Now it seems that fish tacos have become California cuisine as well known as goat cheese pizzas and heirloom tomato salads. They're no longer exclusive to seafood joints and taco shops. They're on menus everywhere around the Bay Area, and, indeed, around the country.
But the Bay Area may have the most variations: At the California-style Chow restaurants in San Francisco and the East Bay, fish tacos are served under the sandwich category. At 21st Amendment, a San Francisco brewpub, they're served with potato chips and, of course, beer. At Dish, a comfort-food restaurant in Mill Valley, they're the Sunday special. At Luella, a stylish Russian Hill establishment, they're prepared tartare.
"They've become the new comfort food," says Joe Hargrave, owner of Tacolicious, a Marina district taqueria that has a couple of versions of fish tacos on its menu (see recipe). "I think it's all part of the evolution of Mexican cuisine, which has now become our go-to food."
For chef Lorenzo Kersevan of 21st Amendment, it's simple.
"Fish tacos go really well with beer," and that's what the brewpub is in the business of selling. Kersevan particularly likes his fish tacos - made from rock cod coated in a little rice flour, salt and pepper, and lightly fried (see recipe) - with wheat beers and lighter lagers.
"Putting them on the menu was a no-brainer, " he says. "It's a simple food and easy to prepare. The fish here is fresh, caught right outside the bay, and most of my workforce is Latino."
While his fish recipe stays mostly the same, sometimes the restaurant serves the filling in flour tortillas - a staple of many of his employees who come from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula - other times in two layers of corn tortillas, more a Baja tradition.
