Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Cheese-grabbing and wine-slurping in Tijuana

Musicians are part of the scene. This is Grupo Sonidero Travesuras...the Sound Pranksters?
Musicians are part of the scene. This is Grupo Sonidero Travesuras...the Sound Pranksters?
Place

Faraona

Avenida Puente México #8250, Colonia Zona Centro, Tijuana, BC

"La Faraona?” says Danielle. “She was a dancer, back in the glory days of Agua Caliente, here in Tijuana. Anita. She danced passionately, Andalusia-style. Flamenco. She poisoned her lover and herself when he stopped loving her. They say you can see her ghost dancing out from the minaret when the moon is full…”

Wow. Danielle’s telling me how come they’ve called their place “La Faraona” — the Lady Pharaoh.

I mean, what luck. There I was in TJ, wandering down Puente Mexico, aka First Street, at 10:00 at night. Heading back to the border. Only one blob of light, a cantina, open, then nothing, except for a little low-lit woody balcony loaded with a clump of people burbling away.

Chalk drawing of La Faraona, the dancer who poisoned herself and her lover, back in Agua Caliente’s glory days

I could see banners below them. One said something about tea, another about “micro-teatro,” and a third said, “La Faraona.” Natch, had to climb the steps to see what was going on.

And inside? Oh, this is great. A wine bar, a coffee place, really good original murals. Brand new. Looks old.

I take a seat at the bar and this gal Danielle comes up.

“Do you have anything to eat?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says. She has a merry eye. “But right now, it’s just our cheese plate. We make all our own cheeses and bread. These are our wines, too.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

She points to the bottles that are kinda stored sideways, gripped by clasps on the lighted wall behind.

“Sol de Media Noche,” says the chalkboard menu.

“Midnight Sun,” Danielle translates. “That’s the wine our Aunt Lupita makes down in the Valle de Guadalupe, along with the cheeses and breads.”

What the heck. I ask for the cheese plate (about $5) and a glass of “70/30” (wines start at about $3).

“It’s 70 percent cabernet sauvignon, 30 percent tempranillo, a young wine.” This is David, who’s standing with Danielle here at the bar. They were childhood friends, and he and Danielle and her brothers, Oscar and Jorge, started this place along with Aunt Lupita down in Guadalupe Valley, east of Ensenada.

“Lupita was a journalist here in TJ, until the bad times came,” David says. “Two years ago, she found a tiny piece of land in Guadalupe Valley and went down to produce cheeses and breads and wine. Already she has a good business. She doesn’t actually grow the grapes — not yet, anyway. She’s been buying wine from nearby vineyards and mixing it and putting it out under her own label. But she’s in the process of buying land so she can grow her own grapes. ”

David says opening here on First Street gives Aunt Lupita a local outlet in Tijuana. “And it lets us create a little center for culture, too. The micro theater was coming in to this building regularly, and they said, ‘Why don’t you join us?’ Wine-bar theaters are pretty hot in Spain right now. So, here you can get a glass of wine, go upstairs, watch one of the four plays they put on or all of them — they’re only 15 minutes each — then come back down, eat, meet friends, whatever.”

Cool way to store the bottles of Aunt Lupita’s wine

He brings me this glass of light-red wine. I sip it.

“It’s sweet, light, what we call an entry-level wine,” says David.

It’s sweet, all right, but not cloying, thank goodness. And light, but not watery.

My cheese plate arrives, three different cheeses splayed out in rows of half a dozen or more slices each. One’s stained yellow and brown, the next is yellow with a greenish rind, and the third is sweaty and milky. (Goat cheese?)

Next to the cheeses are three pots of salsa, one red and two greens. But they’re different from standard salsas, filled with bits of plants, looks like, and solid things I really can’t identify.

And on top of all this, you also get a basket of lightly baked and sliced baguette.

“That’s from our aunt, too,” says Danielle. “She bakes it down there and sends it up.”

So, hey, endless combo possibilities here. I start off loading a slice of the bread with the darkest cheese.

“That’s the ‘Cuatro Chiles,’” says Danielle. “Chile morita, jalapeño, chipotle, and chiltepin” (the only wild chili native to the U.S., turns out). I load some of the red salsa on top. It’s a mix of sun-dried tomatoes with goat cheese. Dee-lish.

A slurp of the Midnight Sun, then I grab the second cheese. This one’s “A la Leña” (firewood).

“Lupita covers it in the ash of olivewood,” says Danielle.

I add some salsa from the middle, mushy-green pot.

“Tapenade,” Danielle says when I ask. “Olives, capers, peppers.”

What a combo. You can taste the woodiness and olive infusion in the cheese, for sure, enhanced by the olives on top.

The last, a white cheese, is called “Oreado.”

Say what?

“It sort of means ‘sweaty,’” David says. “It’s French style, maybe a bit like brie, camembert.”

Or queso fresco, maybe. It’s squishier, lighter, which is good combined with the last little salsa pot, because that one’s assertive, dryish, tangy. Parsley? Oregano? Cilantro? It’s chimichurri, David explains, the Argentine steak rub. Lumpy, sticky.

Now I have to try all the other possible flavor combos.

Finally, around 11:00 p.m., I step back out into the night. I’m only ten bucks poorer.

Puente Mexico is deserted. But this is beautiful. With places like La Faraona opening up in the area — and they are starting to — you get the feeling that new life is sprouting here: downtown TJ is on the move again. Plus, I love that Auntie Lupita is stirring away at her cheeses down in Guadalupe, mixing her wines, and sending them up to the kids. Talk about locavore!

And I love the idea of 15-minute plays. Some days, that’s as long as my attention span lasts.

  • Prices: Cheese, meat plates usually around $5–$6; wines, from $3 glass; four-play evening performances of micro-teatro upstairs, Thursday–Saturday, around $12; individual plays, around $3.50 each
  • Buses/taxis: Mexicoach to Avenida Revolución (but you’ll need to walk from top to bottom of Revolución), or walk across footbridge from border, or catch cab or bus to “Centro” from Mexican side of the border
  • Nearest Mexicoach stop: San Ysidro: 4570 Camino de la Plaza, near the trolley terminal; Tijuana: Mexicoach depot on Revolución between 6th and 7th streets
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Why Unified® Review: What To Expect Dropshipping (Positive & Negative)

Next Article

Taco Taco Poway still has 99-cent fish tacos

Tacotopia prizewinner is well known among Powegians
Musicians are part of the scene. This is Grupo Sonidero Travesuras...the Sound Pranksters?
Musicians are part of the scene. This is Grupo Sonidero Travesuras...the Sound Pranksters?
Place

Faraona

Avenida Puente México #8250, Colonia Zona Centro, Tijuana, BC

"La Faraona?” says Danielle. “She was a dancer, back in the glory days of Agua Caliente, here in Tijuana. Anita. She danced passionately, Andalusia-style. Flamenco. She poisoned her lover and herself when he stopped loving her. They say you can see her ghost dancing out from the minaret when the moon is full…”

Wow. Danielle’s telling me how come they’ve called their place “La Faraona” — the Lady Pharaoh.

I mean, what luck. There I was in TJ, wandering down Puente Mexico, aka First Street, at 10:00 at night. Heading back to the border. Only one blob of light, a cantina, open, then nothing, except for a little low-lit woody balcony loaded with a clump of people burbling away.

Chalk drawing of La Faraona, the dancer who poisoned herself and her lover, back in Agua Caliente’s glory days

I could see banners below them. One said something about tea, another about “micro-teatro,” and a third said, “La Faraona.” Natch, had to climb the steps to see what was going on.

And inside? Oh, this is great. A wine bar, a coffee place, really good original murals. Brand new. Looks old.

I take a seat at the bar and this gal Danielle comes up.

“Do you have anything to eat?” I ask.

“Of course,” she says. She has a merry eye. “But right now, it’s just our cheese plate. We make all our own cheeses and bread. These are our wines, too.”

Sponsored
Sponsored

She points to the bottles that are kinda stored sideways, gripped by clasps on the lighted wall behind.

“Sol de Media Noche,” says the chalkboard menu.

“Midnight Sun,” Danielle translates. “That’s the wine our Aunt Lupita makes down in the Valle de Guadalupe, along with the cheeses and breads.”

What the heck. I ask for the cheese plate (about $5) and a glass of “70/30” (wines start at about $3).

“It’s 70 percent cabernet sauvignon, 30 percent tempranillo, a young wine.” This is David, who’s standing with Danielle here at the bar. They were childhood friends, and he and Danielle and her brothers, Oscar and Jorge, started this place along with Aunt Lupita down in Guadalupe Valley, east of Ensenada.

“Lupita was a journalist here in TJ, until the bad times came,” David says. “Two years ago, she found a tiny piece of land in Guadalupe Valley and went down to produce cheeses and breads and wine. Already she has a good business. She doesn’t actually grow the grapes — not yet, anyway. She’s been buying wine from nearby vineyards and mixing it and putting it out under her own label. But she’s in the process of buying land so she can grow her own grapes. ”

David says opening here on First Street gives Aunt Lupita a local outlet in Tijuana. “And it lets us create a little center for culture, too. The micro theater was coming in to this building regularly, and they said, ‘Why don’t you join us?’ Wine-bar theaters are pretty hot in Spain right now. So, here you can get a glass of wine, go upstairs, watch one of the four plays they put on or all of them — they’re only 15 minutes each — then come back down, eat, meet friends, whatever.”

Cool way to store the bottles of Aunt Lupita’s wine

He brings me this glass of light-red wine. I sip it.

“It’s sweet, light, what we call an entry-level wine,” says David.

It’s sweet, all right, but not cloying, thank goodness. And light, but not watery.

My cheese plate arrives, three different cheeses splayed out in rows of half a dozen or more slices each. One’s stained yellow and brown, the next is yellow with a greenish rind, and the third is sweaty and milky. (Goat cheese?)

Next to the cheeses are three pots of salsa, one red and two greens. But they’re different from standard salsas, filled with bits of plants, looks like, and solid things I really can’t identify.

And on top of all this, you also get a basket of lightly baked and sliced baguette.

“That’s from our aunt, too,” says Danielle. “She bakes it down there and sends it up.”

So, hey, endless combo possibilities here. I start off loading a slice of the bread with the darkest cheese.

“That’s the ‘Cuatro Chiles,’” says Danielle. “Chile morita, jalapeño, chipotle, and chiltepin” (the only wild chili native to the U.S., turns out). I load some of the red salsa on top. It’s a mix of sun-dried tomatoes with goat cheese. Dee-lish.

A slurp of the Midnight Sun, then I grab the second cheese. This one’s “A la Leña” (firewood).

“Lupita covers it in the ash of olivewood,” says Danielle.

I add some salsa from the middle, mushy-green pot.

“Tapenade,” Danielle says when I ask. “Olives, capers, peppers.”

What a combo. You can taste the woodiness and olive infusion in the cheese, for sure, enhanced by the olives on top.

The last, a white cheese, is called “Oreado.”

Say what?

“It sort of means ‘sweaty,’” David says. “It’s French style, maybe a bit like brie, camembert.”

Or queso fresco, maybe. It’s squishier, lighter, which is good combined with the last little salsa pot, because that one’s assertive, dryish, tangy. Parsley? Oregano? Cilantro? It’s chimichurri, David explains, the Argentine steak rub. Lumpy, sticky.

Now I have to try all the other possible flavor combos.

Finally, around 11:00 p.m., I step back out into the night. I’m only ten bucks poorer.

Puente Mexico is deserted. But this is beautiful. With places like La Faraona opening up in the area — and they are starting to — you get the feeling that new life is sprouting here: downtown TJ is on the move again. Plus, I love that Auntie Lupita is stirring away at her cheeses down in Guadalupe, mixing her wines, and sending them up to the kids. Talk about locavore!

And I love the idea of 15-minute plays. Some days, that’s as long as my attention span lasts.

  • Prices: Cheese, meat plates usually around $5–$6; wines, from $3 glass; four-play evening performances of micro-teatro upstairs, Thursday–Saturday, around $12; individual plays, around $3.50 each
  • Buses/taxis: Mexicoach to Avenida Revolución (but you’ll need to walk from top to bottom of Revolución), or walk across footbridge from border, or catch cab or bus to “Centro” from Mexican side of the border
  • Nearest Mexicoach stop: San Ysidro: 4570 Camino de la Plaza, near the trolley terminal; Tijuana: Mexicoach depot on Revolución between 6th and 7th streets
Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Gonzo Report: Stinkfoot Orchestra conjures Zappa at Winstons

His music is a blend of technical excellence and not-so-subtle humor
Next Article

Not enough Readers in Mission Beach

Mayor Todd Gloria's skin color
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.