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Matthew Suárez

Matthew Suárez
Matthew Suárez is a writer, musician and photographer who worked in Los Angeles as paparazzo for Bauer-Griffin and National Photo Group (2007-2011). His celebrity pictures appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world. For the Reader he covers music, food, border and Baja stories. He also writes in his own blog, Matingas.com. As a musician he holds a BA in classical guitar under the tutelage of O. Nicholas Raths from Saint John's University. He is also the creator of Tijuana Adventure, private tours in TJ.

Articles by Matthew Suárez

I work the taco truck of Anthony Bourdain's TJ guide

“I’m doing this guerrilla-style!” shouts Antonio Ley, also known as El Tony Tee, as I approach his taco truck. “We got kicked out because of the stupid bike lane last week, and I have to ...

Tijuana's high-rises soar – and so do the rents

I moved into my first apartment in Tijuana in March of 2012. It was a nice one-bedroom place on the top floor of a three-story building in Colonia Cacho. It came unfurnished, except for a ...

The Sentri pass, crossing at Otay, the annoying seagulls

In Tijuana, you ride the rollercoaster that is the city and then you wait in line to leave. The journey out of one of the most chaotic cities in the world culminates in an equally ...

Matthew Suarez combs Ensenada for best seafood carts and breweries

“I always say that Mexicali is hell, Tijuana is purgatory, and Ensenada... well, Ensenada is paradise!” says Jesús “El Chino” Hernández, who runs Trophy Tacos, an experimental seafood tacos cart in a corner of Colonia ...

New breweries make Tijuana unrecognizable from 10 years ago

Baja’s beer scene has grown exponentially since I first wrote about it for the Reader six years ago, and I’ve been obsessing over it ever since. Back in October of this year, at the most ...

December 22, 2021
The unintended Baja Med escapade

I met “Border Chef” Andrea Aguari — the title is her own — a decade ago when she was cooking for the short-lived Taberna Etxeverri on Calle Sexta. We hadn’t spoken in years when I ...

August 25, 2021
Three checkpoints, seven hours south of Tecate

We arrived at Punta Final Saturday at dawn after an arduous seven-hour trip. We left Tecate before midnight after packing the green Durango with camping gear and a shit ton of beer. The driver, a ...

January 27, 2021
79 days of Tijuana quarantine

“I don’t think we’ll be opening the bar until September or until there is a vaccine,” says Dany aka ‘Drago,’ founder of Dragon Rojo Rockbar and a hospital worker by trade. “I keep the bar ...

June 19, 2020
118 deaths in Baja due to the virus

“You know my brother and I got it, right?” My friend Mariana texted me a few weeks ago after I posted the story about the coronavirus piñatas. Mariana’s brother, Juan, is my private doctor in ...

April 27, 2020
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