Since no one is telling you, you should cancel your reservation. Taco Maria offers nothing but a tasting menu except on Tuesday nights and for lunch. If you show up on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night , the only thing you will be allowed to order is a $75 tasting menu. Your only choices will be between 2 dishes per each of the 4 courses, and whether you want wine pairings or not. If you can’t handle the $75/person, best to cancel, because once you’re in the restaurant you will be locked into it.
Thanks. We surprisingly don’t have any really great fish shacks in SF. Bar Crudo is probably the closest to FWD; for a more refined experience. I suppose there’s Waterbar too, although it can hardly be considered a fish shack. I’m an East Coast transplant and I miss the abundance of small coastal eateries with fresh shellfish and local line catch. My wife will appreciate the interesting cocktails too.
Darn, thanks for letting me know! I’ll run it by the missus ASAP and see whether it gets a green light with her parents.
You might want to try Connie and Teds in West Hollywod for that New England shack.
So obvioulsy come early and take Sepulveda to get to LAX
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Thanks; I’ll note it for a future trip but I’d prefer to keep it simple and not stray too far with our flights and potential traffic.
I would eat at Coni over FwD any day, but they are radically different restaurants. One is a humble, festive but relatively “no frills” down home Mexican spot serving some of the most unique seafood dishes in LA that are very simple, yet utterly delicious and frequently quite spicy.
FwD is almost the complete opposite. A hyper-cramped little space that is super hip, and crowded. I don’t know what people see in the place exactly… some things are good, some are not; it’s a menu that is mostly seafood and fairly all over the place. Given your hatred of places with small plates that lack a strong coherency you may end up feeling weirded out, not sure. But if mainly just want to eat a traditional, simple seafood tower I think it would be the better pick. Also, if you’re a “eat to be seen” kind of person this would be your clear go to.
Personally, if you are going to Manhattan Beach there are several other places I would go as an out-of-towner. The same chef runs Manhattan Beach Post near FwD, and the biscuits alone might warrant the drive. However, my personal pick would be Love & Salt. Why? Well, I could go into more detail if you like, but the short version is that I feel they deliver on their philosophy that “food only needs two ingredients to be great”, and because they have dishes you don’t see anywhere else for the most part. like a spectacular half pigs head, and rabbit porchetta. The rabbit porchetta alone would be worth making the drive for as I have never had anything like it anywhere else.
But I’m not you, and don’t know what you’re looking for, that would just be my personal pick.
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Thank you very much; that’s a big help and I’m going to cancel our res at FwD and consider either Coni or L&S. I’ll run the two by my wife now and get her input. Appreciate it!!
BTW, I don’t hate restaurants that lack coherency if there’s a sensible underlying theme that ties dishes together. FwD doesn’t seem unlike Grand Central for instance. It may be a varied menu of different seafood dishes ranging from East Coast staples (raw bar, chowder, lobster, etc) to Southern, Mediterranean and Pacific flavors, but there’s a coherency in that all dishes come from the sea and seem to follow in the tradition of regional seafood eateries. It makes sense to serve crab cakes with sea bass or snapper, even if there are contrasting flavor profiles in the preparation. It makes NO sense whatsoever to serve a cloyingly sweet maple pork chop with a shitty mixed-up bowl of ramen, lemongrass shrimp, store-bought hummus and dosas. Just to clarify.
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I could be wrong but SF doesn’t strike me as a place with regional Mexican seafood.
and MB Post.
Definitely not!
We’ll switch to Coni. Do you have any standout menu recommendations?
What does that mean exactly?
Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Baja
Does anywhere in the US have all of those? Other than Sinaloa/Jalisco/Baja, those are pretty obscure… how did you even pick that tiny subsection of Mexico as being the regional version of the country’s cuisine?
To be fair, a lot of the places mentioned in the SFGate article are situated in the East Bay which has much more diverse offerings these days. Of the SF restaurants listed (incl. a few taquerias and trucks) not all are destination-worthy or even that great, imo. We really don’t have much in the way of noteworthy Mexican in SF proper.
LA has all of Mexico seafood regions.
Look closely on the trucks or menu “Estilo ____”
Well fair enough, if you literally only allow the tiny city of SF proper then there is sure to be a lot missing. I don’t know how places could really survive there. If it wasn’t for super high volume, it would be hard to imagine places like La Taqueria or El Farolito surviving there.
SF probably has worse Mexican than LA, but doesn’t everywhere in the USA? I thought the question was about whether it was available at all, not whether it was better than LA.
I would never claim SF’s Mexican is better than LA’s… but I also really wish that someone made burrito’s like La Taqueria, quesadillas like El Farolito, and fusion California burritos with tosilog like Senor Sisig in LA… of course, most people would not allow any of these things to be called Mexican food, but still…
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Of course…lol I sort of blocked out LA, I was thinking somewhere else in the country I guess. LA is too absurdly varied to compete with, guess it was the obvious answer though hah.
What time should I reasonably plan for Coni if we’re catching a 10:30 PM domestic flight to SFO? We’ll probably be dropping a rental off at Avis beforehand.
We’ll likely order the pescado zarandeado, some camarones (what’s better: diablo or chipotle?), and a couple of smoked marlin tacos. Don’t want to feel rushed. This is a Saturday night; Thanksgiving weekend. I just want to get a sense of timing: both in the kitchen and front of house (i.e. typically crowded, lines, wait time for seating, etc.?)
Thanks!
fwiw, i’ve never gotten out of march moderne for under $50/pp.