R2LUJAN
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LA MISION 19, Restaurant Tijuana.
Baja Cuisine By Javier Plascencia,Tijuana.
Yummy!!!! Recommend totaly....
TO READ THE FULL POST GO TO:
www.streetgourmetla.com
http://www.streetgourmetla.com/2011/02/mision-19-cocina-de-a...
[Edited on 3-10-2011 by R2LUJAN]
[Edited on 3-10-2011 by R2LUJAN]
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R2LUJAN
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2011
Mision 19 Cocina de Autor, Tijuana,B.C: Javier Plascencia's Mission, Posted By streetgourmet LA.
In the movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico,FBI Agent Sands,played by Johnny Depp says to El Cucuy, played by legendary Mexican-American character actor
Danny Trejo Sands)"So--are you a MexiCAN--or a MexiCAN'T?"(Cucuy)"I'm a MexiCAN."
I laughed my ass off when I saw that scene, but--the joke would be on me years later when I began to help spread the word about the incredible
culinary movement going on in Baja. I encountered mostly MexiCAN'ts. My beloved Mexico is not progressive and active when it comes to promoting its
tourism, and remains entrenched in policies that don't work run by out-of-touch, self-serving entities.
But, the handful of MexiCANS(Mexicans who can-do) are single-handedly lifting Baja out of the ashes and into the spotlight with very little support,
not an easy task.
Chef Javier Plascencia is one such MexiCAN in Tijuana actively moving the great culinary city forward. He recently resurrected Caesar's Restaurant,
the birthplace of the Caesar's salad, and lovingly restored it to its 1927 slendor. And, last month he opened perhaps the most important restaurant in
Mexico right now, Mision 19, in Baja's first green building, the Via Corporativo.This is author's cuisine, but the flavors and techniques are chef
Javier Plascencia's own brand of Baja Californian cuisine.
Javier's mission is not just to save Tijuana, but to lead the way in letting the world know, that there has been a shift in convention. Mexico City
has always been Mexico's leader in fine dining, but recent trips to Contramar,and Pujol, among others, top seafood and fine dining restaurants in
Mexico City, respectively, have led me to a confirmation of what I had already summized: Baja is the new center of Mexican wine, seafood, and
contemporary cuisine in Mexico.
Mexico City's traditional cuisine, cantinas,fondas,comida corrida, taquerias, and street food leave all comers in the dust, but Mexico City's fine
dining neighborhoods Polanco and Condesa have been usurped by Tijuana, and Ensenada: Javier's Mision 19 and Cebicheria Erizo; Miguel Angel Guerrero's
La Querencia; Benito Molina's Manzanilla, Muelle Tres, and Silvestre; along with many others, are creating new dishes and have taken Mexican fine
dining to the next level.
Even Rick Bayless himself has kept his eye on this region in recent years. He'll be dropping in soon, oh yeah,straying very far north of his
myopically idealized "great cuisines" of Mexico: Mexico City, Oaxaca and Vera Cruz; to give Baja a look see.
At Mision 19, the Mexican fine dining experience has been refined, perfected; it's a farm to table experience that couldn't be accomplished in Los
Angeles, San Francisco, or New York; it is a California mission for the 21st century tending towards a local and sustainable kitchen.
Local produce is used as much as possible, the staff trolls the Mercado Hidalgo in Tijuana, but also farmer's markets in San Diego, produce from Milpa
Farms in San Ysidro; chef Javier lives in Tijuana and San Diego, physically and conceptually. This is the only farm to table restaurant rooted in Baja
and Alta California.
Read the rest of the post:
http://www.streetgourmetla.com/2011/02/mision-19-cocina-de-a...
[Edited on 3-10-2011 by R2LUJAN]
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Gypsy Jan
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Here's a Bit More Info on Mision 19
http://tijuego.com/2010/12/29/preview-dinner-at-mision-19/
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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R2LUJAN
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Mision 19
Photo from post by www.streetgourmetla.com
[Edited on 3-10-2011 by R2LUJAN]
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Gypsy Jan
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I Took Your Post
And cross-posted to Chowhound, crediting you as the OP.
Are you a friend on Javier Plascencia's Facebook page?
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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jenny.navarrette
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| Quote: | Tijuana's elite flee to San Diego County to escape kidnappings and violence in Mexico
By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 7, 2008
The Plascencia family boasts the brand name for fine dining in Tijuana. Their showcase restaurant -- Villa Saverios -- is a foodie destination, its
elegant dining room a gathering spot for the city's political and social elite.
But the family's success has also drawn other attention.
Three years ago, gunmen tried to kidnap chef Javier Plascencia's younger brother. A year later they tried again but, in a case of mistaken identity,
snatched the wrong man.
Enough close calls, the family decided.
Nearly 40 years after they opened their first Tijuana restaurant, the entire extended family -- 18 people, including Javier Plascencia's wife and four
children -- moved across the border to a suburb southeast of San Diego. |
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bent-rim
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here's a link to a New York Times article about Javier Plascencia and Mission 19:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/09tiajuana.html?hpw
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R2LUJAN
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Gypsy Jan
And cross-posted to Chowhound, crediting you as the OP.
Are you a friend on Javier Plascencia's Facebook page? |
Ok No problem, yes Friend on Facebook.
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R2LUJAN
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La Mision 19 (Tijuana)post By streetgourmetla
Another Spanish style dish served Baja-style, pinchos(food served on a stick, or spike) of Pacific octopus done two ways, in a croquette and whole
tentacle, char-grilled; paired with Tijuana three street-style salsas; tomatillo sauce, a habanero-pasilla romesco, and a Mediterranean jalapeno
labne. These couldn't have been grilled better; chef Javier loves octopus, and developed a great range of sauces for this dish.
picture & post By www.streetgourmetla.com
[Edited on 3-10-2011 by R2LUJAN]
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bent-rim
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The link I posted doesn't come up, it's exactly what was shown on the top of the page. I'm a computer tard, can anyone fix the link I posted or tell
me what to do to correct it? Also is Mission 19 within walking distance of the boder? I don't want to wait in line longer than the dinner experience
takes. Thanks
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gallesram
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Try this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/09tijuana.html
I just read the article; it's excellent. You could take a cab from the border but couldn't walk; it's over in the Rio Zone so maybe a 5-minute cab
ride.
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bent-rim
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Thanks, it looks as though I should have stopped at html The cab ride is a great suggestion, because the cab driver will probably know where the
place is. I usually just pass through Tijuana hugging the border and head down the coast for further points south.
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R2LUJAN
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Master of a New Tijuana By JOSH KUN
Published: March 8, 2011
NO matter where you sit in Mision 19, it’s impossible to forget where you are. The restaurant, perched on the second floor of a sleek office building,
is a handsome study in concrete, wood and glass, wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows. Tijuana confronts you from all sides.
“I am proud of being from Tijuana,” said Javier Plascencia, the restaurant’s chef and one of its owners, sitting behind a wall of wine bottles at his
private chef’s table. Nearby, waiters in dark coats and ties gracefully maneuvered among tables of women in suits and men with sweaters tied over
their shoulders. Hints of cologne mixed with musky wafts of mesquite and charcoal.
“I want there to be no mistake,” he continued. “This is a Tijuana restaurant. This is what Tijuana can be.”
Mr. Plascencia is determined to use Mision 19, which he opened in the heart of this city’s Zona Río business district in January, to help revitalize
not only Tijuana’s food scene, but also the city itself. Scarred in recent years from waves of drug violence, Tijuana, just south of the United States
border, has gone from being one of Mexico’s most visited cities to one of its most feared, a significant blow to an economy that depends on tourism.
The kidnappings and killings that scared away visitors also encouraged many well-heeled Tijuana locals to flee north. For a time, Mr. Plascencia, 43,
was one of them. In 2006, his family opened Romesco in Bonita, Calif., in part to give the community of Tijuana exiles living there a taste of home.
“In the ’90s, we all knew who the drug dealers were,” he said. “They came to our restaurants, we cooked at their baptism parties, but they didn’t mess
with anyone. They respected who we were. But then that started to change, and you didn’t know who people were and how they would react. Suddenly there
were no rules anymore.”
There was even a period when he took a bodyguard with him to work after his brother was threatened by kidnappers, he said.
Rafa Saavedra, a local writer and cultural critic, said that while “the general perception of Tijuana is that it’s a violent and dangerous city,” he
believes that the city is undergoing a “new creative boom” led by young entrepreneurs like Mr. Plascencia.
“They are not just looking to make money,” Mr. Saavedra said. “They are looking to invest in the future of the city and its people.”
As a culinary destination, Tijuana is perhaps best known for its street food, especially mariscos, birria and tacos of all stripes. But it also has a
long tradition of fine dining, and Mr. Plascencia’s family has been at the center of it for nearly three decades. Their Grupo Plascencia consortium,
headed by his father, Juan José Plascencia, is now responsible for 10 restaurants scattered across Tijuana, including Casa Plascencia, a
Spanish-themed meat emporium, and Villa Saverios, the Roman-columned marble flagship. Situated in the heart of Tijuana’s Zona Gastronómica, or
restaurant row, Villa Saverios is the go-to venue for birthdays and wedding showers among Tijuana’s middle and upper classes.
“Their restaurants have been so important for the region for so long,” said Tru Miller, an owner of the Adobe Guadalupe winery in the nearby Guadalupe
Valley. “Javier has the ability to bring Baja cuisine to an international audience in ways that nobody has really done before.”
Mr. Plascencia, who was born and raised in Tijuana but attended high school and culinary school in San Diego, refers to his cooking as Baja
Mediterranean: traditional Mexican cuisine combined with ingredients and flavors that flourish in Baja California’s coastal Mediterranean-like
climate, including olive oil, abalone and arugula. It’s a style espoused by other Tijuana chefs, like Miguel Angel Guerrero, of La Querencia; Jair
Tellez, at Laja; and Martín San Román, of Rincón San Román. But Mr. Plascencia brings a flair for dramatic presentation, an appreciation for Tijuana
street food’s deep flavors and a binational approach to farm-to-table cooking.
At Mision 19, everything he cooks and all the wine he serves come from within a 120-mile radius, which means not only Tijuana markets and local Baja
farms and vineyards in the Guadalupe Valley, but also farmer’s markets in San Diego.
“When you say local in Tijuana, you are talking about Tecate, Ensenada, Rosarito and parts of San Diego,” he said. “It’s a very big local.”
The menu is loaded with showstoppers. There’s the duck skewered with licorice and sprinkled with guava dust. There’s the risotto topped with
salt-cured nopalitos (prickly pear cactus) and charred octopus. Or there’s the dish that’s already something of a signature: slow-cooked short ribs
bathed in a mission fig syrup on top of a black mole sauce. After he cooked it at the Test Kitchen, a Los Angeles restaurant with a rotating cast of
guest chefs, Jonathan Gold, a food critic for LA Weekly, named it one of his top 10 dishes of 2010.
Bill Esparza, who runs the Los Angeles food blog Street Gourmet LA and frequently invites local foodies down to Tijuana for tastings with Mr.
Plascencia, praised the chef. “There is nobody like him in Mexican cooking right now,” he said. “He travels throughout Mexico, to L.A., to San
Francisco, looking to learn and be inspired. He watches everything that’s going on in the food world, and he’s like this incredible sponge. He’s
creating a whole new vocabulary of Baja cooking.”
The Plascencia food empire had a humble start. In 1969, Mr. Plascencia’s father quit his job in a Tijuana factory to open Giuseppi’s, a small
pizzeria. He stored the pizza boxes, cheese and cans of tomato sauce based on his mother’s recipe in the family garage. There were soon 13 pizzerias
across the city. The Giuseppi’s name lives on in a handful of full-scale Italian restaurants, Tijuana institutions since the 1980s.
“I compare my father to Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque,” said Mr. Plascencia, who grew up washing dishes at Giuseppi’s on weekends and learning the
details of customer service from his father. “He is always at the door. He knows all of his clients by name.”
Three years ago, the family bought Caesar’s, the classic tourist mecca and watering hole for visiting Hollywood stars that opened its doors in the
1920s. Best remembered for its claim to being the birthplace of the Caesar salad, the restaurant holds particular significance for Mr. Plascencia
because his grandfather worked there as a bartender.
After a painstaking renovation, Caesar’s — with its elaborate tableside preparations of the famous salad, its walls covered with vintage photographs
and menus and its original bar meticulously restored — is now an elegant trip back to Tijuana’s past.
“Tijuana is not very good at preserving its history,” Mr. Plascencia said. “Ceasar’s is so important to the story of this city. When we heard it was
for sale, there was no way we were going to let that legacy be lost.”
Caesar’s, Mision 19 and other high-end restaurants here rely on the city’s wealthy elite and a small cadre of middle-class bohemians who can afford
$25 main courses. They have also come to depend on two classes of tourist far removed from the party-seeking Marines and college students from north
of the border who were once a key source of the city’s income.
The first group could be called medical tourists, Americans who go to Tijuana for cancer treatments, dental work or plastic surgery. Then there are
the maquiladora tourists, executives from the thousands of internationally owned factories, or maquiladoras. “They might be from Japan or Korea and
are here to work on a project or open a new plant,” Mr. Plascencia said. “They are not coming to get drunk at a bar. They are looking for a nice
meal.”
He insists that things in Tijuana are getting better. According to recent news reports, officials in the state of Baja California estimate that, over
the last two years, crime in the region has dropped nearly 40 percent. Most agree that the city is safer and calmer now than in 2008, when the death
toll reached an all-time high. Many locals who once fled the city are now moving back. In the downtown tourist zone, there are new trendy bars, diners
and fashion boutiques, along with a bilingual tourist police unit designed to make visiting Americans feel more comfortable.
Last week, Tijuana’s mayor joined the mayors of four other Baja cities in announcing a new pro-tourism initiative. A large mural on busy Calle Sexta
reads, “In spite of everything, Tijuana is moving forward.”
To reassure customers from the States, Mr. Plascencia often calls with personal invitations. For big food events or tastings, he’s driven people
across the border himself, all part of his mission to use his restaurants to both sustain and reimagine the city that he loves.
Last fall, hundreds of people, including Al Gore and Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia, arrived for Tijuana Innovadora, a $5 million two-week
conference designed to showcase Tijuana as a center of finance, arts, ideas and innovation. Mr. Plascencia cooked for many of the conference’s events,
including a dinner for Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, who began the event with a speech praising Tijuana’s improved security.
The attempted makeover came with a brutal reality check. In the middle of the conference, two decapitated bodies were found hanging from a local
bridge.
“It was a reminder of the challenges we face here,” Mr. Plascencia said. “But I am not worried. Things will get better, and I will be right here
cooking.”
A version of this article appeared in print on March 9, 2011, on page D1 of the New York edition..
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SeaShell
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Javier Plascencia, a Chef Out to Renew Tijuana
This story was recently on the front page of the NY Times Dining Section. Good press is well...Good Press.
Most of the article is about Mision 19 in Tijuana which I have not dined at yet. I will try to soon.
They also mention Caesar's which I dined at last Saturday night and it was fabulous. Best Margarita's ever and Chateaubriand that melts in your mouth.
Always great service too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/09tijuana.html?_r=1...
Be sure to check out the slide show too.
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Loretana
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Master of a New Tijuana
From today's New York Times
<<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/09tijuana.htm>>
a seemingly truthful article.....l
"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration."
-Nikola Tesla
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Bajahowodd
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The bummer is that although there are so many great dining opportunities South of the Border, there remains two issues that work against the success
of places such as Javier's.
First and foremost, there must be a rehabilitaion of the image of Tijuana, as relatively crime-free; not subject to the cartel crime activity.
Second, and actually more important, is the passport requirement for returnees at the border.
Anyone who spends any time on this forum knows that having a valid US passport to enable repatriation is basically a myth.. BUT, since the general
idea is that a vaild passport is required, it really does dampen the intention to cross.
Given that the US has myriad programs in progress in relationship to Mexico, they really ought to consider establishing a program by which people can
transit the border for a short time (maybe 12 hours) and not be subject to passport requirements.
Personally, I would recommend a program that would allow cross border transit for a fixed period, such as 48- 96 hours, without the need for a
passport.
I know that the San Diego convention tour operators would love it.
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Dave
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Great reviews, but...
A personal recommendation?
Have any y'all eaten there or have friends that have?
Jan?
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tripledigitken
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personal review
Though I have not eaten at mission 19 I have eaten at both Villa Saverio in TJ and Romesco in Bonita many times.
Both restaurants are excellent!!!
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