Huevos rancheros at Hacienda Beach Club.
Joe and I are on the airplane on our way back from Los Cabos, a place that neither of us had visited in years. Opening restaurants is tough work and with the Palo Alto Tacolicious location finally up and running, the goal was three nights of pure brain-dead vacation so Joe could recover. We didn’t even rent a car. We didn’t search out a taco stand. We committed to doing something we’ve never done—resorting it, from beginning to end.
I know. Cry me a river.
The last time I visited Los Cabos, it was to celebrate the millennium, and I stayed at in a funky little hut of a place called El Delfin Blanco in San Jose Del Cabo cooking on a not-for-outdoor-use electric stove outdoors that gently electrocuted you if you didn’t watch it. We went fishing for dorado (a.k.a. mahi mahi) and, in a moment of face-your-food feminism, I insisted on taking the bat to the big, beautiful fish myself rather than let the fisherman that we’d hired to take us out do it. However, the fish was wiggly and I ended up missing, and hitting the poor guy’s boat a couple times in the process. The cursing that must have gone on under his breath.
Joe, on the other hand, spent time camping on the beaches of Cabo San Lucas for months at a time with his family way back when he was a little kid—this was before fancy resorts covered the coastline and the town started to look like Fisherman’s Wharf, like maybe as far back as the stone ages, because Joe is pretty old.
Despite all this, we were essentially new to Los Cabos when we arrived last Thursday. Though not new to the bros, a.k.a. brahs, a particular species of male that gravitates to this part of the country, as well as the country’s other popular coastal airports (Cancun, Puerto Vallarta). They are the group of dudes on the plane wearing flip flops and caps on backwards, getting drunker by the minute, which seems to increase the number of fist bumps. I overheard one of them asking the girl he was hitting on if Cabo San Lucas was located inland.
But, even in the thick of Cabo San Lucas, I was relieved to find that you can avoid the bros. Joe and I found some serious tranquility at a gorgeous resort called Hacienda Beach Club, an expanded and fancified version of one of the town’s original hotels—one of the two that were there when Joe, at age 5, was digging holes to China on the beach. Though it’s in the middle of town, Hacienda is tucked away, and serves as its own little oasis with a private beach for swimming in the gentler waters of the bay. I took a lot of pictures of the trees and flowers and cactus planted there. The grounds are beautiful. The infinity pool is warm. The view is perfect. The staff is gracious and kind.
Still, sipping a lovely tamarindo margarita, I kept thinking that we were missing out on some amazing taco discoveries in town or beyond—that “authentic” discovery that food enthusiasts are always searching for. Just in case, I polled everyone we spoke to about where we should get a good taco—that is, if we weren’t committed to relaxing. (I’ve included that list below so you can eat on my behalf.)
However, it turned out a couple of the best Mexican dishes that we had on the trip—and that we’ve had in Mexico, period—we ordered straight from the Hacienda restaurant kitchen. Dishes that were brought to us while we lounged in the pretty restaurant by servers wearing guayabera shirts and name tags.
The first delicious thing arrived in the form of sopes topped with chorizo and potato and finely shredded lettuce with a dollop of crema. It went down very easily with a little Don Julio reposado and our toes in the sand. But breakfast was the best. Hacienda’s huevos rancheros was one of the most perfect version I’ve had of my favorite Mexican breakfast dish. The thin, tangy tomato sauce was made with fresh tomatoes and the tortilla was fried until crisp, the sunny side-up eggs jiggling happily under bits of avocado, cubes of fresh cheese, and crema—a smear of black beans lying beneath it all. Spiked with a bit of thick, deep salsa made of guajillo chilies, it was everything I needed to feel grounded in Mexico, even if Margaritaville was playing in the not too far distance.
(Should you go to Cabo San Lucas, try these recommended taco stands and report back: Los Claros, Asi & Asado, Rossy’s, Gardenias)