Baja California

La Moresca Restaurant Fails To Impress In Tijuana

It bets on Mediterranean-style dishes in a city that reinvented it.

By Degustador Anónimo2015-12-02T18:41:40+00:00

We welcome our new culinary review contributor, Degustador Anónimo!

Paseo Chapultepec's mall holds a controversial place in tijuanenses' hearts.

The so-called "culinary mall" opened a few years ago during the city's culinary reinvention. At first, the idea of having different options to dine out all in one place was exciting, but putting that idea to practice has left much to be desired. So instead of being a place where you can choose from multiple local delicious offers, it ended up being a overpriced food court that you can find pretty much anywhere in the country: with Italianni's, Comicx, Chili's. One that catches the eye is a place called La Moresca, which doesn't have the same franchise connotations like the other restaurants, a reason why this place was chosen as the first victim for Degustador Anónimo.

Restaurant's interior. Photo: Courtesy

[rating]1[/rating]

The place has a hipsterish/high-end kind of look to it mixed with an executive environment, with guys in loafers and those vests that you see everywhere, but with menus with little hipster animal drawings. After taking a look at the backside of the menu, I was somewhat disappointed after noticing that, in fact, La Moresca is also a restaurant chain, listing their different locations on it. The service was good but their local beer selection leaves much to be desired, but at least they recognize that they are in Mexico's craft beer capital, offering at least a few local craft beer options.

It's looks like a seafood restaurant with all the condiments. Photo: Courtesy.

After ordering an entrée and reading the menu, we noticed multiple seafood options that disappointed us in the end. We first ordered the tuna tartar, which our waiter pitched it to us as having a Thai-styled peanut salsa, still fresh and with other traits. When they brought it to our table, we saw something with an excellent appearance, to which the waiter followed with an unnecessary action by squishing it all with a fork as if it were a beouf tartare. This unnecessary step only released all of the tuna juices, mixing it with a scantily inspired dressing that reminded me of an "Asian Chicken Salad" from a fast-food restaurant.

We followed with a Mediterranean casserole, a spicy oil shrimp and octopus dish. The shrimps were obviously frozen, fibrous, fraying with each bite. The rubbery octopus was there for mere decoration, I suppose, because there were only a few pieces of it on an entrée that was supposedly for more than one person. I have no idea where the oil's reddish coloring came from because it certainly wasn't from any type of condiment. The taste was bland and seasoned only to mask the fact that it was frozen food, I'm guessing.

The Mediterranean casserole. Photo: Courtesy.

For the main dish, we ordered the catch of the day and the ribeye. Here at Degustador Anónimo we have a mantra which is "It's Hard to F*ck Up a Steak". However, they did just that. We asked for the cut to be cooked at the chef's discretion but apparently the chef is schizophrenic because the steak was cooked at different temperatures on different parts of it. The catch of the day is what saved the meal, but to little merit, since what was enjoyable about it was the freshness of it, more so than the seasoning. The management doesn't have enough faith in its chef's cooking, you can tell by the multiple amounts of salsas and condiments that are placed on the table. Only does Sinaloa seafood offer so many options.

This brings me to my grand conclusion on the place, or rather a question for the management:

Why open a Mediterranean-style seafood restaurant with the quality of a chain restaurant in a city that is redefining that same style?

As I said before, the place has an executive environment, but if you want to hold a meeting with your partners and coworkers at Paseo Chapultepec, just go to Chili's, the food has the same quality and it cheaper.

Final score: 1 star.

Even after reading this review you still want to check it out, here's the map:

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