James A.
Yelp
Located within walking distance from the Cruise Ship Port of Ensenada, La Guerrerense (meaning from the Mexican state of Guerrero) serves up delicious, filled to the edge seafood tostadas. It has been in business since 1960 (with current chef and owner taking over in 1976), with the original and current owner being internationally recognized for the use of fresh seafood, prepared with celebrated expertise and generosity. It's still served out of a modern street cart, and there is no seating...you have to eat it standing up. My brother and I found it to be well worth it.
There is a ton of online content for La Guerrenrense, with enough positive posts to make this our most important stop during a cruise port day in Ensenada. Maps clearly indicates the location, but before the scheduled opening time, there is no indication of any sort of food event on that corner. We arrived around 9:15, with posted online hours indicating a 10:00 opening time. We ended up wandering around a bit, and noticed a storefront about one block north with signs indicating that we were in the right spot (it's the building with the billboard advertising notary services). It also gave the hours for La Guerrenrense (10:30) and its sister sit-down restaurant, Sabina, being 10.
We later learned that this storefront is where all the supplies and signage for the food truck is stored overnight. By 9:45, it was clear where the food stand was going to be, and we could see all the fresh seafood for the day being brought in containers. While we waited for opening, I had a chance to walk across the street to Sabina's. People there were being served in a nice outdoor courtyard after 10, and we considered going there instead but ultimately decided to get the original food cart experience. We ended up being the 2nd group in line, and they opened a bit early at 10:20.
You order and pay upfront. Everything is made to order, with ingredients being mixed in front of you as you move thru the line. The line had gotten to be 10 groups deep by this time, and it took patience to navigate. We got six of their most popular tostadas (each being MX$180, or about $10 USD), and I got my seafood cocktail (Large for MX$290). Because it is made in front of you, you can completely customize the ingredients (service is good), and in one case, they had to change the ingredients to replace a missing item...this ended up being my favorite bite.
Tostadas:
#1 Singapur (crab salad with shrimp, octopus, and scallops).
#2 Ceviche de erizo con almeja (sea urchin ceviche with clam)
#3 Guerrerense con camaron (tuna cubes marinated in Orange Juice and Shrimp)
#4 Campechana (tuna ceviche with shrimp, octopus, snail, scallop, and clam.
#5 Edy Power (Tuna, mango, and habanero cebiche with sea snail)
#7 Pate pescado con callo (fish pate with scallop)
Coctel: choice of up to eight different seafood choices, with me choosing shrimp, octopus, scallops, clam, oyster and sea snail and skipping the black clam and mussels. The blend is made in front of you, using clamato as the base and squirts of different ingredients (including ketchup and hot sauce). One caveat: a large piece of shell from the sea snail almost took out a filling...eating freshest seafood can be dangerous?
This experience also confirmed my thought that perfectly ripe avocado slices (sliced thinly) is a must for cold seafood dishes like this. Here medium ripe avocados were expertly prepared to go on top.
There was space for 3 tostada on each reusable plastic plates, which ended up being fortuitous since you have to eat standing up and one plate per person is probably the least risky to carry around. I did put all six salsas to sample, but ended up not needing any of it.
So....my favorite was an improvised dish: They were out of clams, so I asked them to replace it with octopus. So the dish (I think) was the fish pate (made with marlin), topped with cooked octopus. My brother said I made an involuntary groan as I took my first crunchy bite...it was that hard hitting.
The octopus is the best I've eaten at this price point. It had been tenderized and cooked in such a way that it was as tender as shrimp or scallops. The fresh mexican shrimp is also very good here in all the dishes, served whole in the cocktail and diced in big chunks in the tostadas. The standard size of the tostada is the base for how much seafood is piled on top, just enough so it doesn't topple over. Typical fillers like cucumbers and onions are used as enhancers, not fillers.
If one is visiting Ensenada, it clearly indicates how fresh the sourced seafood can be here, with spectacular dishes if prepared in the right hands. It became my gateway to seafood restaurants here, making me want to visit others to see what food creativity/flavors exist. The possibilities seem limitless.