Shopping for Food in Ensenada

October 7, 2022  

It was interesting exploring a new city in Mexico.  Neither of us had ever been to the west coast of Mexico before, and we had also not been to a Mexican city that was close to the border of the United States.  It was obvious that Ensenada was influenced by how close it was to the US.  It had a large expat community, as well as many tourists who had arrived from the US to go fishing and be on vacation.  

We found that it was much more regulated than the cities that we had been to on the Caribbean side of Mexico.  While there were small taco stands, they were run out of little trucks or trailers, more similar to what we would see in Canada.  We did not see any of the open-flame BBQ cooking places that we had found on the main part of Mexico last January.   The food was still delicious, but it had the feeling of being more regulated, with more of a restaurant style, thus less “home cooked” authentic.   

That being said, we very much enjoyed trying a variety of take-out taco places.  If a small place was busy around lunchtime with a line up of Mexicans, then we figured that it would probably be delicious! 

On one of our walks, we found a small place where we sat right at the bar on the sidewalk as the two people cooked up the fresh fish for our tacos in a large wok-shaped pot of oil.  All of the extras, including the different types of salsas (sauces), were right in front of us, and we were served directly over the bar. 

We thoroughly enjoyed their tacos.   

When we first got to Ensenada we met many of the live-a-boards who were staying at the marina where our moorage slip was.  One of the things that we asked them was for a recommendation for a good grocery store that was close by, and so of course we checked out the one that was recommended first.  We were shocked however.  The selection of groceries was not what we had expected at all, as it felt very much like a grocery store in the US, and when we started making the conversion of Mexican Pesos to Canadian dollars we found that the prices were very comparable to what we would pay in Canada.  Needless to say, that was the last time that we shopped at that grocery store, as we soon found two genuinely Mexican grocery stores that were within walking distance from the marina.  We only saw Mexicans in these stores, the selection was more authentic, and the prices were reasonable. We found it surprising that an overpriced grocery store could be successful when they were only a couple of blocks away from the other options.   

One of the things that we like about Mexico is the availability of specialty stores.  A Pescaderia (fish store) and a Fruteria (fruit and vegetable shop) will usually have fresh, local and delicious products that are inexpensive.  Unfortunately, all of the Fruterias in Ensenada were much too far away for us to shop at on foot, so we had to stick to the grocery stores for fruits and vegetables.

However, we did check out a couple of the Pescaderias, including Mercado Negro, which was a large fish market filled with all types of tropical fish and shell fish.