’re there on a Sunday, you don’t want to miss the brunch. It’s awesome. If you stop on the way south just for a meal, there’s ample protected parking and the hotel is biker-friendly.
Another best kept secret in Rosarito Beach is Susanna’s. It’s literally a 5-star restaurant tucked away in a small group of boutique shops at 4356 Benito Juarez Boulevard. Folks, trust me on this: Susanna’s is one of the best high end restaurants in the world. I’ve been all over the world. I know what I’m talking about here.
I always make it a point to have at least one dinner at Susanna’s whenever I’m passing through Rosarito Beach, and there have been more than a few times when I made Rosarito Beach a stop just to eat here. It’s that good, and Susanna is an absolutely gracious proprietor.
Ensenada
As one of Baja’s larger cities, Ensenada has many dining choices. My favorites are any of the street taco stands (I love Baja street tacos), Los Veleros for breakfast, and a family-style place I just learned about called Birrieria La Guadalajara for either lunch or dinner (it’s on Macheros Street a little off the edge of the tourist area).
Los Veleros Restaurante is next to the Hotel Corona on Lázaro Cárdenas (it’s on the right as you head south, just a few blocks past where the cruise ships dock). Los Veleros has the best breakfasts in town, confirmed by the local business folks who regularly dine there. Breakfasts start with a plate of pastries that, all by themselves, are worth the trip to Baja (I’ll say that a lot about my favorite dining spots in Baja, and I’ll mean it every time).
My preference for street tacos in Ensenada is any taco stand along the waterfront. Even though many folks who have never been to Mexico might be hesitant to try these, I haven’t found a bad one yet. Head toward the embarcadero if you’re in the tourist area, and take your choice. You can’t go wrong.
For either lunch or dinner, there are many choices in Ensenada. I’ve tried many of them and they are all good. Here’s the hot ticket: The family-style dining at Birrieria La Guadalajara.
A meal at the Birrieria La Guadalajara is a treat not to be missed. I’m embarrassed to admit I only found out about this magnificent restaurant on my most recent trip to Baja (and I have my good friend Tim to thank for that). Bring your group and bring an appetite, make your own tacos or burritos, and try the goat (you can thank me later). It’s the best meal in Ensenada!
That’s it for our first installment on Baja’s gastronomical delights. If you know of a great place to eat in the Rosarito-to-Ensenada corridor that we haven’t mentioned, by all means please leave a comment and let us know about it. And watch the Exhaust Notes blog; we’ll be adding to this series with a focus on each Baja area of interest. So what’s up next? Hey, our next set of dining delights will be in the stretch south of Ensenada all the way to El Rosario!
I’ve spoken with Surj Gish (the main man at CityBike) a few times during my days with CSC, and he was always a straight shooter with me. We wish these guys good luck with this change in their approach to market.
No clutch. No noise. No gears. Best of all, no gas. Basically, no worries. If you can work an iPhone and ride a bicycle, you’re there.
Two cousins, and one’s 18 year old daughter, ride their CSC RX3 250cc adventure bikes on a 5 day adventure in Baja, Mexico.
Day 3 – We rode south along a beautiful coastal section of Hwy 1 before a short but fun mountain pass, a military checkpoint, and then into El Rosario, where we decided to take the 16km (10 mile) dirt/gravel road out to Punta Baja, which is just a little fishing village with a dozen or so buildings. We asked some fisherman and found a little collection of picnic tables on a dirt floor under a building, where a lovely woman named Betty made us some abalone soup and fish tacos, and we met a lawyer from Texas with a dual sport and a surf board that was staying in one of the rooms upstairs and still hadn’t figured out how to work the toilets. The ride back to the highway was fast and fun, now that we knew the road and where the dogs would make chase. Next we rode up up up and into the desert of giant boulders and giant Saguaro cactus on our way to our turn-around point of Cataviña, where we stayed at the nice but pricey Hotel Mission Cataviña, with its delicious Micheladas and iffy electricity.
Day 4 – Since there are no gas stations, we began our ride back northwest by buying three plastic jugs of gasoline from some guys on the side of the road with our last twenty dollars cash, and had a lovely early morning ride through the desert before the day got too hot. Coming back to El Rosario, we had a fantastic mid-morning breakfast at the famous Mama Espinosa’s (cash only, try the ABD Supermarket), and headed north again. Back in Ensenada we cranked the Mexico-style adventure to eleven and got matching tattoos before having some tasty street tacos and cervezas.
Day 5 – Taking Hwy 3 just north of Ensenada, we finally passed a stinky truck likely carrying fish guts and rode the beautiful La Ruta del Vino (wine route) through the Guadalupe Valley and the mountains towards Tecate. We jumped on our last chance for some authentic Mexican street tacos at Tacos el Guero, and then we rode up Presidente Rubio Street and popped out right at a gap in the traffic barriers to meet the front of the line to cross the border. We were waved in by a nice man in a Mexican-plated pickup truck. Total time to cross: about 4 minutes. The hill country ride up Hwy 94 was a pleasant re-acclimation to driving in the U.S., and soon we were splitting lanes on the 15 North back to the LA area.
