Frida’s Tacos
Courtesy of Frida’s Tacos
The Mains
South Park Gets A New Wine Bar in the Spring
Michael Marx is a tech guy. After spending lots of time volunteering at his friend’s winery in Sonoma County, he found a career change in the barrels and vines. In the spring, he’ll open Noble Rot, a wine bar in South Park. As the name suggests, it’ll specialize in noble rot wines, which are made using Botrytis cinerea, a beneficial mold that dehydrates grapes, concentrating both their flavor and sweetness.
His travels to taverns in England are inspiring the design of the intimate wine bar, which will have Brit tavern and neighborly vibes, mixed with the third-space coziness of a coffee shop. Wine will come by the glass, in flights, and feature 48 wines on tap from wine dispensers. Plus, snacks: charcuterie, cheeses, and flatbreads.
Frida’s Tacos Expanding to Oceanside This Week
At the end of the day, we’re all just looking for a taco that transports us to the streets of Tijuana—that charred meat, fresh guac, the potpourri of cilantro and onions, a growing stack of crumpled napkins to clean up the salsa streaming down your arms. To find that in North County, people have flocked to Frida’s Tacos—who started at local farmers markets, found a rabid following, and opened an Escondido location to meet demand.
This week, they’ll open a second location in downtown Oceanside (2011 Mission Avenue). This one will be double the size of their Escondido shop, with 18 tables inside. Owner Gracy Ayala says to try their creative takes on agua frescas, and their birria quesotacos are a fan favorite.
New Mediterranean, Mexican-Inspired Restaurant Joins the Barrio Food Hub
When friends and family started asking Erfan Mohyaldin for the secret behind his Persian barbecue, he and his wife, Sanaz Deljoo, decided to take a leap and make a business out of it. The duo started Charred Kabobs and set up shop at local farmers markets around the county. Now the couple is taking a step between farmers markets and a standalone brick and mortar—signing on to the ghost kitchen collective of Barrio Food Hub (the Barrio Food Hub is a pretty fascinating movement in modern foodways—you can read all about it in this feature from SDM when it opened).
Called Fusion Kabobz, Sanaz says the concept is similar to Chipotle where you can customize, with a “twist of Mediterranean and Mexican.” Her recommendation: the chef’s special bowl with a homemade pita as your base, a buttery tomato sauce, ground beef mixed with lamb alongside saffron rice, tzatziki and hummus. They also do a Mediterranean spin on the California burrito with steak marinated in a homemade yogurt and saffron sauce, wrapped in a tortilla with all the classic California burrito toppings: guacamole, cream and pico de gallo.
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