Totally cool, DD. TY.
Malarkey ? There is enough local talent which doesn’t rely on hype but actual excellent cooking, e.g. Foshee, Jackson, Gordon, Guillas to name a few.
Yeah, maybe, but there’s also Plascencia. And don’t say he’s “hyped”.
Bracero is hyped but not Plascenica
That’s a very interesting point of view.
Plasenica has shown previously at different restaurants in Mexico that he can cook and run a good restaurant. I think that he didn’t focus enough on Bracero and that he thought he could run a restaurant with a B team. What I heard there is a reason why the starting chef de cuisine Wilkins isn’t any longer employed at Bracero.
Bracero has quickly become both an institution and a legend in SD. What Plascencia might have thought about it at first has no doubt transfigured.
Sorry but we strongly agree to disagree regarding Bracero and its impact and reputation in SD and beyond
Legend? Institution? I want what you’re smoking.
A legend in your mind perhaps but not in SD
Time will tell.
People are way to fast to call (even outside of restaurants) a legend or institution but you have to earn it over a long time and have an impact far beyond your city. Ask anybody at the east coast about Bracero and perhaps 1 of 1000 might have perhaps heard the name if at all. Ask somebody even outside of the US about Chez Panisse or French Laundry and many people know about it and their culinary impact - now we are talking about legends - Bracero hasn’t reached 0.1% of the way to become a legend yet.
I don’t really care if the east coast has heard about Bracero or for that matter the whole Nueva Baja cuisine movement.
But I hear you. It’s only a local legend – and only now being born.
It’s not even a local legend or institution
OK. Let’s stop here.
Why ? As I said people use the words legends and in general very inflationary - to become one takes a long time of delivering superior results - Bracero isn’t even open for two years with mixed reviews/feedback.
OK, I’m game to more conversation.
Yes, I think I inappropriately used the word “legend”, since as you say, something can’t be a legend in such a short time.
But Bracero is an offspring of the main driver of the recent manifestation of a the New Baja culinary movement, most specifically in Tijuana, which I think one has to credit to Plascencia and his family. No?
That’s why I made the destinction between Plascenica and Bracero. Plascenica is becoming an institution (his culinary impact has to be much more deeper to become a legend) but that absolutely doesn’t mean that every restaurant of him is automatically even good or impactful independently what happened with other restaurants from him before. After talking with a few people in the restaurant business it looks like he seriously lost quality control at Bracero and it got quite a bad reputation for being very inconsistent BOH and rather bad FOH - which let to the rather drastic change in the kitchen. Bracero is at this point becoming a bad offspring and he is significantly more in the kitchen to save it. Bracero is actually of to a rather bad start after one year.
Yes. There were some difficult problems BOH at Bracero, as I understand it. Hopefully now resolved.
This is a pretty fair review of Bracero by Troy Johnson in February edition of San Diego magazine that I think hits a lot of the highlights and lowlights of Javier’s place pretty well with both FOH AND BOH issues.
Hopefully they are learning, improving, and fine tuning, because when its good it can be great!