The Best Meal of Your Life…in Pescadero?
http://mikebrozda.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/the-best-meal-of-...
Mike Brozda
July 28, 2010
Carlito’s Place “Officially” Opens in October. Get There Before It’s Overrun
The simple handpainted sign on the side of the road in Pescadero is Carlito Cham’s little insider’s joke. It reads ‘fish and shrimp tacos.’
“I want to lure people in, then blow them away with the best meal of their lives,” Carlito says with a belly laugh. In the estimation of this
satisfied diner, he succeeds beyond expectations.
The tongue-in-cheek direction signs to Carlito's Place promise 'fish and shrimp tacos.' Instead, get ready to enjoy world-class fusion cuisine.
Carlito Cham (not Chan) serves up food without borders. Perhaps because he grew up in a bicultural Chinese/Mexican home, he feels free to create
unique fusions that include all of the world’s great cuisines: Asian, Latin American, Spanish, French, Italian. The common ingredient is freshness.
Carlito is a culinary genius who combines flavors with passion, boldness and flair. This guy is the real thing: worldly, accomplished (he spearfished
a 296-pound tuna), and a great storyteller.
“My passion is food,” he said. “I used to think I could never get the girls through food, but I was wrong,” he added as he nodded to his partner
Brianda, clad that evening in a perfect white cotton dress. Brianda greets and serves guests.
“Everything in my restaurant is fresh within the last 24 hours,” Carlito says. From his restaurant it’s just a few miles to the beach where fresh fish
caught using handlines from pangas (small, fast motorboats) are delivered daily. Vegetables, herbs and flowers come from Carlito’s garden, an arm’s
length from your dining table.
The restaurant is located in the tiny fishing town (population in 2005: 1634) of Pescadero in Baja California Sur. The artsy community of Todos
Santos is just a 15 minute drive to the north. Cabo San Lucas, the very tip of the 1100-mile long Baja Peninsula, is located about an hour to the
south. San Jose del Cabo is just a few miles further around the tip of the cape. All three of these towns are noted for exquisite dining.
With his new restaurant, Carlito is taking a bold gamble that travelers will slow down long enough to give something new a try, and he knows it. “I
waited six years until I felt the time was right to open my place,” he said.
We Place our Taste Buds in Carlito’s Care
In late July, 2010, Penny and I joined two other couples, the Scotts and the Kridas, for dinner at Carlito’s Place in Pescadero. Rather than order
from the menu, Carlito suggested that we place our trust in him. Not only was every dish delicious, Carlito presented them like works of art on a
plate.
“This is not a restaurant. This is my house,” Carlito says. He means it quite literally. He and Brianda live in a travel trailer parked on one side of
the property. When a dish is served, he sprints out to the garden to garnish it with fresh-picked basil or a fragrant plumeria blossom before
presenting it with a flourish at your table.
“You are in my dining room,” Carlito says with a huge, wide, easy smile. He bought the property in Pescadero six years ago. Everything is open-air.
The kitchen flows seamlessly past the rock-walled bar, to the palapa dining area, into the embrace of an organic garden worthy of a full-color spread
in Sunset Magazine.
“We live in a chef’s paradise,” Carlito said in perfect English. “We have abundant seafood of all kind, and fresh meat from the ranchos in the area.
To grow a watermelon, all I do is stick a seed in the ground and water it.”
Carlito, who grew up in La Paz, comes from a family steeped in fine dining and restaurants. His grandfather, a butcher, emigrated from China.
Carlito’s mother owns and runs Gardenias Restaurant in Cabo San Lucas. Carlito consulted on the founding of several other restaurants in Cabo San
Lucas. During the 1990′s he open and ran a wildly successful taco shop in trendy Sausalito, California, which is located just across the Golden
Gate Bridge from diners’ Mecca, San Francisco. He also served as the executive chef on the ESPN-2 TV fishing show, Offshore Adventures.
Along the way, Carlito was instilled with a work ethic that was the equal to his budding passion for food. “I tasted my first foie gras when I was
seven years old,” he said. “And my mother always taught me that trabajo dignifica la alma (work dignifies the soul.)
Carlito’s Six-Course Meal
Carlito started us with an appetizer of ripe peppers stuffed with shrimp and scallops; they floated on the thinnest layer of spicy chile sauce with a
scribble of mango sauce for a touch of contrasting color and sweetness. The peppers were lightly fried, which gave them a satisfying tempura-like
crunch.
Next up was a sashimi salad with octopus, scallops and avocado topped with a subtle ginger-sesame dressing.
Carlito outdid himself with two different types of sashimi entree. The first was a fresh yellowtail tuna caught that day off Fisherman’s Beach. The
mild yellow curry sauce was unbelievably flavorful. As good as the curry sauce was, however, it was outdone by the serranito sashimi, which was
presented in a delicate sesame dressing and topped with a thin slice of fiery serrano chile. “I love the heat and the sweet,” fellow diner Rebecca
Krida said.
The shrimp curry appealed to Deb Scott’s sensual side; “It pushes all my right buttons,” she said. “It leaves me with a nice warm feeling.”
Carlito delighted us with his choice of shrimp delicacies. The first was a shrimp in hoisin sauce with onions, bell peppers and sundried tomatoes.
Hoisin sauces tend to overpower almost everything with sticky, syrupy sweetness. Carlito’s interpretation of this Chinese classic is sprightly and
complex; the jumbo shrimp really were, well, jumbo.
Just when we though things couldn’t get more flavorful, a whole snapper appeared at our table. This local fish, which retains its bright red/orange
color when cooked, was buried under a haystack of flavorful cilantro leaves. Crunchy-textured on the outside, light, white and flaky on the inside,
Carlitos’ snapper is a delightful alternative to the much more commonly prepared snapper Veracruzano.
For dinner, Brianda appeared with ‘yum-yum.’ It consisted of the thinnest slices of tuna, avocado and roe in a very slightly sweet sauce.
Carlito’s prices are more than reasonable for the outstanding food quality, quantity and presentation. A six-course dinner for six people, beer, wine,
tax and tip came to exactly $3000 pesos, or about US $42 per person at that day’s exchange rate.
Carlito’s Place “Officially” Opens In October, 2010
He and Brianda are planning a grand opening in October; the exact date is to be determined. Journalists, writers, and food critics from magazines,
radio, TV and radio stations and web sites will be invited. My advice: get there before they put up the circus tent.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS
As of this writing (July, 2010), the highway through Pescadero is undergoing a transformation from two lanes to four. Translation: be prepared for for
a bit of construction dust and delays. The good news is that road crews are working at a feverish pace. While I don’t have any official information on
estimated completion dates for the new road, my guesstimate is that there will be many more months of construction in the area. Crews are busy
spanning major arroyos with huge new concrete bridges that will ameliorate the danger of summer washouts.
The other good news is that Carlito’s Place is far enough off the main drag to avoid the construction din. As with much of Baja, there are no street
signs. In Pescadero, look for the two-story Funeral home on the east side of the highway. It’s approximately across the street from town’s only Pemex
gas station. Turn east up the funeral home side road for about 100 meters (look for Carlito’s signs), and park in the graveled garden parking lot.
Buen provecho!
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