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During Independent’s holiday weekend, we visited Tijuana, just for Mexican food.

Tijuana is quite closed to US boarder, if you start from Los Angeles, it takes about 2 hour drive, pass San Diego to Tijuana. If you say Tijuana is raised by US, it’s right. Many people go there just for fun – which they cannot enjoy in their hometown. From high way 5 to Mexico boarder, Visa is not required till Ensenada. So we got up early and parked at boarder, walked into Mexico.

The scene was totally different after cross boarder. There were pharmacies everywhere. We walked to Avenida Revolucion, which is city center of Tijuana. Hotel Caesar’s is just right here.

July 4th, 1924. (Same inpendent’s day!!) There were lots of tourists, crowded in hotel for celebration (I thought they were there for FUN !) The chef, Caesar Cardini, born in Italy. Utilized rest material in his kitchen. Then the tableside-serviced salad was incredibly popular afterward. Then Mr. Caesar made it a standard, mass production, bottling industrial dressing. Now many people know this sauce world-wide. Even the mean French criticized the recipe as the few good US recipes since 50 years from now. Ironically the recipe was from an Italian….

First time I heard of this story was from Julia Child’s book and she probably was among those few people who really ate the salad from Caesar Cardini. According to Julia’s book, authentic Caesar salad needs to be prepared at table side and make the dressing step-by-step. I had made the Caesar salad following Julia’s recipe and it was delicious, light and flavorful.

The historical Hotel Caesar’s had been closed and remodeled. The remodeled restaurant was smaller yet looked old. It didn’t look like a place for gourmet. However salsa and tortilla chips were the first surprise. The salsa was mixed with finely minced tomato, lime, jalapeno and onion. It tasted clean and fresh, much better than those “US salsa”. We waited a while for waiter and his service cart. Yes he used only Romaine lettuce heart, neatly lay on plate. Then he started to make salad dressing – meshed anchovies, added olive oil, minced garlic. Then dropped lime juice, red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. He cracked eggs and kept yolk, added parmesan powder then stirred all together to be yellow and thick dressing. Sprinkled crouton and volia!

This kind of Caesar salad, tasted good, he used cheap Kraft parmesan powder but the Romaine lettuce was sweet yet fresh, even the lettuce edged were carefully trimmed.

Chicken a la Florentine, “a la Florentine” was usually done with spinach. The pan-fried chicken breast was tossed with spinach and cream sauce. The chicken was well-done but not dry, it was good for the sauce.

to be continued ...