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In late 2021, Mexican American entrepreneur Roberto Pérez acquired a tip from pals a couple of avenue vendor in Vernon making some superb ceviches. Pérez, whose mom was born in Nayarit (a area identified for a few of Mexico’s greatest seafood), was blown away by this man serving ceviches from an ice chest on the road. The seller, Francisco Leal, turned out to be a local of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, identified throughout Mexico as a vacation spot for seafood in its personal proper, a spot the place cooks typically prepare for years earlier than attending to work in hot and cold bars (barra fría and barra caliente). Leal had labored for 17 years on the Pizzeta Restaurant Group in Culiacán whereas receiving a number of diplomas in worldwide cuisines, and he had even opened a now-closed sushi restaurant of his personal in La Paz, Baja California. Impressed, Pérez and Leal fashioned a partnership, and in February of this 12 months they opened Del Mar Ostioneria, a game-changing meals truck serving high-end Sinaloa-style seafood with a Japanese contact.
Pérez used a household connection to safe a clear, tan-wrapped meals truck that bore the restaurant’s emblem and some line drawings of seafood. The pair have been even in a position to safe a central touchdown spot for the rig, parking the truck in a Miracle Mile space strip mall car parking zone that belongs to Pérez’s father-in-law. The strip mall on La Brea is stuffed with Latino and Asian-owned companies, making it the perfect setting for dreamy uncooked oysters, ceviches, aguachiles, and sashimis served on the road.
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To date, the choices have confirmed to be slightly distinctive. Del Mar Ostioneria may be the one Mexican meals truck in LA carrying kusshi (British Columbia), kumiai (Baja California), and Pacific coast kumamoto oysters. The recent oysters get a couple of drops of housemade ponzu sauce, finely diced cucumber, tomato, crimson onion, and tobiko (flying fish roe), and are eaten by the plateful. The identical ponzu sauce pairs with sashimi, together with freshly sliced tuna topped with skinny rings of chile serrano, tobiko, horseradish sprouts, and ginger. There are seven completely different ceviches accessible, every fashioned into rings, like a spicy uncooked tuna that balances peppery horseradish sprouts, pickled ginger, sliced avocado, a splash of chiltepín powder, and a positive, crispy garnish of fried leeks. Every ceviche is supposed to be eaten with tostadas or saltines.
Elsewhere on the menu, diners can enjoyment of an aguachile negro that comes with a black umami sauce dusted with chiltepín powder, whereas the aguachile habanero is available in a mango-habanero salsa that brings the warmth. For these which might be delicate to spicy meals, the sweeter aguachile tamarindo is the way in which to go.
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The menu is rounded out by seafood tacos served on non-GMO blue corn tortillas, oyster and seafood pictures, Mexican seafood cocktails made with sushi-grade kani (imitation crab), and cooked shrimp tostadas with chipotle mayo. Consider the latter as a Mexican-style, rice-less crab hand roll served on a tostada. It’s a nod to Leal’s love of Japanese flavors and strategies.
Del Mar Ostioneria makes use of high-quality seafood from either side of the border with a menu executed by a talented, veteran chef from Mexico’s prime seafood area. Suppose Nobu meets fashionable Baja California meets a Culiacán hotspot, and all served from a car parking zone on La Brea, making this truck probably the greatest new seafood stops in Los Angeles.
Del Mar Ostioneria is positioned at 830 South La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036, and is open Monday to Friday, 12 p.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
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