Bad Euphemism, Good Food
The Search for Seattle's Best Fish Taco
Jack Hornady
Tools
Flying Fish
300 Westlake Ave N
Seattle 98109
(206) 728-8595
La Carta de Oaxaca
5431 Ballard Ave NW
Seattle 98107
(206) 782-8722
My first encounter with the dish at the center of this investigation—tacos pescados, a lovely Spanish phrase demoted in English to the snickerworthy "fish taco"—occurred on a night I'll never forget: November 4, 2008. While making my way from the election-night party at Tini Bigs to the one at the downtown Westin—soon after Pennsylvania was called for Obama, with Ohio on the horizon—I realized the type of drinking the night demanded required some food. I ventured into Flying Fish, where there were no TVs, no wireless connection, and little acknowledgement of the sea change under way in the nation. Instead, I found a nice Tuesday-night crowd, seats still available for walk-ins, and a platter of grilled fish tacos so good and satisfying they rank as one of the highlights of a night that would prove to be one monolithic highlight.
Some context: I am not a lifelong fish eater. After 20 years of ovo-lacto vegetarianism, I started eating seafood a couple of years ago and discovered that well-cooked fish (or, as PETA is currently calling it, sea kitten) was what the best tofu aspired to be. I still have little affinity for most seafood—the wet, the shelled, the fishy—but I am a freshly minted connoisseur of a particular brand of whitefish: thoroughly cooked, on the drier side of moist, and thoroughly, wonderfully mellow. The fish at the center of Flying Fish's grilled fish tacos platter ($19.95 small/$24.95 large, both meant to be shared) is a perfect model of the form, served in inch-wide cubes charred deliciously in spots, with crispy outer streaks covering tender inner streaks—all of the perfectly firm flakiness that fuels those tofu-apotheosis rhapsodies. Accompanying the fish are two well-selected garnishes (tangy charred-tomato salsa, cool and creamy guacamole) and, most importantly, handmade corn tortillas.
Stranger Personals
More context: I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, where I learned to love New Mexico–style Mexican food and hate corn tortillas. Maybe it was my unsophisticated palate, but as a kid, corn tortillas were the sickly cousins of far-superior flour tortillas and seemingly designed to be as rough and flavorless as possible. If flour tortillas were chocolate, corn tortillas were carob. But all my corn-tortilla biases were upended by the tortillas on the Flying Fish taco platter, which came from a different galaxy than the thin, bland sandpaper discs I learned to dread as a kid. The Flying Fish's corn tortillas, with their moist thickness and near-sponginess, were closer in texture to an Ethiopian flat bread. (I might've credited the whole thing to a usually successful yuppie-fusion experiment if I hadn't encountered an almost identical tortilla at another restaurant—Broadway's short-lived El Tajin, an authentic Mexican joint whose homemade corn tortillas I ate once and never forgot.) The right corn tortilla—substantial, quietly flavorful—is a beautiful thing. Live and learn!
My guy Jake shared both the platter and my love for the platter on election night, and he urged immediate comparison with what he hailed as equally amazing fish tacos at La Carta de Oaxaca. Only recently did I follow through, sitting myself down in the stylish and charming Ballard Avenue room for a plate of halibut tacos (three for $10 at lunch). The good-sized chunks of grilled halibut came with nicely crispy bits drizzled in smoked-chipotle sauce, to be augmented at will with offerings from the self-serve salsa bar. (Among many other delights here: a perfectly contentious pico de gallo—the jalapeño kicking the ass of the onion, which takes out its anger on the tomato.)
But again, the most remarkable component of the meal was the corn tortillas, which trounced the dry beige punishments of my youth in an entirely different way than Flying Fish's meaty corn sponges. Instead, La Carta de Oaxaca offered up thin tortillas (made before your eyes behind the counter), flash-fried to chiplike crispiness around the edges while retaining a sturdy softness on the insides. In their own way, the La Carta de Oaxaca fish tacos were exactly as satisfying as those at Flying Fish, but the experience of eating at the latter easily trumped the experience of eating at the former. Flying Fish's build-'em-yourself fish tacos allow trial-and-error experimentation that brings you, leisurely, eventually, to your own ultimate fish taco. It's a goddamn revelation.
If you're now craving tacos pescados, but the economy's got you
hurting, Taco Del Mar sells a perfectly good fish taco for $2.
The whitefish is breaded and lightly fried (bad for healthiness, good
for deliciousness) and laced with fresh cabbage, tomatoes, and salsa,
as well as Taco Del Mar's signature mysterious white sauce (optional
according to them, mandatory according to your mouth). It is cheap, and
it is good. 
Write your own damn review.
But to the point, someone who doesn't like fish and has been eating fish tacos for 4 months shouldn't be writing this review. Taco Del Mar is dog shit. Two words: steamed tortillas. And "tacos pescados" is plural ("fish tacos"), and is not particularly lovely a phrase.
And just how dry/moist is the "drier side of moist?"
closed. closed. closed.
all of them..
we ended up at taco bell.
it was delicous.
Mmm, now I'm craving Oaxaca's pico. So damn good.
La Carta de Oaxaca has good fish tacos, but you are wasting an opportunity to eat perfect pork if you order fish tacos there. Instead, get their Tacos al Pastor or Mole Negro de Oaxqueño, which are both vastly superior choices.
Furthermore, La Carta de Oaxaca's pico de gallo is god.
i mean, not genuine, of course, but so good!
La Carta is overrated.
I am no longer a fan of Gordito's (not previously mentioned here) as, over the years their food has morphed so that there seems to one pot in the back containing "filling" which is then packaged into burritos, tacos, enchiladas, etc. In other words, it's pretty much all the same. Blah. Their fish taco, however, is quite good, the only thing they serve that doesn't seem to come out of that pot. At least, last time I checked this was the case.
Amazing Halibut and salmon tacos....
Kip, I heard you were hiding out in Mexico? Just a rumor? Where ever you are I hope someone SHITS in your food on a daily basis and you get a bad case of dysentery. Amebic or bacillary, it doesn't matter which, as long as you bleed out of your ignorant lily white asshole.
Listen to Kip, he know everything!
Read more about Kip Schoning, a ledgend in his own mind. Google him! It will be fun! There are at least 4 pages of hits (all good reads). Then come back here to vote. Is he in a position to review anything?
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