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The upshot of fresh corn tortillas and Fish Guts

Counter shop adds local catch, gourmet street tacos to the Barrio Logan menu

Baja style fish tacos made with fresh-made tortillas and beer-battered, locally caught rockfish
Baja style fish tacos made with fresh-made tortillas and beer-battered, locally caught rockfish

Logan Avenue didn’t seem to be lacking for taco shops, but then along comes Fish Guts anyway. The recent addition to Chicano Park’s casual restaurant row may bear a dubious name, but there’s no questioning its noble intent: crafting street tacos, made from scratch, using fresh and local seafood.

Place

Fish Guts

2222 Logan Ave., San Diego


Though it presents as a counter shop, grab a menu. Fish Guts offers casual table service, including beer and cocktails, at any of its three rows of countertop. Packed into a small, corner location, its indoor/outdoor patio dining setup manages to squeeze in a lot of seating. And if you’re willing to sit upon possibly the shortest stools in town, you’ll have front row seats to the lively avenue, with a glimpse of the Coronado Bridge up the street.


A corner taco shop in Barrio Logan


The surprise to this guy is that it’s set up more as a dinner spot. For lunch Wednesday for Thursday, you may order a fried fish sandwich all afternoon, but the tacos don’t come out til 4pm. On weekends, tacos are served all day, a mostly ocean-based menu that covers a lot of tasty ground.


Like the fish sandwich, my Baja style fish tacos were made with a local whitefish. During my Saturday visit, that happened to be vermillion rockfish: a pleasant and plentiful local catch occasionally spotted as red snapper or rock cod on local menus. I cannot stress how much my inner snob prefers this fish over budget-friendly tilapia or swai. And it doesn’t disappoint, beer battered with Modelo, dressed with cabbage and chipotle aioli.

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If the word aioli didn’t tip you off, these are you might call elevated, or gourmet street tacos. Meaning the small tacos are served in pairs for $10-12, and each taco’s sauced as the chef intended. 


Salmon al pastor tacos


I’d probably be fine smothering any lightly seasoned local fish with the contents of a salsa bar, but I have no complaints with regard to the chipotle on my Estilo Baja tacos. Nor with the achiote and guajillo chili sauce coating the cubes of salmon filling my al pastor fish tacos. Nor with the deftly applied char visible on the pineapple in the al pastor.


Of course, the salmon al pastor are not made using a local catch, but the blackened swordfish tacos are, and the coconut battered shrimp hails from Baja. Local catch or otherwise, it all comes by way of Tunaville Market and Grocery, the Point Loma seafood market with deep ties within San Diego’s fishing community.


Which makes this place something of a fish taco lover’s dream: just grab a stool, and start ordering tacos by the pair until you can’t eat anymore.

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Baja style fish tacos made with fresh-made tortillas and beer-battered, locally caught rockfish
Baja style fish tacos made with fresh-made tortillas and beer-battered, locally caught rockfish

Logan Avenue didn’t seem to be lacking for taco shops, but then along comes Fish Guts anyway. The recent addition to Chicano Park’s casual restaurant row may bear a dubious name, but there’s no questioning its noble intent: crafting street tacos, made from scratch, using fresh and local seafood.

Place

Fish Guts

2222 Logan Ave., San Diego


Though it presents as a counter shop, grab a menu. Fish Guts offers casual table service, including beer and cocktails, at any of its three rows of countertop. Packed into a small, corner location, its indoor/outdoor patio dining setup manages to squeeze in a lot of seating. And if you’re willing to sit upon possibly the shortest stools in town, you’ll have front row seats to the lively avenue, with a glimpse of the Coronado Bridge up the street.


A corner taco shop in Barrio Logan


The surprise to this guy is that it’s set up more as a dinner spot. For lunch Wednesday for Thursday, you may order a fried fish sandwich all afternoon, but the tacos don’t come out til 4pm. On weekends, tacos are served all day, a mostly ocean-based menu that covers a lot of tasty ground.


Like the fish sandwich, my Baja style fish tacos were made with a local whitefish. During my Saturday visit, that happened to be vermillion rockfish: a pleasant and plentiful local catch occasionally spotted as red snapper or rock cod on local menus. I cannot stress how much my inner snob prefers this fish over budget-friendly tilapia or swai. And it doesn’t disappoint, beer battered with Modelo, dressed with cabbage and chipotle aioli.

Sponsored
Sponsored


If the word aioli didn’t tip you off, these are you might call elevated, or gourmet street tacos. Meaning the small tacos are served in pairs for $10-12, and each taco’s sauced as the chef intended. 


Salmon al pastor tacos


I’d probably be fine smothering any lightly seasoned local fish with the contents of a salsa bar, but I have no complaints with regard to the chipotle on my Estilo Baja tacos. Nor with the achiote and guajillo chili sauce coating the cubes of salmon filling my al pastor fish tacos. Nor with the deftly applied char visible on the pineapple in the al pastor.


Of course, the salmon al pastor are not made using a local catch, but the blackened swordfish tacos are, and the coconut battered shrimp hails from Baja. Local catch or otherwise, it all comes by way of Tunaville Market and Grocery, the Point Loma seafood market with deep ties within San Diego’s fishing community.


Which makes this place something of a fish taco lover’s dream: just grab a stool, and start ordering tacos by the pair until you can’t eat anymore.

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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
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