The upshot of fresh corn tortillas and Fish Guts

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.

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.

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.