- (whispering) What's happening?
- (laughing) I'm waiting for you to start.
- Oh, I'm starting!
We've done a fish episode.
- [Andrew] We've done a taco episode.
- [Steven] Today,
- [Andrew] We're doing
fish tacos. - Fish tacos!
- That's right. - Sorry, cut you off there.
- Steven, close your eyes.
- Okay.
- You hear the crashing of the waves.
You smell the ocean air.
Imagine putting a perfectly cooked piece of fish
into your mouth right now.
- I am salivating.
- Now transport yourself to under a bridge
next to the freeway, - What?
- 14 miles from here. - No, stop.
Stop the dream!
You know what happens under highways?
- That's where we're going now.
- Sketchy things, bro.
- Sketchy things happen at the beach.
- [Steven] Today on Worth It we're gonna be trying
three fish tacos at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most worth it at its price.
- Because Steven, all of the best fish tacos
are not at the beach, we're heading to Silver Lake
to a taco truck called Ricky's Fish Taco.
- Listen, folk.
I do not appreciate having us leave the beach,
but I have had these fish tacos before.
They are delightful.
But come on, you can't just bring me to the beach
and then leave the beach.
- Beach please!
(laughing)
(Latin music)
- [Ricky] Hi, my name is Ricardo Piña.
We're at Ricky's Fish Tacos.
I had the idea of making the fish tacos in LA because
the lack of original recipes for Ensenada style fish tacos.
Actually, I got the recipe from my mom and my sister
and my grandma, put it all together,
and apply it to the rush rush of LA.
- Was it something that she was making at home for you?
- No, actually I'm the first taco guy in the family.
I went to school to be a lab technician,
but ended up being a taquero.
- Really? (laughing)
- A good Ensenada style fish taco calls for
wheat flour, oregano, mustard, mayo, fried in lard.
I use a lot more oregano, a lot more mustard.
- [Andrew] So it's a more flavorful batter?
- [Ricky] Yes.
The deep fryers, all the flavors fly out of the batter
with that kind of temperature 'cause it's boiling,
so you add a little extra
in order to maintain the flavors in it.
- How do you achieve a really crispy piece of fish?
- Ah, lard heats up faster than oil.
We want the lard to go into the fish,
so I pierce the fish as it's frying.
You get moist, melt-in-your-mouth fish with a crispy crust.
- [Steven] I can hear your lab technician background
coming through right now (Ricky laughing)
as you're describing the cooking agent, you know.
- Probably!
A good fish taco should be able to
bring you back to Ensenada.
Shredded cabbage, which doesn't go bad without refrigeration
as fast as lettuce.
Back in the 50's in Ensenada,
they even didn't have refrigeration!
When I started my recipe nine years ago,
I didn't stop until I tried it
and it tasted like my favorite fish taco place in Ensenada.
(ka-ching) - The smell of fried stuff,
the aroma around this truck is delicious.
- Almost perfume-like.
Okay, so we need to sauce these bad boys up.
Which one do you recommend that we try?
- [Ricky] Definitely the red because great
the smokiness of the roasted tomatoes and the jalapenos
with the crusty fish taco.
- [Andrew] Okay, let's go.
Straight down the hatch. - Here we go.
We didn't cheers! (grunting)
(stomping)
- I'm like a horse that you taught math.
(laughing)
Here's a controversial statement.
- Uh oh. - I think that fish
might be a better fried food than chicken.
- Oh, wow!
Please, defend yourself because
there's gonna be some mad people out there.
- It's how soft the flesh stays on the inside.
Here at Ricky's, this particular batter gets so crispy.
- If you've ever gotten like a really nice new,
fresh pair of sneakers and you call 'em crispy?
- Yes. - But then you put your foot
in the shoe--
- And it feels soft!
- And it's so soft inside! (laughing)
- Yeah. - This is like
the best sneaker.
- That might be the best analogy you've ever had on the show
- Thank you.
So good, I want more. - Okay.
I think we should do a lobster taco.
- Yes!
- I have to ask about the lobster taco.
Is that actually a very common taco from Ensenada?
- [Ricky] Not from Ensenada, from Rosarito.
There is a place called Puerto Nuevo,
a lobster fishing village.
They serve Pacific lobster with salt, pepper, paprika,
and garlic butter, so I wanted to bring that too.
- [Andrew] Lobster cheers.
- Mmm!
- Oh that's good!
- I like how this is a very affordable way to eat lobster.
- Yeah. - If you're a lobster lover.
- Seven bucks, (snaps) boom.
- You might roll your eyes at a lobster taco,
but if nothing else, this proves that Ricky is a great
all-around chef and is not just in the frying game.
- Look, he's a scientist.
- Ricky's a (beep) fish scientist.
- Yes. - Is what we actually
learned today. - That's right.
- [Andrew] Let's get out of here.
- I think the only thing that would've made that better
is if I was eating it at the beach.
That was an amazing fish taco.
- It was so hot and crispy - (whispering) Crispy.
- Now I need to cool my mouth down.
(laughing) Ice-cream taco time.
Look at that sucker.
- Why does mine already look worse than yours
out of the bag, what the heck?
- You must have squeezed it too hard.
Oh, that's good!
The taco shape is great for ice-cream though,
because it allows you to bite the ice-cream
and your teeth don't get cold.
- Fish taco fact time!
- [In Unison] Fish taco fact.
(cymbals) (laughing)
- Annie, do you have the fact?
- We eat 15 and a half pounds of fish and shellfish
per person each year in the US.
- 15.5 pounds per what?
- Year.
- That's it?
- Yeah, I would think it would be a lot more.
- No way. - Yeah.
We gotta up our fish consumption.
So we're on our way to a place called Holbox,
a fine seafood restaurant in a food court near USC.
- So once again, we are not going to the beach.
- Correct.
(upbeat music)
- My name is Gilberto Cetina,
we're here at Holbox restaurant
in Mercado la Paloma in Expo Park.
Holbox is a regional coastal Mexican restaurant
that works with sustainable, high quality local seafood.
The heart of Mexican seafood is fresh ingredients,
seasonality, and simplicity.
The purest way of eating seafood, two ways.
Raw or wood grill.
We're here to try a kampachi fish taco.
The anatomy of a taco
is pretty standard across all of Mexico.
You have a tortilla, then you have a protein,
usually there's a fat component, in like street tacos
that's what makes the flavor really pop.
This fish in particular, the kampachi has the fattiness
to give you that full mouthfeel.
So, fish comes in straight from the farm,
Omega Blue Agriculture in Baja, California.
Our fish taco is skin-on.
We try to use as much of the fish as possible.
If the skin is delicious, use it.
Seasoned just with sea salt, that's it.
Gets that very important ingredient,
which is the smoke from the fire.
That smoke takes me back to cooking fish on the beach
back home in Yucatan.
While the fish is cooking, masa made for us by a molino
in east LA that's been doing it for like a thousand years,
maybe like 50 years. (laughing)
We want the flavor of the fish.
We cook it to medium-well.
This is a fish that is beautiful
if it's slightly undercooked.
Our pico de gallo, a little bit of morita sauce.
Morita is a smoked, dry chile.
A little drizzle of that
helps accentuate the sweetness of the fish.
All right guys, this is the (ka-ching)
wood grilled kampachi fish taco.
- [Andrew] Awesome, can you smell that?
Oh yeah!
- [Steven] Look at this giant chunk of meat.
Taco cheers.
- Damn it, that's good.
- That is ridiculous!
With the fear of sounding hyperbolic,
this is the most perfectly blended balance of ingredients
I think I've had in a taco before.
- This might be the best constructed
single bite of fish I've ever had,
including the best sushi I've ever had.
- Oh no!
You've had the best sushi in the world.
- This is right up there with it.
What more can you say?
- It was over too soon.
- But, another thing that I would like you guys to try
is aguachile, it's a Northern Mexican thing,
very very popular (speaks in Spanish) California.
It's a marinade made with lime juice, water, cilantro,
and spicy green serrano peppers.
We add a little bit of cucumber to it
to give a little bit of sweetness
and we're gonna be pairing it with beautiful
Santa Barbara spot prawns,
one of the great products of Southern California.
Marinated in the aguachile, a little bit of avocado,
then we fry up the heads of the prawns
and serve them as a crispy garnish on the plate.
It's a great little appetizer.
(ka-ching) - [Andrew] What should be
my first bite?
- [Gilberto] The head.
- [Andrew] The head, really?
(crunch)
- Mmm, oh my god. - That was incredible.
The crunch of the shell,
why are we not eating shrimp like this all the time?
I'm gonna start with a little scallop action.
- Oh god.
This is crazy. - This is so good, yeah.
It's sweet like fruit.
It's ocean fruit. - Mmm.
Oh my gosh.
- This shrimp is ridiculous, whoa.
- The first thing I noticed was the plumpness
of the shrimp. - It's incredibly plump!
- Plump. - Plump.
You know like people who've gone too far
with their lip filler and it's uncomfortably plump?
This is borderline uncomfortably plump.
- That is so good.
- One of our most popular dishes also, pulpo en su tinta,
octopus in its own ink, in a taco.
- Fish taco location two taste test take two.
(clack)
(laughing)
- [Gilberto] The octopus taco is a very traditional
Yucatan style recipe, which is where I'm from.
Here we do a version of that where the tinta,
the ink component is made into a sofrito
and then the octopus is fried and served on top of the ink.
(ka-ching) - [Andrew] That sounds great.
- [Steven] Oh, it's really warm.
- I've never had a fried octopus before.
Cheers.
- Okay, where are we?
- Where are we?
- Where in the world do you eat octopus and it is soft,
still plump, crispy on the outside, and juicy.
Dude, it looks like a cheese stick.
(laughing)
I'm going to be thinking about that fish taco
- [Andrew] Yes. - For a long time.
- I'm gonna be thinking about that aguachile for a long time
So earlier we had an ice-cream taco.
It's time for another sweet treat.
We're having ice-cream again,
but this time it's in a fish. - What?
Ooh! (Andrew laughing)
Whoa!
How have I never had this before?
Boop. - Boop boop boop boop boop.
Everybody touch fish.
- Cheers!
- Mmm.
Mmm, mine has red bean inside.
Oh I just dripped on myself!
- Guys, I made a fish taco.
(laughing)
- (whispers) Fish taco fact. (cymbals)
- In 2017, 14% of seafood fished in the US
was used for fish oil. - [Andrew] What?
- And fish meal in animal food.
- I mean my cat does eat a lot of fish products.
- I think your cat should be on this Worth It episode.
- Ooh, I wonder if I could make a cat food fish taco.
- Ooh!
- He probably doesn't know what a taco is though,
so I don't know if you'd know how to eat it.
So for our last stop, tomorrow
we're going to Coni'Seafood.
She will be serving us a whole grilled fish
that we will eat as tacos.
(mystical instrumental)
- [Coni] My name is Coni Cossio, I'm owner of Coni'Seafood
and today I'll be serving pescado zarandeado.
- [Andrew] This is a cooking style?
- [Coni] Yes, you have to be flipping it back and forth.
- [Andrew] So, zarandeado
means flipping? - Means flipping, yes.
- [Andrew] Flipping the fish.
- [Coni] Coni'Seafood started in our backyard in 1989.
My dad was the founder, he's from Nayarit, Mexico.
The cooking is simple, you know,
it's just a little salt, pepper, a little lime
and you can taste the quality and so that's what I represent
First we have the whole fish.
We butter fry it, add a little margarine, salt,
and then my special sauce and then we put it to grill.
Face down first where all the meat is at,
'cause it's a longer cooking process.
It's about 25 to 30 minute process and we have
sliced red onions, a little bit of margarine,
soy sauce, a little bit of salt, and that's it.
The green sauce, it's a traditional Nayarit green salsa.
Serrano, limes, water, and salt.
If you go to Nayarit, all of the seafood places have that.
- [Steven] And is there a reason why you wanted to
maintain that communal style?
- [Coni] I thought my customers would like to come out
and enjoy the whole fish just the way
I would enjoy when I was 12 years old.
My dad would take us to the beach and we'd eat a large fish.
- [Steven] There's a fine balance between
telling customers to do too much or too little.
Like, I don't wanna cook my own food,
but I do wanna participate in the making of it.
- Absolutely, I will cook it for you, you serve it.
(laughing) (ka-ching)
- [Steven] The Michelada for you and the paloma's for me.
Cheers! - [Andrew] Cheers.
Mmm, how was yours?
- (laughs) My body's tingling.
- This looks incredible.
- Look at the sheen.
Look at how juicy this is. - [Andrew] Yeah.
I think we should try the fish on its own.
- [Steven] Ohh! (laughing)
- [Andrew] That's a choice piece.
- Oh, hot.
Why is it when I make fish, it's not like this.
- Knowing you, it could be any number of reasons.
Okay, I'm gonna do Coni's recommended construction first.
Fish, caramelized onions, a little green sauce, that's it.
- (sighing) You know what I just realized?
The reason that we probably build these
is because you get to like, you start to salivate
as you're preparing your dish.
Anticipation starts to build up
as you're putting it together. - I've been anticipating
the whole time I've been waiting for you
(laughing) to make a taco here, so.
- Yo, that salsa though.
(laughing)
- So-fish-ticated flavor. - Oh my god.
- Steven's designer bite is comin' up next.
- You ready?
I'm gonna add some of the crispy parts here,
caramelized onions, fresh red onion, of course, cucumber
and I'm adding a chip. (laughing)
Because it's there!
When you give me options, I'll take all of them.
- You're a monster.
You know (sighs) - You jealous?
- When you started I was like
there's no way this isn't gonna end up looking stupid,
but now I'm looking at your taco, it looks pretty fun.
(crunching)
What's the verdict?
- Heck yeah.
- I wanna try this. - Get in there.
It's really the crunch that I added here.
- I think the cucumber's my favorite part.
- I can imagine eating this on a beach.
- Oh, for sure.
Steven, I've brought you back to the beach.
- Thank you very much.
- We've had our fish tacos.
It's sunset on another Worth It story, time to decide.
- Okay, which fish taco was the most worth it to you?
- My Worth It winner is Holbox.
There was so much on that menu that I could easily go back
three more times and not eat any of the same food.
- All right. - Who's your Worth It winner?
- Okay look, I would eat all of them, all the time.
But, my Worth It winner also goes to Holbox.
The wood flavor plus the yellowtail
made this beautiful thing
that just - Yeah.
- Steamed my mouth, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
- Here's the thing, each fish taco today
had a special occasion where you would eat it.
Ricky's is the go-to, Holbox a date night,
and then Coni'Seafood that's the group gathering taco spot.
Adam, who's your Worth It winner?
- [Adam] Holbox.
- Holbox. - Adam says Holbox.
Annie, who's your Worth It winner?
- [Annie] Ricky's.
- Okay.
- Good night and good luck.
- I'm gonna go that way.
- Should we finally touch the ocean?
Let's go touch the ocean.
(smooth jazz music)
Watch out there's a bike coming.
(smooth jazz music)
- Jump in this volleyball game real quick.
(smooth jazz music)