Episode 3 Rick Stein's Road To Mexico

It was 1968 when I first came here to San Francisco.

I wanted to do my own road trip from the United States

to the Mexican border and beyond.

My dad had just died,

I'd finished school and I had no idea

what I wanted to do with my life.

It was the year after the Summer of Love and things like enchiladas,

burritos, guacamole -

I'd only heard of from the radio but they sounded wonderful.

But it wasn't just the food -

I wanted to live a little bit dangerously...

And I did.

Mwah!

Oh.

SAT-NAV GIVES DIRECTIONS

Ever since I arrived in California,

I've been promising myself a full-on American breakfast and today's my

last chance before we cross the Mexican border.

Rudford's is a family run diner that's been here in San Diego since 1949

and it's still got a real look and feel of the '50s.

I love it.

It's a classic airstream aesthetic.

You have to brace yourself in a diner and be ready for the huge number of

choices you just know you're going to be offered.

-How are you today?

-Good morning.

-All right, what can I get for you?

-Well, I'd like steak and eggs.

All right. How would you like that cooked?

I'd like it medium rare, please.

Medium rare. How would you like your eggs prepared?

How can I have them prepared, sorry?

Over medium, over easy, over hard, scrambled.

I'll have...

-Do you do sunny side up as well?

-Sunny side up, of course.

-I knew about that.

Can I have sunny side up, please? Thanks.

Did you want hash browns, home potatoes or O'Briens?

I like the sound of O'Briens.

O'Briens. OK, those are with onions and bell peppers, is that OK?

Yeah, that sounds really good.

And do you want sourdough, wheat, white or rye toast?

Rye toast would be nice.

OK. Anything else for you?

-No, that's fine.

-Sounds good.

Thank you.

Rudford's was on JFK's route through San Diego in June of 1963,

and his motorcade passed these very doors before the unthinkable happened

in Dallas only five months later.

All of us of a certain age remember where we were when it happened

and the world became a darker place.

JFK didn't stop for breakfast, but if he had,

I bet it would have been pretty much the same as mine today.

That's really good steak.

Now, I've got to try O'Brien potatoes with the...

..bell peppers. Excuse me.

Clumsy as ever.

They're nice. I mean,

I think something like this is so much American cuisine, you know?

And to have this for breakfast back home in the UK might be a bit much,

but honestly, sitting in this diner, it's just a total pleasure.

I was just thinking about the sort of things I really like in America.

This is the first reason I like to be in America is the diner.

It's not only because the food is really real,

the conversations are fabulous.

You just sit here and pick stuff up.

It's great.

Number two, baseball in bars.

I don't really understand the rules.

I don't really want to understand the rules.

Seriously, they're as complicated as cricket.

And finally, and wistfully, the wail of trains in the distance.

I'm coming to the end of the first part of my road trip,

which I'm thoroughly enjoying.

It's been lots of fun doing things

like playing Bullitt in San Francisco

and driving the coast of California.

From San Francisco,

I drove through Steinbeck country down to Monterey and tasted sand dabs

for the very first time.

What have I been missing all my life?

And in Hollywood, I loved Nancy Silverton's mozzarella bar.

So simple. What a good idea.

And delicious, too.

And at the Hotel del Coranado in San Diego,

I even strolled on the beach where one of my favourite films,

Some Like It Hot, was shot.

You can still feel Marilyn's rays.

And in between, lots and lots of driving.

There's something about bowling along the coast and smelling the sea that

lifts the spirit.

But this car lives in LA and it's got to go home.

Well, it's time to hand over the keys to the Mustang.

I know it's a bit of a tourist thing, but it's sort of wish fulfilment for me, really.

So, with great sadness, there you are, Lex.

I'm tempted to ask him to look after it but, hey, it's only a hire car.

Goodbye, California.

From now on I'll be travelling in the crew bus.

It's far more sociable.

I've missed the rows about what music to play and where we're stopping for lunch

and stuff like that.

Crossing the border, I mean, going into Mexico,

it means a lot for me even, you know,

right back to 1968 when I first did it.

It's sort of more than just a physical crossing because it's almost like a

rite of passage into another world where everything is different.

But apart from that, I mean,

I just can't wait to get some real Mexican food.

On the US side, this is a very sensitive border, as everybody knows.

And there's no filming allowed.

So it's time to put the camera away.

But as soon as we are in Mexico - filming, no problemo.

And the first thing that strikes me is the sea of cars and commuters

all queueing to get into the United States in the baking heat.

90,000 of them every day.

It is really impressive.

In fact, apparently, Tijuana is the busiest border crossing in the world.

And looking at it today, I can well understand it.

The queue is the size of a small city, and like a city, it needs feeding.

It supports hundreds of traders selling drinks and snacks

and endless knick-knacks, too.

This is my first sight of Mexican fast food -

tamales, burritos, churros

and the iced fruit drinks called Agua Fresca,

everywhere.

I'm just so pleased we're going in the other direction.

So, finally, we've made it to Mexico and across the border into Tijuana.

When I was last here, it was run-down and shabby.

My first impression is that it's changed -

well, it's nearly 50 years since I was here.

It's now tree-lined and modern.

It actually looks quite wealthy.

There's a sense of optimism in the air, and on that note,

I think it's time for a nice, quiet, reflective beer.

LOUD NORTENO MUSIC

INAUDIBLE SPEECH

I love the rawness of this music,

it's like a punk version of mariachi.

It's called Norteno.

I think it's brilliant.

Bravo, bravo.

My focus, of course, is always food.

Tijuana's most famous dish, world-famous, in fact,

is 90 years old and still going strong.

It was invented here at Caesar's Hotel,

and, yes, you've guessed it.

It's Caesar salad.

At that time, the hotel was a hang-out for the rich and famous who used to

sneak over the border for a drink or three.

This was during prohibition in the United States.

A few years ago, Caesar's had become seedy and run-down and was on the

verge of closing.

It was rescued by one of Tijuana's most famous chefs,

Javier Plascencia.

Our grandfather worked here, we came here as a family.

We felt very proud of the salad and we said, no,

we've got to take over this place because there's so much history in these

walls and this restaurant,

and really try to keep it as original as possible.

It's fabulous.

We kept some of the original bar pieces and the coffee machines.

We weren't sure if that was a coffee machine or a tequila still.

But there's only one thing I've come for, of course,

and it's the original Caesar salad.

It's always made at the table, starting with anchovy paste -

crushed anchovies in oil.

My waiter adds smooth Dijon mustard and a generous spoonful

of finely chopped garlic.

Then black pepper and a splash of Worcester sauce.

one egg yolk and the juice of half a lime.

He beats it and drizzles it in a mixture of olive and rapeseed oils,

because olive oil by itself would be too bitter.

A tablespoon of grated Parmesan, then it's ready for the lettuce -

crisp, young, Romaine leaves, which he turns gently in the sauce.

And then he finishes off with more cheese and one super-sized crouton.

Perfect with a glass of chilled white wine.

Here we encourage the guests to eat the salad with their hands.

That's the way they used to eat it.

Oh, I will, then.

When Caesar created the salad, he had a cook that he hired from Italy.

He was the one who was creating the salad for himself back in the kitchen,

late at night, so when a customer went and saw, she asked,

"What are you making?" He said,

"Well, I'm making the salad that my mother used to make for us.

"We were very poor, so we had stale bread, we had a little bit of cheese,

eggs and lettuce."

And that's how the whole thing started.

But then Caesar took over and he was a tall, handsome guy,

so he started making it table-side.

He took the name and...

So, I read somewhere that Wallis Simpson had come to Tijuana

and had had this...

..and then broadcast it all over the world.

Yeah, yeah, she was the one who went to the kitchen and talked to Olivio,

and she took the recipe back home to England and she started promoting it,

and making it for her friends and she was one who helped

take the salad worldwide.

But, yes, yes. There are different stories but that one is very true.

Well, I think I better taste it.

Yes, with your fingers.

Wow.

That's delish. Rich with the Parmesan and the egg yolk,

but the mustard and the lime juice just to give it that tartness.

And the anchovies, I mean, what I love about it is it's so simple.

I just really regret that so many people make Caesar salad so complicated.

They have so many bits in it.

They need to come here and taste yours.

They need to come here and taste the original recipe.

-Cheers.

-Cheers.

Caesar's glory years were in the 1920s and '30s - Tijuana's heyday.

There are plenty more reminders around of that pleasure-loving era,

like this former spa complex in the middle of town.

This is the last jewel of

Agua Caliente,

and that was built in the late '20s, early '30s, and was the sort of,

culmination of why Tijuana was so popular.

It was all down to prohibition in the United States

and a ban on gambling,

and a ban on prostitution.

Everybody wanted to get over the border to Tijuana and gradually,

bars opened and this was the

crown jewel, I suppose.

The Sodom and Gomorrah of Tijuana.

It was a hotel, a casino, a race track.

Vegas before Vegas existed.

And its illicit pleasures were a magnet for the rich and famous,

like Hollywood stars Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable and Bing Crosby.

They used to hop over the border on a tiny fixed-wing plane,

direct into Agua Caliente.

The New York Times reporter said at the time, on the whole continent,

you would not see more money piled up outside the US Mint than in

the casino at Agua Caliente.

It was being so near the border and offering temptations like these

that put Tijuana on the map and turned it from a remote outpost into

the prosperous city it is now.

The plush Avenue Of The Heroes is full of statues of Mexican giants.

Here is the last Aztec emperor who was killed by Cortes.

And this is Abraham Lincoln, breaking the chains of slavery in his fist.

I must say, it is a bit of a surprise to find a statue to an

American President this side of the border.

I don't think you'd see that nowadays, if you catch my drift.

This is a migrant town with thousands of people in transit

taking with them, of course, the food they were brought up with.

The burrito is a case in point.

It is really popular in the States and back in Padstow,

where I think about what to cook for my travels,

I decided to make a dish that represented the border country.

It's the burrito, my way.

So I'm using chicken thighs here and I've taken the bones out

and first of all, I'm going to marinate them for a couple of hours.

So, on goes some lime juice -

the most important element because it really does soften the flesh.

About three cloves of chopped garlic, about 60mls of olive oil,

and now some chilli flakes,

about a teaspoon.

Oregano, a bit of brown sugar, just a tiny little bit of sweetness there.

And finally, salt and some freshly ground black pepper.

It's smelling lovely.

I just always liked the smell of chillies with garlic and lime.

It always means Mexico to me.

There we go. I'm just going to leave that to marinate for a couple of hours now.

What this burrito needs is guacamole.

Starting with a good, ripe avocado,

then jalapeno chillies with their seeds, to keep in some heat.

Chopped onions and coriander and lime juice -

you've got to have lime juice to stop it going brown.

Then some salt and a good bashing.

I like it a bit lumpy, not too smooth.

So, in goes my chicken now out of the marinade.

I'm just browning it up nicely,

just turning it over with my tongs.

Everybody needs tongs.

Chefs now are using tweezers, but I'm still on the tongs stage.

Just turn those over.

I can't stand these recipes where they just talk about a quantity of marinade,

you put the meat in,

and then they never mention the marinade again.

I suppose you have to throw it away. Of course you don't! Put it in with the chicken.

Turn the heat down a little bit and leave it to cook through

for about ten or 15 minutes.

I'm now making what is called a pico de gallo.

Pico de gallo actually means a cockerel's beak.

First of all I'm slicing up some onions,

to about the sort of size you can imagine a rooster pecking up.

Next, some tomato -

I'm just taking the seeds out of the tomato but I'm leaving the skins on.

And again, cutting those into cockerel bite-size pieces.

Next, a jalapeno chilli - or you can use serrano if you can get a hold of them.

Then some coriander

and finally, some lime juice.

A little bit of salt.

I'm just adding a bit of pepper, freshly ground, of course.

Very important, with pico de gallo, you make it up at the last minute.

Particularly, don't add the salt until the last minute or it'll start

taking all the juice of the vegetables and you want them really lovely and crisp. I love this salsa.

So that chicken's looking extremely lovely,

and now just chopping it up into small pieces to go into the burrito.

Pour all that reduced marinade over the top of it and stir that in.

Quite limey and salty.

Beautiful. Now to make up the burrito.

I've just got some big flour tortillas here.

That's the thing about burritos,

you really want to stuff them and that's the first thing is plenty of

chicken. Now some rice,

this is just cooked rice.

This is mozzarella cheese.

In Mexico you would use oaxaca cheese.

And now my pico de gallo, that lovely fresh salsa.

Good lot of guacamole and finally some sour cream.

And now to roll out the burrito - one end up like that,

then the two sides in,

then tuck the filling under as much as you can while you roll it over.

And just look at that filling.

Isn't that a bit edible?

Mmm. Yum-oh.

Tijuana is beginning to make a bit of sense to me now.

It's a fusion town.

It isn't America but it doesn't really feel like Mexico either.

Maybe like the random uni-cyclers at the traffic light,

this city juggling - not for college fees, like him -

but with its dual identities.

A quarter California? Two-thirds Mexican? Who knows what the mix is.

And finally, we're leaving Tijuana, heading south down the coast road.

We can see the Baja Peninsula before us,

a long spit of land stretching over 700 miles into the Pacific.

Not surprisingly,

this area is famous for its lovely fish and we are turning off and bumping

down a hidden trap to the fishing village of Popotla.

One extraordinary contrast -

there is a multi-million dollar studio

right next door to this ramshackle village.

This is where Titanic and Master and Commander were filmed.

Even though we stretch our necks and peer, we only glimpse the top of the

masts on Russell Crowe's ship.

This is much more like the Mexico I know and love.

This is Popotla.

We're only about three-quarters of an hour from Tijuana but it's like a

different world.

Where I'm thinking, it's almost like I'm in a Sam Peckinpah movie,

something like The Wild Bunch.

You can imagine it sort of like cowboy country by the sea.

You can sort of see a load of cowboys with spurs and boots walking down

the main street in Popotla.

What makes it more like that is that actually a lot of the people working

here are deportees from the United States

and they're people from South America, Central America, Southern Mexico, stateless,

dispossessed and they come here to get what jobs they can.

But to me, it's wonderful and apparently, the fish is second to none.

I'm meeting Patty,

she's a conservationist who works with the local fishermen.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, how are you?

-Very, very well.

-How are you?

Welcome to Popotla.

Very, very impressed by this.

-I know.

-I mean it's like a dream for me.

Now this is what we've come for.

The fishermen sell their catch straight from the boat.

So what's been eating that, then, there?

-The sea lions.

-Oh, God.

-They're ferocious.

-Lovely fish.

-This is scorpion fish.

-Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you know what, they send it alive to China when they get them.

-Really?

-Oh, I love this one.

Oh, these are good eating, though.

Oh, lingcod. Yeah, yeah.

Yes and it's a ferocious eater also.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Sometimes you can find them blue or purple,

because of what they eat.

Would these be eaten locally, then?

Yes, they're either fried or steamed.

-Yeah.

-And garlic butter or a la diabla, we call them, which is like...

-With chili, I suppose, diabla.

-Chili.

And tomato. Yeah, but this one is really good.

Maybe we can take this one.

OK. I love to try some sculpin, as well.

-Yeah.

-I mean anything, you know.

This one, the colour one, yes.

-Fabulous.

-Do you think that will be enough for us?

What a lunch, what a feast.

Yeah.

What I'm loving about this place,

just sort of so spontaneous and I think if you're a fish lover,

a seafood lover, it's the sort of, this is the sort of...

-The natural way.

-The natural,

wonderful place to come and eat perfectly fresh fish.

Now that our fish are de-scaled and filleted,

we can take them to any of the restaurants that line the bay.

They charge a cooking fee according to the weight of the fish and

they're very modest prices.

This is La Estrella, this a local restaurant.

Beautiful fish, gosh.

Our lingcod is sprinkled with lime juice, garlic, salt and pepper,

then mayo and then orange and achiote marinade are basted on and onion rings

and green peppers laid on top.

Then it's grilled over charcoal.

The scorpion fish is just seasoned with garlic,

salt and pepper and dropped into boiling oil.

Both served with refried beans, rice, avocado and of course, salsa.

Wow, look at that.

Isn't it amazing, the plating and everything?

That is so good.

So, first of all, the lingcod.

-That's lovely.

-Is it juicy?

-It's very juicy.

-Yeah, and can you tell the basting is subtle,

it's not overpowering.

No, it's not all overpowering.

And then the scorpion fish is, again, it's very juicy.

There you go, your cheek.

Oh, a bit of rascasse cheek.

It's called rascasse in French.

Lovely. The studio that they made Titanic...

And Master and Commander.

..Master and Commander is next door.

-Is next door.

-I just saw, you know, Russell Crowe's ship next door.

-I know.

-Do any of the actors come here?

Yeah, Robert Redford will come here.

-Really?

-Yeah, sure.

-Russell Crowe?

Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, you know, everybody.

Well, they would have loved food like this.

I know, they love the food and they will hang out with the fishermen also.

They will go and fish and, yeah, they were like locals.

Presumably the locals had no clue who they were.

No, they were just like greengrocers to them, you know, so...

Well, I just want to have a go at the tortilla now as well.

Let's make a taco. Just be careful with the...

-The bones?

-With the bones.

You have avocado in there, you spread your avocado.

-Yeah.

-And, let's try to make it the local way.

-OK.

-Some beans and some rice and then we're going to try the salsa,

it's not too hot, I hope.

-OK.

-OK, you fold it.

Together, together.

-Make a gap.

-OK.

-And you grab it.

-I like the way you hold it.

-Salud.

-Salud.

-Mm.

-Mm.

-So good.

-Cheers.

Cheers.

I've just been thinking,

there are some countries people go to on holiday and still behave much as

they do at home. You know, a nice cup of tea at 11,

a stroll before lunch to their favourite cafe where they secretly hope

there'll be lamb chops on the menu, maybe with mint sauce,

that sort of thing. Mexico is not like that, not like that at all.

She wants you to like her for what she is, she takes no prisoners.

You eat what she eats, you drink what she drinks, you listen to her music,

there's no quarter given.

You either like it or you leave - and I love it.

Next morning, we leave the coast for a while and make our way inland

further south into wine country.

We're going out for breakfast and when I say "out", I mean a long way

off the beaten track.

This place I'm going on the road, it appears, to nowhere

has been voted by the British FoodieHub Awards the best breakfast,

not just in Mexico, but in the world.

She's called Dona Esthela and it's called La Cocina De Dona Esthela.

Will her borrego turn out to be good or her famous pancakes?

What's going for her is I haven't had my breakfast,

I'm very hungry and I haven't had a cup of coffee.

We arrived just as Dona Esthela is about to take a slow roast lamb out

of the wood oven, where it's been cooking overnight

and the smells are delicious.

Nice to meet you, Esthela.

Buenos dias, bienvenido.

It's smelling wonderful, can we have a look?

Ah-ha.

This is her famous borrego,

it's unusual having lamb for breakfast but the smell of this is

unbelievable, this is agave that she's flavouring it with.

Agave is that spiky plant you see everywhere in Mexico.

This is really clever,

the thick leaves are supporting the lamb so the juices can gather below.

And having had steak and eggs in the States,

borrego in Ensanada or near Ensenada is really good for me for breakfast,

and I can't wait to try it.

It means the meat is roasted on top and slightly stewed underneath.

Moist meat, rich stew, lots of happy customers.

This is a nice story.

Dona Esthela and her family lost their jobs when the farm they were

working on was sold.

She'd always loved cooking, so she started selling food from

here, her home.

Her reputation went national, then, they say, global.

But despite the fame, she still cooks every dish herself.

Well, it's delicious, it's absolutely delicious.

I can taste all those nice charry flavours,

not particularly hot but then pasilla chilies aren't.

It's wonderful. Now I'm going to put it all into a tortilla which is

actually the way it's supposed to be made.

In goes the meat, bit more I think,

then we'll add a bit of the gravy and this is just cooked down,

the lamb's cooked down with the garlic

and the oregano and everything.

Now, I think I'll put a bit of onion in there because this is what you do

in Mexico, you just make up your own little sort of tortilla sandwich,

it then becomes a taco.

Just put a bit of lime on there.

And a little bit of salsa roja, chili sauce.

Good to go. Now, this is the thing.

It's all about

lime juice and chili, I think -

maybe coriander, lime juice and chili.

That is superb.

Esthela's elote hot cakes made with sweetcorn are legendary.

She grinds the corn herself, adds sugar, baking powder,

a pinch of salt and milk and that's all there is to it.

But people come flocking here from far and wide to eat them.

That's really interesting,

she knows when they're done by the weight of them,

how much they've dried out.

They look brilliant.

Well, again, top marks.

Superb. Washed down with this cafe de olla, which is cafe from the pot,

coffee from the pot with cinnamon and sugar, lots of sugar.

So what do I think?

Is this the best breakfast in the world?

Well, it's a very, very wonderful breakfast but what I tend to say is,

how can you judge the difference between a fantastic breakfast in Mexico

and the full English somewhere in Britain?

I mean, it's just absurd.

All these world awards, it means absolutely nothing to me but,

with this coffee, it's a great experience.

Fantastic. Mwah!

Literally a few yards up the road, an easy stroll away,

is Dona Esthela's next-door neighbour, La Lomita Winery.

We are right in the middle of Guadalupe Valley, which I'm told is Mexico's Medoc.

In fact, they've been making wine here since the Spanish brought the first

vines to the Baja over 200 years ago.

But it's only in the last few years that Mexican wine has really started

to take off.

I've come to meet the owner, Fernando,

who explained to me that this is an arid valley and it's very far from fertile.

Our soil is not very rich,

that's something that's very different from elsewhere in Mexico.

In Mexico,

you send a... you throw a seed and you have a tree.

Here, you throw a seed and you don't have anything.

Vines, that's important, isn't it, about vines?

Yeah, vines love adversity.

So why did your family buy into this?

My parents got the idea of just having a small place

where you have nice weather where the family could gather.

That's like the story of Guadalupe,

almost all of the wineries came here not thinking about, you know,

having this big winery or a big company, they were more thinking,

there were families all over Mexico and all over the world looking for a

place to be happy,

to have a good lifestyle.

And then

the wine fever grabs you and doesn't let you go and that's when you start

to think, well, why don't we make two barrels for the family

and if it's bad, well, we drink it.

And then those two barrels become four, then all of a sudden there are 400

barrels and you have to sell your wine all over Mexico,

then United States.

At least for us, we are going to England also in a month to sell our wine.

My son's in the wine business.

-Yeah?

-Charlie.

-Oh, great.

-I think I'd better give him a ring, when we've tasted it!

Absolutely, absolutely.

After that, there's only one thing to do.

So what have we got here?

The entry-level white wine

is a chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc and a hint of Chardonnay.

Normally in Baja, we eat rough, raw fish or oysters with beer

but nowadays we tend to go with these kind of wines better.

Rough food - do you mean like down on the beach

with the boats all around you?

It's eating from the source, basically.

We cannot be a Mexican winery if we don't think about our culture

and how we eat and we really try, really,

really hard to make wine that could go well with Mexican food.

That's a big dilemma because Mexican food is so complex.

Yeah.

It's very demanding.

Yeah, because I mean if you think of France, the food is a lot more

delicate generally and the wines are.

-Yes.

-But, here, you want something with a bit more body.

-Absolutely.

-You've got all that chili...

-Yeah, absolutely.

-I get it, I get it.

So this is a pagano, this is our grenache.

Just grenache, nothing else?

It's just grenache, all of the wineries have a theory

about what Baja Guadalupe wine should be.

But this is our theory.

Well, I'm loving it,

I've just tasted it and it's almost got a smell and a taste slightly of

mescal, there's a sort of like...

Yeah, it makes all the logic in the world because you have some

smokiness. It's a complex, strong, powerful Mexican wine.

We're very proud of this wine, but

I'm the one with my team

making this so it's like talking about your children.

You're going to say good things about it, right?

The cafe at the winery is popular, too.

We'd only just eaten enormous breakfast, but they served us bite-size

portions from their menu which were lovely.

My favourite was this one and I made this back in Padstow,

crab adobado.

So, I'm putting quite a lot of butter in the pan,

I'm not going to get it too hot,

cos I don't want the chopped red onions

which I'm now adding and the garlic to burn, to colour at all.

There we go, I'm just going to leave that to sweat now for about three or

four minutes.

So, here I've got a block of about 20g of achiote paste, which is made with

annatto, which is actually the seeds of the achiote tree.

That's what I tasted in this dish,

I'm just mixing it now with some orange juice,

otherwise you get lumps in the finished dish, so stirring it till it's nice

and smooth. So I'm going to add it into my garlic and onions and butter.

Now some vegetables to go with my onion and garlic.

First of all, some poblano chilies.

You might think they're green peppers but, no, they are a type of chili,

they're the mildest of chilies but still have a little bit of heat so

out go the seeds and just finally shred those.

And add those into my onion and some tomatoes, about three tomatoes,

just roughly chopped, there we go.

That looks so nice.

The green and red.

Always remember in those spaghetti Westerns, remember...

Well, you probably don't cos you're not old enough, but they always had

great food and it was always like the Mexican flag colours,

lots of tomatoes and red chilies and green chilies all together.

That looks fab.

So, I'm just going to leave those to stew down for a little with poblano chili

and the tomatoes.

And now for the pasilla chili, it's what they look like when they're dry.

Nice little rattle.

And what I've done in fact is just to take the seeds out of the chili,

which you just cut off the end and shake the seeds out,

and then soak this

for about 20 minutes and it ends up like that.

Very, very fruity chili.

Not particularly hot but really good in something like a mole because it

gives this lovely, slightly fruity background to the sauce.

Just slice those up very thinly and in that goes, too.

And look at that, it's stewed down really nicely.

Next, the crab.

I mean, just look at that, this is Cornish crab meat,

and sort of the great thing about a dish like this is using our own

produce like this Cornish crab - I mean, look at the lumps in it.

That's beautiful.

And now a bit of coriander on top.

That looks so nice.

And some salt from my salt pig.

There we go.

And now I'm just going to fold this through, because I don't really want to

disturb any of those lovely crab lumps.

And now off the heat and time to finish the dish.

A scattering of breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan,

then they go under a really hot grill for five minutes making a lovely,

crisp, cheesy crust.

It's just such a lovely taste, I keep going on about achiote.

Bless you.

Thank you, Dave.

But, I haven't used strong chilies in there, hot chilies,

you can still taste the crab in there,

you can taste that achiote and it's so lovely and moist with all of those chili

peppers in there and the tomato.

This is just exquisite.

Baja California means lower California.

It comes from a time when the whole of the West Coast right up as far as

Sacramento was owned by Spain and then Mexico.

The land looks dry and uninviting but the climate is quite mild.

Not just grapes, but all kinds of European plants grow easily here

and a new wave of cooking using these crops has really taken off.

They call it Baja Med.

I've been invited to meet one of its creators, the famous Baja chef

Miguel Angel Herrero, at his family farm.

Well, first, welcome to my house, your house.

The same place.

-Salud!

-Miguel coined the phrase "Baja Med"

to describe his own style of cooking.

Baja Mediterranean is what it is.

First, Mexico starts here but also, Latin America.

It can be the sausage, the tortilla, whatever it is, chilies.

The second influence in Baja Med is Mediterranean.

This Baja, we have a Mediterranean climate,

so this is what means Baja Med.

He's a typical chef, multi-skilled and completely uncontrollable.

He started grilling beetroot to make a salad

before we'd even set up the camera.

Got the blue cheese and...

-The peppermint.

-Peppermint.

Transformed.

-It's getting there.

-Yeah.

Giving me ideas all the time.

-That's why you're here.

-Sharing, we're sharing.

Por favor.

And the wine, give you more ideas.

-Always.

-Yeah, and I'm hungry.

Miguel's first love is hunting.

In fact, it's how he became a chef.

And he still hunts to provide meat for his restaurants.

He's cooking me wild venison which he shot and prepared himself.

He uses the same marinade as the beets - garlic, shallots,

thyme and olive oil.

But then he adds chopped rosemary and salt and quickly sears the venison

on a smoking hot grill.

White corn tortillas in Baja.

And it may be Baja Med but it's still very much Mexico, so there's only one

way to present it - as a taco, of course.

He spreads goat's cheese on the warm tortilla and piles on chopped venison

and refried beans and then he toasts it again.

I like the tortilla to be crunchy.

Tacos in Mexico are like pasta in Italy.

-Yes.

-It's just the perfect vehicle for all kinds of so many things,

-as pasta is.

-Yeah.

Where would Mexico be without tacos, without tortillas?

La gente del maiz,

-the people of the corn.

-Yeah.

It's part of your soul.

-Part of your...

-Heritage.

And obviously, every taco needs avocado,

so he adds a few slices and a drizzle of nine dried chilli sauce.

This is going to be a religious experience.

Mm.

Superb.

I mean, most of the tacos I've had so far have been slow-cooked meat,

you know, like shredded, which is lovely,

but this is totally different with the medium rare, I suppose, venison

with the goat's cheese.

This is Baja Med.

The heart of Baja Med.

-Yes, sir.

-Hunted venison.

Moving on southwards, towards Ensenada,

we stop at a roadside store for a drink and what we find there really

interests me.

It's a Mexican fruit salad with a few surprises.

This was invented in Baja, but it's become popular all over Mexico.

It's an eccentric mix.

As well as fruit, there is meat, nuts and chilli sauce and lime,

lots of it.

Muchas gracias.

Wow, this is a little bit unusual.

It's called Coco Loco,

meaning crazy coconut.

I've never seen anything quite like it in my life before.

It's a mixture of fruits and vegetables

and all kinds of wacky things like

pork skin, which is really, really odd,

tamarind, chili, sweet peanuts.

Honestly, it just defies description.

It is completely mad, but it's not bad, as a matter of fact.

I mean, the Mexicans really like a mixture of sweet, sour and hot.

The only thing I could compare it to,

in Malaysia is a thing called Rojak, where you've got all this lovely

tropical fruit and then they pour this concoction made with shrimp paste

and tamarind and chilli on it all over this lovely fruit, and you think,

"Well, that's going to ruin it," but it doesn't.

I'm sorry, but it's absolutely delicious.

Well... Excuse me.

When I saw it being made, I thought, "I'm going to hate this,"

but it's fab.

Finally, we're arriving in Ensenada,

the furthest south we are going in Baja.

It's a harbour city and it's full of boats of every shape and size.

Pleasure boats bobbing around in the Marina, cruise ships,

massive containers and, of course, the fishing fleet,

supplying the fish market on the harbour side - and sea lions too.

SEA LION BARKS

So it's not surprising that Ensenada is big on fish. Above all,

fish tacos. I love fish tacos.

They're so traditional, you wouldn't think there was anything new

under the sun that could be done with them.

Well, that would be wrong.

Because this is Taqueria Criollo.

It's the brainchild of Tania and Memo,

he's a surfer and they're both chefs,

and their ambition was to create ultramodern Mexican fast food.

Seafood tacos for the social media generation.

I'm really fond of taking pictures,

even though most of my time I'm in the kitchen.

Does it work? Does it bring customers in?

We definitely get a lot of people from Instagram.

-Really, really?

-It's very Instagrammable.

This is probably the reason we put so much effort into making these

plates look so pretty, because they have to photograph well.

Yeah, but it's flavour first.

It's flavour first, but it also catches the eye of anybody surfing

the internet and surfing social media.

Once they come in, now we've got you.

Yeah, yeah.

Tania's already started today's batch of watermelon escabeche,

lightly pickled in hot vinegar.

I've never seen such a thing.

For my taco - now, this is a surprise - a big dollop of mash,

fried inside a corn tortilla envelope.

It's loaded with ceviche of shrimp, which means the shrimp is raw,

just cured in lime juice,

and it becomes the base of a kind of seafood salsa.

It's mouthwatering, very fresh and zingy and perfect for the climate.

-Lovely, thank you.

-Here you go.

It looks wonderful, it's so pretty.

That's gorgeous

and it's just a wonderful sort of symphony, should I say,

of textures and flavours, and freshness.

It's fab.

I just want to try a bit of this on its own.

Who would have thought of pickling watermelon? But it's got a lovely crunch,

lovely sweetness.

I mean, this is sort of recognisably Mexican.

You've got the

crisp taco and the mashed potato,

but I don't think I could get something like this anywhere else.

-Thank you.

-I mean, what's really nice is you are so young, right?

And it's such a trendy, smart place.

I can imagine people watching this, watching you and thinking,

"We've got to go there. We've got to get to Ensenada."

So, is this what you'd call Baja Mediterranean, or something different?

We call this kind of food Mexi-pop, because it's...

-Mex...?

-Mexi-pop, because it's Mexican and popular.

We do posole, we do tortillas here, we do chilaquiles, we do tacos, we do...

It's just popular Mexican cuisine.

You've just taken a taco and made it, sort of, bang.

We have the best ingredients.

The Pacific Ocean has the best seafood ever, so we're very, very lucky.

We just get to... Just don't...

-mask...

-Screw it up.

-Yeah, don't screw it up.

And don't mask the flavours and you're golden.

I mentioned classic fish tacos earlier, and this is my own version,

which I'm making back home in Padstow, using super fresh Cornish cod.

I'm just warming some bought corn tortillas on this comal,

which I actually brought over from Mexico.

Corn tortillas, you can buy them now.

Not really in supermarkets, but online, and they are really,

really special. Of course, it's better to make your own,

but you can buy them and heat them up and they are very good.

I'm just slipping them now into my little Mexican keep-warm bag,

and that just keeps them not only warm, but also nice and steamy as well.

Now, avocado.

Scoop out the flesh.

These are really ripe, and that's exactly how they have to be.

When they're like this, when you finish a dish of Mexican food,

it's almost like putting a dollop of cream on the top.

They're so rich and lovely.

For the batter, I need flour, salt,

baking powder and beer to make it as light as possible.

Just enough beer to make a batter about the consistency of thick cream,

double cream.

Now in Mexico, in Baja, California, they tend to use fish like shark,

like dogfish. But I think cod makes a fantastic taco,

so I'm just cutting that up into about 2cm slices.

And now dropping that into some seasoned flour and then into the batter.

Meanwhile, I've heated up my oil to about 190 degrees centigrade,

and I'm just going to drop them one by one into the batter.

Look at that, foaming up.

I'm just going to wait until they're only just cooked through.

Don't want to overcook them.

I always judge this by the look of the batter.

It needs to be like a lovely light brown.

There we go. Take them out one by one on to kitchen paper,

just to drain off a little bit.

So, I'm just going to slice those lovely bits of deep-fried fish in half.

Look at the pearly whiteness of that cod there.

And that's it. I'm ready to go with the tacos.

Remember, a tortilla is the flatbread, a taco is when you fill it,

and fold it up.

First, some fine-sliced white cabbage to give it crunch,

then the fish and a few slices of avocado.

And then a spoonful of the pico de gallo, that lovely salsa with onion,

tomato, green chilli and coriander.

Now, here we have sour cream and mayo, so, the essential.

And lastly, and by no means least,

some really hot red sauce.

There we go.

That's it, that's a taco made.

Fold it up a little bit and eat.

I'm in downtown Ensenada,

and don't you just love a Mexican street ending in dry hills in the

background? I'm so pleased to be here, but also I'm told this bar,

Hussong's, is really atmospheric.

More importantly perhaps, it's margarita night.

There are lots of stories about how and where the famous cocktail was

invented. At least five towns in Mexico claim it.

I don't really care where it came from, I love a margarita,

and I'm going to try one in Hussong's.

Whether from Acapulco or Ensenada,

there is one thing all margarita stores have in common.

They all involve a beautiful woman in a bar with a liking for tequila,

orange liqeur, ice and lime, lots of lime.

I've come to meet Hans, one of the three Hussong brothers who run the bar.

How long has the bar been in your family?

This year in October, it'll be 125 years.

My gosh.

I know. My great-grandfather was the one who founded it and started up

this place, and it's still in the family.

This is where margaritas came from, was it?

-Yes.

-Definitely?

-Yes.

-OK.

It was back in 1940 when one of our bartenders named Don Carlos Orozco,

used to mix drinks, make new drinks for Margarita Henkel,

which was the daughter of the German ambassador at the time here in

Ensenada, and one of those drinks that she loved was the Margarita now.

-This one?

-Yes, this one.

And she kept ordering and ordering and it kind of stuck, you know.

That's why we call it the margarita.

This is the correct glass for a margarita?

-Yes.

-Cheers.

That is a nice Margarita.

It's actually quite a simple recipe, but it has a lot of tequila in it.

-Oh, OK.

-Got to be careful.

Well, I mean, I've heard various other stories about margarita,

but I like this one.

Yes, thank you.

MARIACHI MUSIC

Finally, a real mariachi band.

They're a bit more formal than Norteno.

It's hard if you're not an expert to tell them apart,

but mariachis love to dress up.

Part toreador, part gigolo and lots of gusto.

MARIACHIS SING

I've only touched the surface of Baja, but it's time to move on.

In Guadalajara, I'm going to see the longest street-market in the world,

they say, selling food from all over Mexico.

Then on to the home of tequila, which is, in fact, Tequila.

At Puerto Vallarta on the Pacific coast,

there's the holiday hang-out of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.

Such luxury.

And finally, sunset on the West Coast with a flaming coffee.

Perfect.