I had to go to San Diego for a couple days for meetings and while I was there I knew I needed to get a fish taco, something San Diego is famous for. There are so many fish taco joints around the city that it's tough to distinguish one from the other. However, I was told by a local that there is one fish taco place that is different from the others in that they smoke their fish. I sought out Oscar's Mexican Seafood to give their fish tacos a try.
Juan Bernardo Montes de Oca grew up in Tijuana just across the border from San Diego. In the mid-2000's, he was the owner of a trucking business in the San Diego suburb of Otay Mesa, just across the border from the Tijuana airport. Each day, Oscar Valenzuela drove his food truck up from Tijuana and into Montes de Oca's parking lot to serve up some scrumptious fish tacos. Oscar's tacos reminded Montes de Oca of his grandmother's tacos that he had growing up.
Montes de Oca loved Oscar's tacos so much that he ended up selling his trucking business and investing in a new food truck for Oscar and going into business with Valenzuela. Oscar taught Montes de Oca everything he needed to run a business - from procuring ingredients in bulk, to food prep, to inventory control, and most importantly, how to make Oscar's tacos.
By 2010, Montes de Oca was looking for a place to open a brick and mortar restaurant with Oscar Valenzuela somewhere in San Diego. The problem, however, was that Oscar was unable to obtain a work visa to help in the restaurant. Undeterred, Montes de Oca went ahead and opened the first Oscar's Mexican Seafood restaurant on Turquoise Street in the Pacific Beach area just north of San Diego in 2011.
Within two years, Montes de Oca opened two more locations - another one in Pacific Beach on Emerald Street, and one in Ocean Beach just north and west of downtown San Diego. The Ocean Beach location closed in late 2013 as Montes de Oca moved that Oscar's location to the Hillcrest section of San Diego on the north side of the city near Balboa Park.
(Not to be left out, Oscar Valenzuela finally did give up his food truck to open his own restaurant in Tijuana - Tacos Oscar.)
It was the Emerald Street location that I went to for my first trip to Oscar's Mexican Food. (see map) That Oscar's is located just off Mission Boulevard about a block and a half from the Pacific Ocean. There are some other restaurants and shops in the area and there was no parking to be had on Emerald Street. I found some on-street parking on Mission Blvd. about a block south of Emerald Street.
Oscar's is not a big place and features bench seating with a few tables. There's a sitting bar along the walkway when you come into the place. It's obviously not designed for comfort or to have people linger after their meal. Out in front, there were a couple high-top tables with stools for al fresco eating.
The menu is located on a monitor near the order counter at Oscar's. They do have a grilled fish taco on the menu - the price is determined by the daily fresh catch Oscar's receives. They had four or five different varieties of ceviche - a wonderful concoction of seafood marinated in lemon juice - including shrimp, scallops and bluefin tuna. (I almost went for an order of the bluefin tuna ceviche.)
Skirt steak tacos were available for those who didn't want a seafood taco, and a "surf-and-turf" taco consisting of grilled skirt steak and grilled shrimp was also on the menu. Oscar's also had an al pastor taco and some vegetarian tacos.
But I was there for the smoked fish tacos. It was a basic taco just topped with shredded cabbage, some chihuahua cheese and a couple slices of fresh avocado. (The smoked fish taco is on the left in the picture.)
As I was looking at the menu board, something else caught my eye - a spicy grilled octopus taco. Oh man! I didn't even hesitate when I ordered one of those to go along with my smoked fish taco. The spicy grilled octopus taco was topped with shredded cabbage, onions, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, fresh avocado slices and finished with chihuahua cheese.
I tried the smoked fish taco first. The chunks of whitefish had a distinctive smoky flavor and were just delicious. "Mmmm....", I said after my second bite into the taco. I usually don't like to have cheese on my fish tacos, but the white chihuahua cheese was a nice blend with the smoked fish. It was absolutely delicious.
But the octopus taco - oh my GOD!!! The octopus chunks were grilled with red pepper flakes giving it a spicy flavor with each bite. The fresh cilantro, chopped onions and tomatoes were a nice cool balance to the spiciness of the octopus. I was shaking my head as I was eating the spicy grilled octopus taco because I couldn't believe how scrumptious it was - and how incredibly easy it would have been able to make at home. I'm sure that Oscar's does some other things in their food prep, and their grill has to be seasoned after over 10 years of use. But the spicy grilled octopus taco was a hands down winner.
One quick note - Oscar's does not have alcohol, so a margarita or a Mexican beer can't be had in their establishments. However, they do have Mexican Coca-Cola and Jarritos soda pop available, as well as bottled water.
I'm a sucker for a good fish taco and San Diego has been known for their large number of good to great fish taco places. But the smoked fish taco and the spicy grilled octopus tacos at Oscar's Mexican Seafood may have been the best seafood tacos I've ever had. Oscar's ingredients are fresh, the spices and seasonings have a nice blend, and while the place isn't all that fancy, the food more than makes up for the lack of ambiance. I'm hoping to get back to Oscar's at some point for the bluefin tuna ceviche. I just hope our accounts in the city do some business to justify me getting back there.
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