Buzzy new businesses like Nova Easy Kombucha, March and Ash dispensary, and the incoming IB location of the Raising Cane’s fast-food chain have made their mark on the area—but the old spirit remains.

Described by the residents as a one-mile-by-one-mile beach town (I have never thought to see if that was accurate, but it sure has felt that small for the last 40 years of my life), IB is home to die-hard locals who haven’t always loved the evolution and modernization of their town through the years.

The food scene was always quiet and humble—people are creatures of habit in IB—but taco shops and family restaurants like the iconic Ed Fernandez Birrieria are the glue that has held Imperial Beach in my heart where food is concerned.

A perfect weekend of splitting time between eating and enjoying the sun involves these four main stars.

Tom Kha

Siam Imperial Thai Kitchen

Few cuisines make Mexican food look comparatively mild in heat. A small, immigrant family–owned restaurant, Siam Imperial takes that challenge head-on in an addictive and delicious way. I am a creature of habit with certain cuisines—I will try anything twice, but I like what I like. On a cold day (or at least cold for San Diego), I can’t think of anything better to both warm my soul and clear my sinuses than Siam Imperial’s tom kha. The salty, sweet, and sour signature flavors of Thailand are center stage in the larb gai, which I have with an order of som tum. The crunch…. the damn crunch.

Chilaquilas

El Tapatío

I can’t count the number of collective days we spent loitering in the booths or on the curb at El Tapatío. The restaurant serves as a lighthouse for many families who’ve lived in IB over several generations. The ladies in the back remind me of my family’s restaurants that I grew up roaming. My favorite breakfast is the chilaquiles—they’re ubiquitous in many eateries, Mexican and beyond, but very few taste like mom makes. At El Tapatío, they do them just right. For lunch, the molcajete is a thing of beauty: four proteins, nopales, and panela cheese, doused in roasted tomato sauce and presented in one of the mortar-and-pestle volcanic rock serving vessels found across Mexico.

Saimin

Big Kahuna’s

While Big Kahuna’s did not open until I was leaving IB, it has become another reason for me to head home. Go for the burger and stay for the saimin, a staple noodle soup and the national dish of Hawaiʻi. The broth is simultaneously unctuous and delicate, the “white whale” balance that most chefs could only dream of mastering. The walls come alive with the just-cheesy-enough décor. This is a restaurant Tarantino could have easily dropped into any of his movies and have it fit right in.

Cinnamon Roll

Stardust Donut Shop

With over 50 years in business, Stardust is the pièce de résistance of Palm Avenue in Imperial Beach’s OG community. Don’t let the beat-up sign promising “Fresh Nuts” deter you. That sign is the epitome of classic IB charm. Now, I will not lie and tell you that you will find the legendary doughnut shop open when you want it open. I will tell you that the first bite into one of the freshly fried and glazed raised cinnamon rolls might just change your life. Places like Stardust are the spots that I cling onto when thinking of the town that I called home after my family migrated from Tijuana. No matter what big name comes into the ’hood to gentrify us, we will always know where to find our local tribe.

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It’s Fernandez Restaurant, one of the most famous birria spots in Southern California. 

Fernandez (the sign says Ed Fernandez, but everyone just knows it as Fernandez) was started in this parking lot by two brothers—Jorge and Miguel—in 2006 (they’d eventually bring on their third brother, chef Carlos). Short on employment at the time, they borrowed a friend’s food truck and parked it here, serving their mom-tested recipe for the famed Mexican meat stew (here’s a short history of the dish).

Word got around fast. Pretty quickly they moved into the building, annexed next door, annexed upstairs, built a real nice back patio with Coca Cola decor (Coke schwag is to Mexican taco joints what Edison light bulbs are to gastropubs). Soon they will take over the building next door, and the church has offered to let customers use its parking lot (right now, they offer shuttle service to and from the parking lot at the nearby high school). 

As far as birria goes, Fernandez is a small empire in an alley. A pickup-window helps satisfy some of the demand, but their demand may just be insatiable.

Gotta admit, I detect a little wariness in the dozens of people waiting outside as we walk up. At least 95 percent of the customers this morning, most of them regulars it seems, are Mexican. My wife Claire and I are acutely white, from the chalkiest Northern European stock. The needle scratches—not much, but just a touch. As a San Diego native, Mexican culture has always felt like my own, too, though I realize it’s not, and now’s not a particularly good time in U.S. history to expect a warm reception. But this morning is the first time—not even during the Prop 187 years—that I feel a little out of place in Mexican culture. 

After all, Fernandez is a weekend sanctuary, and, well, here I come. I had plans to shoot short video segments, but I quickly dash those. I’m still writing about how good Fernandez is here in San Diego Magazine. But I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt the families’ breakfasts by yapping at a camera about why you all should come here and make their wait longer.

Maybe I’m projecting all this, saddling them with my own guilt. Maybe it’s just 9:30 a.m., they’re tired and hungry like I am, and a little bummed famous birria means waiting in line. Maybe they’re TikToking. I’m considering it’s possible a culture I love no longer feels terribly comfortable around me and how much that breaks my heart—when a bald ball of energy grabs my hand, shakes it with vigor, and says, “Hey! Good to see you!” Like we’re old friends, and I am the most welcome person ever to be welcomed.

This is Miguel. We’ve never met, and the only thing he knows about me is that I want to eat at his restaurant. Miguel is the host, the entertainer, the charmer, the man who makes families out of strangers. He knows customers by name, knows what babies and surgeries they’ve had. His brother Carlos runs the kitchen, and it cranks. 

This had to be my first stop on the hunt for the city’s best birria. It’s the gold standard. It’s a very simple menu. They have birria, and birria-related tacos. They also have menudo on weekends until they run out (they’ve run out). 

Miguel brings us what is possibly the single best taco I’ve had in my life—the Taco Queso Extremo, which is a house-fried tortilla, stained sunset red by that spicy, peppery birria consomme (broth), topped with melted cheese and moist, fall-apart birria beef that’s been crisped and browned on the griddle. Add hot sauce, chopped onions and cilantro, a dash of lime. The soft-crunch tortilla, the fatty, almost crisp melted cheese, the slow-stewed tender beef, dripping with the broth, the acid of hot sauce and lime, the red jus dripping down the side of your hand and arm—it’s over for you. 

The birria consomme (served in a cup, it’s the meaty broth—the true quality test of a birria) is very good, deeply red and a tad spicy. It’s not the traditional goat or even the post-traditional lamb, so it doesn’t have that exotic funk I love. But the meat is tender and tastes like it’s spent the whole morning soaking up the intoxicant blend of cloves and cinnamon and garlic and cumin (it has). 

Fernandez could expand, cater every quinceañera in Nestor and beyond. But Miguel tells us family time is important, especially after their parents passed a few years back. They’re only open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. That’s enough for them, even if it’s not enough for the rest of us. 

Fernandez Restaurant, 2265 Flower Ave., Nestor.

The post Destination: Fernandez Restaurant appeared first on San Diego Magazine.