Cabo Eats: Campestre

Date Visited: Dinner on Monday May 4, 2015
Company: Walk-in for 4

So... it's been a while, but I'm back and ready to hit the restaurant scene again... and just in time for patio season! I was in Mexico the first week of May and had spend the most of the month prior at the gym and trying to eat better in preparation. I was pretty lucky to to be able to try lots of the restaurants in Cabo San Lucas as we didn't stay at an all-inclusive. But instead of blogging about all of those places, I thought I'd just pick one that really stood out to my palate :)

Campestre is the spot where I thought we got to try the most authentic Mexican food, it was filled with locals and located off the beaten path. Our Cabo expect Laura suggested it when we asked for a cheap, authentic Mexican restaurant to check out, and it also happened that two of her local friends work there. It took about 10 minutes to get there from our hotel via taxi into some dirt road streets away from downtown. We were dropped off and entered a fairly large open restaurant with ample tables and even more floor space. It was about half-full for dinner and I didn't see any tourists there. Luckily they still had some english menus. We also got started off with some chips and salsa for the table. The portion of salsa was hefty compared to other restaurants, there was also a spicy salsa that was more liquidy. The tomatoes in the mild one were extremely fresh but light in flavour.


To start, I ordered the Bloody Merry (according to their menu) while the boys got beer and Laura got a Beer and tomato juice combo drink. I hadn't ordered a Caesar as of yet the whole trip so I was very excited to see how it would taste. The drink looked fancily dressed but more importantly it tasted amazing. Almost exactly like a Caesar but with more of a kick of different spices. The prices here were cheaper than anything we had seen before too which made things even better!

Their food menu had a lot of options with some photos to accompany. The one dish that stood out to me though Grilled Steak Tampioueña with Quesadilla, Enchilada, Guacamole and Rice, mostly the photo beside it looked delicious. The plate I got however, looked even better. The steak was perfectly grilled a medium-well (just like how I asked) and extremely tender. It was a thin slice but had a lot of character with some fatty and muscly parts on the edges and tons of flavour. I thought I had gotten a tortilla on top but turns out it was filled with cheese! One difference I noticed from home was that their tortillas are flakey and layered unlike a soft taco shell. Also their quesadillas are mostly just all cheese, no veggies inside. The Enchilada was great too, I could only finish one of the two but I loved the red sauce and cheese on top. The guacamole was a nice addition to the plate as well as the rice, which had a lot more flavour compared to other plates I'd had.

Overall, I was very happy with my choice of dish... even happier the next night where I got to drunkenly finish my leftovers. Like many of the restaurants we visited in Cabo, the service was quite slow, we were sitting a while just waiting for our bills before we could find anyone to flag down. But despite this, they were always accommodating and even nice enough to call us a taxi to pick us up since there was no way we could flag one nearby. I would definitely recommend this to anyone going to Cabo that wants to try a local authentic restaurant, I'd try to come back here anytime I was in the city.

Food: 4.5/5 - Best meal we had in Cabo and cheap prices!
Decor: 3/5 - Pretty cute restaurant.
Service: 2.5/5 - Really friendly, but pretty slow. Little bias since Laura knew our servers though
Willingness to go back: 4.5/5 - Totally worth the trek.
Overall: 3.5/5

Website: http://www.restaurantcampestreloscabos.com/#_=_

Memphis BBQ & Wicked Wings

Date Visited: Lunch on Saturday Dec 20, 2014

Company: Take-out for 8

For our Annual University Secret Santa gift exchange this year, we decided to hold it at +Kelvin's parents new house rather than our typical restaurant only outing. I still needed to find a place for lunch in the Woodbridge area though as a potluck wasn't happening with our group. I happened to find Memphis BBQ which is practically in Kelvin's backyard on a BlogTO list for one of the Best BBQ Restaurants in Toronto, lucky us! We decided to do take-out there since the photos didn't show it was very large and may have been a hassle to find a seating for 7.

When we arrived, the place was very dive-y, located just beside a convenient store with nothing else around. The place was hustling when we entered with the cooks just a few feet away and tons of steam coming from the meat, it smelled heavenly. It was a bit crowded when we were all standing there looking at what to order on their take-out menu, but we just decided to get one of their Party Packs listed on the wall. Split between 8 of us, it came out to be $12 each. There was quite a bit of seating as well in the next week if we really wanted to eat here, it wasn't too busy in the late lunch hours on the Saturday. The Party Pack we ordered came with 3 racks of Ribs, 2 lbs of Wings (Honey Garlic & Spicy BBQ), 2 lbs of Pulled Pork, Beans, Coleslaw, Cornbread and Fries. We waited outside for about 15-20 minutes and they called us in to grab our food to go.

When we arrived back at Kelvin's, we had a table for all the food to be laid out and where we could fill up our plates. It was a bit of chaos at first but we all divided the food evenly and sat down to enjoy the meal together. The main part of the meal was were the Ribs since we had 3 racks and the most leftovers of that. The meat was very tender and fell off the bone with a smoky, sweet flavour. I really wish I could have had some more of that but knew I needed room for the rest! We all had 1 wing of each flavour and I preferred the Spicy BBQ as it had a nice kick to it. The Honey Garlic was a bit plain and bland. The Pulled Pork was also very delicious, full of tangy flavour and easy to eat. Some people complained that they had large chunks of un-pulled pork in theirs though. The Beans and Coleslaw were a nice addition, the beans had a ton of flavour and the coleslaw added some vegetables and acidity to the meaty meal. The Fries were nothing special, as with the Cornbread, it didn't taste like much.

The amount of food was perfect for our group size, we had a bit leftover but everyone was happily full. Memphis BBQ did a great job on their meats and definitely worth a visit here if you're in the area.

Food: 4/5 - Great authentic BBQ!

Decor: 2/5 - Pretty sketchy but roomier than I thought it would be on the inside.

Service: 4/5 - Very friendly and decent wait time for the amount of food.

Willingness to go back: 4/5 - Worth it!

Overall: 3.5/5 

Website: http://www.bigbonebbq.ca/woodbridge/

Cali Eats: El Toro Taqueria

Date Visited: Late Lunch on Sunday Apr 14, 2014 
Company: Walk-in for 5

After a long walk to Twin Peaks, we ventured back to the Mission District where we started to find a spot for an early afternoon lunch. There were tons of Mexican places we passed by when we were walking around the area so it wasn't difficult to find a place to eat. El Toro seemed like it was a fairly busy cafeteria style place right on the corner of Valencia and 17th, it was very welcoming with colourful signage and windows to look in. It looked like it wouldn't take us long to get food and had a table to sit, so it was exactly what we were looking for... and also some fish tacos for us to try!

Their menu was pretty simple but with lots of options, the foods are all there in front of you to awe at while the servers make your delicious plate of food. I decided to order a Super Prawn Taco Dinner, which ended up being around $8. The taco was only $3.50 itself but I wanted to add all the fixings! They also give you free nachos (which probably never get eaten after having that huge plate) and there's a salsa bar off to the side for you to try their different homemade salsas.

The plate looked delicious and packed with colourful foods, they let you choose the type of beans you want, either black or re-fried, I choose re-fried but I don't really like beans anyway. They topped it off with some shredded cheese and layer it a bit with your rice. There was nothing too special about the rice and beans, very average and just filled you up. There was a salad on the side with an excessive amount ranch dressing which was pretty okay, added some veggies to your meal. Now the taco on the other hand, was definitely the highlight of the meal... there were so many prawns, you could really taste a nice grilled, spiced flavour. They double tortilla'd it so it wouldn't fall apart which really helped but the tortilla was already pretty thick to begin with. It was a gloriously messy taco but was delicious with very fresh ingredients. Their guacamole was packed with zesty flavour and was nice to have with the nachos too. They also give you tortilla with the dinner meal but I didn't want mine.

Food: 3/5 - Prawn Taco was amazing, everything else was mediocre.
Decor: 3/5 - Quite clean and nice place to sit inside for a bit on a hot day and still enjoy the sun.
Service: 2.5/5 - Fast to clean tables, free ice water, few misunderstandings with my order, and busy line-up though.
Willingness to go back: 3/5 - Tons of taco joints to check out in the area, wouldn't necessarily go back to this one but I wouldn't complain either, cheap and easy.
Overall: 3/5

Website: http://eltorotaqueria.org/