How to Find Sustainable San Diego Seafood in a Town Filled with Fish Tacos

Check out this photo from 1905 in front of the Hotel Del Coronado.  This is not some crazy Photoshopped image.  Back then you could actually catch giant sea bass off our coast.  Heck, San Diego once had a thriving tuna fishing industry.  Not that long ago there were so many fish being caught off our coast that it drove the development of the canning industry so we could sell it to other markets.  There were so many fish in the sea, as the saying goes, that no one thought it would ever end.

Today it's a bit different.  Overfishing and destructive fishing techniques have put the oceans into serious jeopardy.  So what can you do?  One of the better ways to know whether you should order that sushi roll or not is to use the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch app on your phone.  It lets you know quickly whether the fish you are thinking of ordering is sustainable or whether you should avoid them.  Of course, you can also just go to Rubio's where they lead the way with their sustainable offerings labeled with a easy to see blue icon.  See it? 

I was hungry so that's what I did.  I was feeling a bit nostalgic for the original Rubio's Fish Taco joint in Mission Bay area.  I used to go there and wait in long lines back when it was the only place to get a fish taco.  I hadn't been there in a long time so I wondered if it was still the funky joint I remembered or if was cleaned up like the ones in the mall.

 Psssst - want to Win 2 Rubio's gift cards?  Just add a comment to the end of this post and go to my Facebook page and Like me and you might be the lucky winner!

Thankfully it hadn't changed much at all.  I like the new Rubio's restaurants but the original has a cool San Diego taco shop vibe that makes it feel like you've come to someplace special.  You line up inside and order, then grab a seat outside and wait for your name to be called. It's old school.  In fact, the speaker they use to call out the names is so old school that there is no way you can understand who is being called so pay attention and keep an eye on the pick up window.

I love shrimp but have been shying away from them a bit after reading about how terrible the farming practices are in other countries and how net fishing has so much "by-catch" waste.  Farmed shrimp from Asian countries are highly destructive to the environment and imported wild shrimp from outside the US uses bottom crawling nets that catch everything - a pound of shrimp often has 5 pounds of other sea life caught with it that is tossed away or left to die.  Thankfully Rubio's uses sustainable shrimp so you can eat as much as you want - and you will want to eat a lot of these shrimp enchiladas!  The green sauce had a nice tang and the enchilada was overflowing with plump, juicy, perfectly cooked shrimp.  Sustainable.  Delicious. What more could you want? 

My friend got the trio of tacos, all sustainable.  Blackened talapia, a grilled shrimp taco, and the classic battered fried fish taco.  All were delicious, but does Rubio's make anything that's not?  And it's good to know that the standard battered fried fish taco, the one that started the entire fish taco craze across the U.S., is 100% sustainable. That's really good to know when Tuesdays roll around as you can get one of these original fish tacos for a buck and a half after 230PM.

In fact, most of the offerings on Rubio's menu are sustainable.  There are a few that are not - sadly the Mango Habanero Mahi Mahi taco, one of my favorites, is not.  Maybe Rubio's could do a Mango Habanero Talapia taco???  Man, I would eat that for sure!

So thanks Ralph Rubio for bringing us the fish taco, and thanks for keeping an eye on the ocean that we love and the sea life in it.

(Don't forget - Win 2 FREE gift cards to Rubio's by posting a comment on this post and going to my Facebook page and liking me!)

Local Wally
www.SanDiegoTouristGuide.com
www.DrinkUpSanDiego.com
The original San Diego local guy.... since 1996

Locals Rate the Best Food at the San Diego Fab Fair 2014

Eat This, San Diego!

Forget the foodies.  Forget the critics.  In fact, forget everything you know about fair food and listen to San Diego locals who ate it all and picked the best things to eat at the San Diego Fair, 2014.

NAME: Kodi (with a little heart over the "i")

LIVES IN:  4S Ranch

SOUND BITE:  "It's everything I love in the world"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  If you have never tried these, Australian Battered Potatoes are slices of potato dipped into a tempura batter and deep fried.  Top them with your favorite sauce.  As heart stopping bad as this sounds they are surprisingly delicious - so good that they got my vote for best thing to eat at the far a couple of years back.  But fair warning, a little bit goes a long ways so share an order.  As for the "Best Value" giant bucket, are you insane?
  
Before we get too deep into this a quick plug:  Don't miss Local Wally's San Diego microbrewery night with the Padres!  Tickets and info here.  Padre's versus the Mets and lots of beer tastings from San Diego north county breweries.  And now back to the fair....

NAME:  Michael

LIVES IN:  Chula Vista

SOUND BITE:  "I'm going to really hate myself tomorrow"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  You can count on Chicken Charlies to come up with the oddest of odd fair food.  They seem to have this obsession with legitimizing the use of a Krispy Kreme donut as a bun.  I give them credit for trying but this really is a WTF sort of idea.  I mean, really, imagine moms' across America serving this for dinner and the reaction at the table.

Mom:  "Look kids, I made burgers with donuts for the buns!" 
Kids:  "Dad, Mom's smoking weed again." 

This one is shock value only, but if you must try a burger with a glazed donut for a bun then this is the place.  Their better idea is the fried chicken skins. Wait, that was my idea a few years ago.  And it was a joke!!  Don't believe me?  Read my blog from 2010 where I said, and I quote, "chicken skins would be BIG, BIG, BIG!"

NAME:  Elizabeth and Toni

LIVES IN:  East Lake and Vista

SOUND BITE:  "Super delicious...Amazing!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  Funnel cake is life changing.  Yeah, it can kill you if you eat too much so I mean it when I say it can change your life.  But who can resist donut batter poured through a funnel into hot oil?  And you thought the Dutch were all about wooden clogs?  Little did you know that they are pioneers in deep fried fair food.  Don't mess it up with ice cream or bad sauces.  Go clean, go pure, just dust some powdered sugar on it and you will be in heaven (one way or another).

NAME:  Charles and Alejandra

LIVES IN:  Escondido

SOUND BITE:  "This is the first time we have had these and we're fans!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  First off, is that the weirdest photo or what?  Is that guy the Geico caveman?  I mean that in the nicest way, of course.  I told these two (possible winner of cutest couple at the fair) to get together so I can take their photo and they did this strange wedding sort of pose eating Tasti Chips.  This was their first time trying Tasti Chips so perhaps they were just in fried potato bliss.  Tasti Chips are totally legit, freshly fried potato chips that would be perfect on the menu at Fleming's steakhouse if only they were smart enough to add them.  Guilty enough to be fair food worthy but so good you won't care about the calories.

NAME:  Kristi

LIVES IN: Laguna Beach

SOUND BITE:  "Thumbs Up"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS: Gourmet grilled cheese is all the rage in foodie circles.  And these aren't the cheese sandwiches you grew up with.  Grilled Cheese A-Fair takes a basic grilled cheese and adds Mac N Cheese to the gooey cheddar and tosses in a helping of pulled pork for good measure.  The result is a carb heavy delight, a perfect bite of deliciousness that takes the absurd to new levels.  I knocked a point off because a grilled cheese needs that greasy, buttery outside to finish it - but that wouldn't be healthy, would it?

NAME:  Ray

LIVES IN:  Chula Vista

SOUND BITE:  "Very good, it IS good!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS: Juicy's is the place that grills up the giant turkey legs and this year was pushing the giant sausages.  These were quite good but how hard is it to heat up a sausage on a grill?  On the other hand the deep fried zucchini and onion rings were so greasy that you should lean over when you take a bite unless you want to look like you were playing paintball with Crisco.  "Grease-Bomb" was the quote from Mallory above and that says it all.  So go for the sausage, avoid the fried foods.

NAME:  Susan

LIVES IN:  Rancho Santa Fe

SOUND BITE:  "They're the best.  I eat these 5 times a season!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  Not everything at the fair has to be a greasy deep fried bacon wrapped glob.  In fact, one of the very best things to eat is what looks like a fairly normal cinnamon roll.  But make no mistake, these cinnamon rolls might be some of the best you might ever have.  Go ahead, cut that roll into dainty, civilized bite sized pieces and let that guy with BBQ sauce running down his chin keep his giant turkey leg and deep fried cookie dough.  You know better.  Simply none better and one of the best things to eat at the fair year after year.

NAME:  Jaqueline

LIVES IN: North Park

SOUND BITE:  "You can have Hot Dog On a Stick anywhere but these are special."

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  Every fair visit deserves a corn dog.  But don't waste your annual corn dog allocation on an inferior dog.  Yes, I'm talking about Hot Dog on a Stick.  Come on, you can get those at any mall so when you are at the fair go to the place that makes the best corn dog in town.  They're scorching hot and plump and worth every heart artery clogging bite. 

NAME:  Paul

LIVES IN:  San Diego

SOUND BITE:  "It is as advertised.  It's a deep fried hunk of cheese!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:  It's brilliant.  Take a block of string cheese and deep fry it in corn batter and you have an amazingly elastic bite that's sure to have people pointing at you and asking where you got it.  Like a gooey pizza that won't let go of the box the string cheese cheese dog hangs on to the stick for dear life as your mouth tries to take it all in.  It's fun, it's tasty, don't get a regular cheese dog when you can get one of these.

NAME:  Jim

LIVES IN:  La Mesa

SOUND BITE:  "It's awesome!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:   I know, you can make this at home on any gas grill.  But do you?  No, you don't so when you're at the fair treat yourself to an honest to goodness healthy piece of Americana.  Every year the food at the fair gets weirder and weirder but the Original Char-Broiled Corn just keeps doing what they do and that's make the mundane ear of corn into something to look forward to.  If you haven't tried it because you've thought that it was just an ear of corn then get one this year and be prepared to be very pleasantly surprised just how delicious fresh corn cooked on a BBQ can be.

NAME:  Kerry and Andrew

LIVES IN:  Del Mar

SOUND BITE:  "It's decent"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:   San Diego has a lot of great fish tacos.  In fact, right down the street is The Brigantine, home to arguably the best fish taco in town and there's a Rubio's now in every mall making excellent fried and grilled fish tacos.  So we San Diegan's know a good fish taco when we taste it and have gotten pretty darn picky and opinionated on who makes the best.  As for Palapa, it's good but not good enough to compete with the best.  If you really must have a fish taco at the fair then this is the place but locals agree with me that there are better bites elsewhere.

NAME:  Dave

LIVES IN:  San Elijo Hills

SOUND BITE:  "Yummy!"

LOCAL WALLY SAYS:   So hard to decide - should I get the deep fried cheeseburger or the deep fried hot dog??  Wait, pulled pork?  Tri-tip and chicken sandwiches?  That's the way to go.  Avoid the novelty foods and stick with the basics at The Ranch and you will not be disappointed.

SAN DIEGO FAB FAIR INFO
General Info (hours, tickets, etc)

SPECIAL DISCOUNTS

• Best Pass Ever:  $24 gets you unlimited admission into the fair for all 24 days.  Only a certified lunatic would go every day but considering the price of one ticket the Best Pass Ever is perfect if you just want to pop in and see a show or, yes, get more chicken skin.
• Albertson's $4 tickets for June 11th.
• June 24th and July 1:  Taste of the Fair days mean $2 bite size samples of some of your favorites.

Bon Appetite,
Local Wally
The original San Diego local guy.... since 1996
www.LocalWally.com
www.DrinkUpSanDiego.com
Don't miss Local Wally's microbrewery night with the Padres, July 19th.  Tickets here.