Fish tacos part two: theories and recipes

Fish tacos part 1

Pop-economist Tyler Cowen has a theory for sussing out restaurants that offer the best tasting food for the cheapest amount of money.

Oooohhhh, if only we'd studied stuff like this in my college econ classes. I might have gone to grad school and stuck with all those graphs and curves and never gone running for the hills of journalism. Well, probably not. But, still, it would have been fun.

Anyway, he advises avoiding high-rent areas and instead heading to out-of-the-way strip malls, preferably malls without an anchor store. He’s got a lot of tips and theories, but in essence the thinking goes that restaurants in unsexy places have to be destination-spot good to stay alive.

As soon as I read the story about him in the Washington Post, I thought of my brother's favorite taco joint near his home in Moss Landing, CA.

It is tucked into a nondescript strip mall with a few other mom-and-pop shops. The mall - and that is stretch of the word for this motley row of shops - is in one of the few working class towns left on the Monterey Bay.

The restaurant is a small collection of basic tables and chairs and a bright collection of every kind of party decoration you can imagine. And for a few bucks you can walk out with a hot dance of spice and fried fish wrapped in warm corn tortillas plus a generous side of rice and black beans.

On my last visit, we hit the place several times, taking the tacos home to eat picnic style on his living room floor while sucking down Pacifico beers with lime wedges in them.

The meals were better than any that I’ve had in the mediocre restaurants that make up most of downtown Monterey.

Thinking about those fish tacos made me grab the car keys and head for the grocery store. I'd never tried to make fish tacos at home, but why not?

I went with tilapia. Cut it in bite size chunks and shook it in a dry rub. A dusting of cornmeal and into the hot canola oil.

I made my traditional doctored up can of beans and some rice and we were good to go. (except we didn’t have any Pacifico, boohooohooo.)

As you can see from the picture, we ate our fish and beans together. Not authentic fish tacos in any way. But that is the nice thing about cooking at home when no one else is looking. If you want pickles with your peanut butter so be it. If you like the beans in the taco with the fish, there is no one to know.

Here’s the recipe. If you are a stickler for authenticity, serve the beans on the side. Or in their own bean taco.