BajaNews
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TJ: A Little Rock, a Little Bite
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/feb/24/tin-fork-litt...
By Ed Bedford
Feb. 24, 2010
It’s 11:00 at night, downtown TJ. “Only, only Marcelino, Only, only pan y vino…” Carlos Ubario Macias sings merrily away. He’s sitting on the stool
next to me, out on the street at Marcelino’s tiny counter. “That’s from a popular Spanish movie that came out in 1950,” he explains.
“Marcelino hasn’t been around that long, have you?”
Marcelino laughs. But he doesn’t lift his head. He’s busy at his cutting board, making up a torta.
I’m in a good vibe here. Spent the past hour in El Dandy del Sur, two steps down the hill, just past El Chez, a nightclub that does rock on Friday and
Saturday nights, hoping to lure American kids back.
Dandy and Chez may not have the gringos yet, but this Friday night, it feels like all tijuanenses are cramming into this little section of Sixth
Street where it plunges down between Revolución and Madero. It’s just a bunch of off-Broadway bars, eateries, dance places, and a couple of cheap
hotels, but now — no question — something’s happening.
I’d never noticed Marcelino’s place till tonight. Saw a crowd in a pool of light around this hole-in-the-wall called “Tortas de la Sexta.” It’s small
but smart, with red-tile frontage and a narrow yellow mosaic counter jutting onto the street. Guy with flying hands was slicing big telera buns (like
hamburger buns, but wider, softer) and laying out avocado slices and peppers and meats.
Only thing was, I was thirsty. “Which bar?” I asked the guy behind the counter. Marcelino. “El Dandy,” he said. “You’ll be happy there. Then come and
I’ll make you a torta.”
So, I did. Walked down past El Chez, then squeezed between a woman cop and an elderly doorman, into El Dandy del Sur. Oh, man. What a scene. After all
the depressing emptiness of Revolución, this is great. It’s, like, “So this is where you’ve been hiding out!” Tables and stools were filled with men,
women, oldies, kids, all talking, drinking, flirting, cracking shells of cacahuates — peanuts — while some of the great rock music from the ’70s set
the tone. I grabbed the last stool, got a Dos Equis Amber for about $1.50, a bowl of unshelled peanuts, watched a Mexican soap on TV, chatted with the
neighbors.
Couple of bottles later, I’m ready for my close-up with Sexta Torta. On my way out of El Dandy I stop to get my bearings. Ask Laurentino Solorio
García, the elderly gent on the stool, if the bar is new.
“El Dandy del Sur?” he says. “It wasn’t always at this location, but it has been going for maybe 50 years. People know it. We don’t have trouble
here.”
We start talking food. Officer Solis, the woman security cop, says best eats are at a no-name place next to the Salon de Baile La Estrella dance hall,
across the street.
I’m tempted but feel loyalty to Marcelino now. Besides, a torta will go down easy. So, a moment later, I’m back two doors up, at Tortas de la Sexta,
flopping down on one of Marcelino’s two stools, right next to Carlos, the guy who’s serenading him. “And now you’re hungry?” Marcelino says. “Only
thing is, you must eat it while it’s hot, or the bun goes flat. Okay?”
“Fine,” I say.
“There’s your choice,” says Marcelino, pointing to a list on the wall. They’re about 35 pesos, maybe $2.60 each. Main selection’s between ham, beef
tenderloin, vegetarian, and portobello, meaning stuffed with mushrooms. Or, “La Especial,” which is ham and beef tenderloin and cheese.
I get the special and an agua fresca — orange — (12 pesos, $1). Marcelino is right: the torta’s so light and the insides are so liquidy, it’s almost a
drink. “The secret’s in the steaming,” he says. “It makes the bun tender.” I put some chipotle salsa on it, and that heats it up and makes the beef
and ham and cheese more interesting.
“You can thank the emperador Maximiliano for that telera,” Carlos says. “The emperor brought French bread here in the 1860s. My family was French,
too, but they came earlier. My ancestor, Juan Carlos Ubario, landed in 1788. But to this day, with 160 million people in Mexico, there are only 16
people with the name Ubario. It is very rare.”
“Wow,” I say. “You are one in a million.”
“One in ten million, my friend.”
Carlos says his family raises fighting bulls in Agua Caliente. “I’m up here to be near my sons, who are studying in the U.S.,” he says. “I prefer
Mexico, but I want to be near them.”
“Eat,” says Marcelino, “or it won’t be any good.”
“Only, only Marcelino, Only, only pan y vino…,” sings Carlos, again.
I chow down.
“No rush,” says Marcelino. “I am here till 7:00 tomorrow morning.”
“Ever see any trouble?” I ask.
“Not really,” he says. He brings out a little digital video camera. “But if there is, even if I see the police not behaving well, I take pictures. It
was the city that supplied me with this camera.”
Uh-oh. Cinderella time. Midnight’s gonna chime, and I’ve got that last trolley to think about. I could have downed one more of these tortas. Can’t
tell if it’s the atmosphere or the taste. The cheese — okay American cheese — the tomato, the avocado…there’s nothing all that Mexican about it,
except for the steamed telera bun. But, just like TJ’s street hotdogs, it feels special. When I get back up to the corner with Revolución, I turn. I
can just hear Carlos, still singing in that pool of light.
--
The Place: Tortas de la Sexta, Calle 6a (Flores Magón), between Revolución and Madero
Type of Food: Mexican
Prices (approximate): La Especial torta, with lomo (beef tenderloin), ham, avocado, American cheese, tomato, mayonnaise, 36 pesos (about $2.70); ham
torta, $2.60; beef tenderloin torta, $2.60; vegetarian torta, $2.60; portobello (mushroom) torta, $2.60
Hours: Noon–9:00 p.m., Monday–Tuesday; noon till 2:00 a.m., Wednesday–Thursday; noon till 7:00 a.m., Friday–Saturday; closed Sunday
Buses: Mexicoach, San Ysidro to Tijuana
Nearest Bus Stop: Mexicoach terminal between Sixth and Seventh Streets, on Revolución
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tjBill
Senior Nomad
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6th street in downtown Tijuana, off Revolution. Has become the 'in' place for locals. No tourists there.
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Hook
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Nice little article.
Glad The Bite wasn't what I was thinking.
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BajaNews
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Tijuana's Downtown Revival
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/feb/17/tijuanas-down...
By Lorena Mancilla
Feb. 17, 2010
Tijuana has suffered from multiple personality disorder for way too long. It’s been a place for trade and fugitives — for anyone who needed to escape
from anything, whether it be extreme poverty, a violent husband, a shotgun wedding, a jail sentence, a closeted gay life, or boredom. All were
welcomed in Tijuana. In the past five years, though, it became a place to escape from.
Anyone who needed a dose of Mexican kitsch, a couple of prescriptions filled, a Cuban cigar, and a margarita found heaven on Avenida Revolución. This
is the Tijuana most tourists knew, but now it’s gone; La Revo is a ghost town of empty commercial spaces and former bars. Some say it happened because
of the downturn in the U.S. economy, but we all know it was fear. The former visitors of Tijuana were afraid that once they crossed the border they
would be dodging bullets.
Tijuana’s nightlife was always diverse. There were small bars, expensive clubs, lounges, and little cantinas all over the city. There was business for
all of them until it became fashionable for gangsters (narcos) and gangster posers (the new term for them is mangueras) to flaunt their success by
reserving tables with bottles of overpriced Remy that they mixed with grapefruit soda or Jumex orange juice. (You could spot them because they were
the only ones in the trendy club with a juice box on their table.)
One night in late 2007, I accidentally bumped my shoulder into a man and as his jacket opened I saw a gun. After that, I decided to ditch my favorite
dance club forever…so did everyone else with a favorite place in Tijuana. Since 2007, few people dared run the risk of being at a narco hangout.
People lived for the news, the newspapers. Morbid stories intensified the paralysis; fear became the most ubiquitous feeling throughout the city.
The Last Ones Were the Younger Ones
Since the early ’90s, downtown cantinas and dancehalls were a refuge for intellectuals and artists who visited them as tourists, walking the dark,
downtown streets and the red-light district in the infamous Paseo Inmoral, going into any gloomy strip joint or cantina with a jukebox, scouting the
bars for the cheaper beer, the ones that were more comfortable, getting to know the characters, the bartenders, the ficheras, and street musicians.
In 2004, art exhibits and poetry readings were held at iconic cantinas such as Zacazonapan and Dandy del Sur. Bar Turístico in Plaza Santa Cecilia was
(and still is) a meeting point for Universidad Autónoma de Baja California students, intellectuals, artists, and journalists. When all of this was
happening, the Nortec Collective project was still launching; they played regularly at Don Loope, next to Jai Alai, and although they were independent
electronic musicians with day jobs for decades, once they rescued the sound of the norteño street musicians and mixed it in their music, they went
from dentists to rock stars.
The downtown scene was still underground but was attractive. Cine Bujazán, an old movie theater on Avenida Constitución, was destroyed by a fire in
1993 and it became an abandoned space until 2001, when Julio Orozco held a photo exhibit in its ruins (the roof burned completely). In 2004, the space
was taken by a group of young music promoters; they called it Multikulti. It became an alternative venue for rock concerts and art exhibits. Then
Radio Global, an internet radio station based in Tijuana, started to hold parties downtown. Yonkeart made a documentary on La Estrella, an old-school
dancehall with wooden benches.
In 2007, Sonidero Travesura, a music project that rescued the cumbia sound and the grupero style of musicians that usually play at quinceañeras and
bailes, brought the younger crowd to La Estrella and the forgotten downtown cantinas. All of this had been documented since the early 2000s by
emerging Tijuana bloggers who were long-standing visitors of the Centro nightlife. All of a sudden, everybody noticed that they could have fun in
these places — there were no narcos, guns, or hard drugs (or even soft ones, with notorious exceptions). The beer was cheaper than anywhere else (no
wine or fancy martinis), and there was a jukebox that took pesos and dollar bills. There were candy sellers, Polaroid photographers, men who carried a
generator on their neck and offered electroshocks for a tip, and the waitresses were long-haired señoras that brought a little botanita with the beer.
It was a paradise for nostalgia lovers.
The traditional local-bar areas of Tijuana started to suffer from this migration, and the only customers left there were narcos, mangueras, and a
couple of lost Tijuana fresas that didn’t get the news on time: downtown was being taken over by every urban tribe any night of the week.
At some of the places, it became almost impossible on a Saturday — body heat, smoke, and poor ventilation made them uncomfortable. It was too much for
the original bars, so others moved in. A whole bunch of bar owners escaped the expensive rents and the risks of other bar areas. They moved into old
bookstores, former Chinese restaurants and camera-repair shops, turning places that were empty for decades into diverse bars among the traditional
cantinas and old nightclubs.
The Calle Sexta Phenomenon
During the ’90s, I had a special outfit that I wore every time I went on the Paseo Inmoral or Tour Histórico Cultural (as some humanities students
used to call it); the outfit’s closest relative would be a potato sack — a pure wool chuj that I bought from an Indian in Chiapas many years ago. It
was my armor because no one would take a woman wearing such a thing to the dance floor. We all did the same: no woman who went to the downtown
cantinas would dare wear a skirt or a sleeveless blouse if she didn’t want to run the risk of being mistaken for a fichera. And we always went in a
group. It was a tradition for many students to go cantina hopping, starting the tour in the red-light district and ending it on Calle Sexta. For
veteran visitors, it can be a shock to see how the scene and crowd have changed. There are hordes of cute miniskirts and strapless dresses, shorts,
and trendy boots; kids who get together to flat-iron their hair before they go out; guys with perfectly groomed beards and ear expansions. Some bars
serve tomato pulque and mocha mezcal. At some of the hippest bars, a ten-peso coin can be exchanged for a Styrofoam cup of cold beer. There’s even a
little coffee shop that has a cinema club with art films. There are a couple of lounges that would fit in easily in Mexico City’s Colonia Condesa, but
also there is a bar that’s a death trap of metal staircases, walls made of cyclone fence, and empty trash bags. Some say it’s Tijuana gone Mad Max; I
say if the N-zis ever dreamed of having a bar in Auschwitz, this would be it.
This radical change started when La Mezcalera opened in January of 2009, followed by many others. Even though business openings are great for
Tijuana’s economy, sometimes the new bars can feel weird…like a sterilized prototype designed to satisfy upper-middle-class hipsters, the same people
that in other times would have never gone downtown because it was considered a dirty, poor, and dangerous place.
On the other hand, the migration back out into the night is seen as the way new generations of tijuanenses are reclaiming their city and their right
to have fun and feel safe, to feel on par with the crowd that traditionally visited the old cantinas, the ones that served a famous writer, a
maquiladora worker, a taxi driver, or a Grammy winner. For decades, anyone who walked Avenida Revolución would be harassed and fought over by club
workers competing for a commission on the customer’s tab. In fancier antros or discotecas, the bouncers would profile people at the door and leave
anyone outside who didn’t meet their standards. These are practices that don’t belong here.
Rafa Saavedra, the most notorious chronicler of Tijuana’s nightlife says: “The rules have changed. No bar with a velvet rope will be successful here,
cover charge is gone for good, there’s no special treatment for anyone, none of the bars take reservations or offer full bottles. That’s why it’s very
unlikely that malandros move in, since they like to be noticed, to get preferential treatment, and this won’t happen here. The Calle Sexta
phenomenon’s secret is simple: celebration. We all like to be a part of it.”
I can’t deny it. I have mixed feelings toward the new popularity of Calle Sexta. I’m sure it will bring a new set of problems or revive some of the
old ones, but today the most attractive part of visiting downtown at night is diversity. There’s everything for any taste (except narco-corridos):
industrial music, Japanese pop, ’80s new wave, cumbias, norteño love songs, electronic pop from Spain, an occasional tocada of local and foreign indie
bands or DJs. And even though the range of options keeps growing, there’s nothing like exploring the old cantinas; when one finds a place with a
jukebox full of José José songs, walls of mirrors, red vinyl booths, silk flowers, a little empty dance floor, a clean restroom, and two-dollar beers,
one can forget about time, the economy, love, crime, and the fact that the car is at a public parking lot that closes at 1:00 a.m.…well, that can be a
problem.
--
About the author: Lorena Mancilla has a degree in philosophy and owned a cigar shop in Rosarito until the local economy tanked. She currently teaches
literature and ethics in Tijuana. Her blog is at: http://lorenamancilla.blogspot.com
--
Glossary
Antro: Nightclub.
Botanita: Little snack. There is a variety of snacks served in cantinas all over Mexico, most of the time served for free.
Chuj: A rigid, thick, square sweater woven by hand that falls below the hips.
Colonia Condesa: A Mexico City neighborhood that has a high concentration of cafés, bookstores, bars, and restaurants; a lot of artists and
intellectuals live there.
Fichera: A woman whose job in a bar consists of drinking with customers or dancing with them; the bar pays her a commission (not to be mistaken with a
stripper or sex worker).
Fresa: A person who belongs (or pretends to belong) to the upper–middle class.
Malandro: Delinquent, criminal.
Manguera: One who thinks it is glamorous to act, look, talk, like a drug trafficker, even when he only aspires to be one.
Narco-Corridos: Songs that pay homage to Narcos and their accomplishments, deaths, cars, guns, stories, codes, lifestyle.
Pulque: Fermented sap of the agave plant (very sour), served in many flavors, such as pineapple, mango, and strawberry.
Tocada: A small rock concert.
[Edited on 4-2-2010 by BajaNews]
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k-rico
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Location: Playas de Tijuana
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There's redevelopment going on too. I'm sure some Nomads have noticed the concrete repaving of the highway leading into Playas and they are rebuilding
the malecon in Playas. The first phase, 32 million pesos, is a new seawall which is well underway and the total budget for the new malecon and other
beach improvements is 160 million pesos.
Last year they repaved the main streets in Playas, the year before built several new baseball fields and a soccer field and the year before did some
major work on the sewer system.
The seawall is being built to stop the erosion and therefore add value to the dilapidated ocean front buildings, the owners of which will be given
long term cheap loans to fix up. New beach front buildings are already under construction. But, many beachfront buildings are really run down, it will
take years to spruce up.
[Edited on 4-2-2010 by k-rico]
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Bajahowodd
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Sounds like Atlantic City before they built the casinos!
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BajaBlanca
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very interesting reading, a different take on what is happening in TJ
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nancyinpdx
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Mood: muy eccentrica
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I really enjoyed this article. It's great to read something positive or encouraging about TJ.
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