This is exactly the restaurant that you are expecting - and it is wonderful. Yes - it is part of a hotel that looks like it is under construction. Yes it is across the street from a burnt-down building that you have to look at if you eat in the patio. Yes, the drinks are filled with ice made of questionable local water. But that aside - this is a great, old fashioned, marginally elegant, classic restaurant, filled with history and character. And even a huge feast here is not expensive (by Los Angeles standards).
It is good to make a reservation because if you don't, the line to get a table is very long, stretching from the front hostess counter out the door through the patio and well onto the sidewalk. And we were not there at a busy time. However, we got a table in the patio (where smoking is allowed) right away.
I liked our patio table, and felt like I was experiencing the entire pageant of the place, until I had to go to the bathroom, and got a chance to walk through the interior of the restaurant. All I can say is - next time I am going to make a reservation for the inside. It is really special. It feels like a mixture of old Hollywood, classic New York, and top-flight Mexican elegance. Lots of dark carved wood, an amazing bar, like something out of a movie, paintings, rich wallpaper and carpets, beautiful wooden tables and chairs. This is a movie set - and it is packed.
As far as the meal goes - we had drinks - followed by about five dishes, and all of them were delicious. The first dish was, of course, the restaurants signature creation: a table-side Caesar Salad. The salad chef wheeled the cart to our table side and began the ritual with the expert precision of the finest Japanese "Teppan-Yaki" knife-wielder at the best Benihana of my dreams. He flipped pepper-mills, flung spoon-fulls of ground anchovies through the air, and tossed grated parmigiana cheese directly onto the tops of our salads like a missile of snow. The best thing was how he cut a small hole in the coddled egg and pulled just the yoke out. It was the most delicious Caesar Salad I have ever had (created here for the first time I might add).
After our historic salad experience we launched into a number of small dishes (titled "Tapas" on the menu): buttery lengua (cow tongue) in a brown sauce, perfectly tender pulpo (octopus) in a rich paprika gravy, and roasted beef marrow bones with toast points and sparkling salt crystals.
Accompanying our meal was lots of delicious breads (3 kinds: crispy French style, chewy Italian, and crumbly Mexican bread with a creamy inside), plus two types of butter (one, pure unsalted - and the second, infused with herbs & garlic), plus an excellent green olive taponade. There was also a reddish pepper paste that we could spread on the bread that was not very hot. One could make a feast just out of these. The only thing overtly Mexican in my limited experience here was a well prepared version of the standard Tijuana chip-like staple: little circular tortillas (both corn and flour) fried and then baked to an unbelievable crispness, with no oily residue at all - served with an avocado puree that seemed more French than Mezo-American.
We wanted to eat more - because every dish that we saw brought to every other table looked so good that we were filled with "Food-Envy". But we both were too stuffed to eat more. We had to be satisfied with what we had, already planning our meal menu for next time.
My daughter and I expected our feast at Caesar's to be our most expensive dinner in Tijuana - our "Big Splurge". But when the bill came... it was less than fifty dollars US.
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