Eating on the hood of your car: Mariscos El Jefe Truck

I've been shopping at the Northgate Market on the corner of 54th and University quite a bit. The Missus bought a new juicer and has been some interesting concoctions, several of which use nopales. The most disturbing one was nopales and beets which looked like bloody snot....but I digress. One day, Instead of heading just getting back onto 54th and my way home, I took a right on University and saw a pretty busy taco truck.

The selling point seemed to be the 99 cent fish tacos...which is quite cheap since most trucks, including my favorite have raised prices north of a buck. The seating area is a very small - four chair and no table makeshift looking set-up. So you really will be eating on the hood of your car here! The folks here were very friendly. One of the women started chatting with me....talking about favorite taco trucks...hers being El Kiki, while lamenting the crazy price of gas. The menu is interesting, the top half is in Spanish, the bottom half is the English translation.

I went the cheap route, two Tacos de Pescado.

The batter was on the soft side, with a hint of sweetness, a bit too spongy for my taste. Not much fish in this at all, but what do you expect for 99 cents? The crema had no taste and the tortillas....eh...

So that was it, right? Well, maybe not. I went shopping again this past weekend and was just plain starving. I decided to try some of the other stuff at El Jefe.

By the way, if you're ever looking for the cebollas, limes, and salsas, they're behind the gobernador door!

Speaking of gobernador, I got one of those and one of the spicy shrimp tacos. These looked quite a bit more hefty.

 

Both of these had things in common, both had cheese melted on the base of the tortilla to prevent the tacos from disintegrating. Both had some kick, though the spicy shrimp was surprisingly spicy. Both were two tortilla jobs, you could tell much more care was taken with these. The gobernador was the better of the two, but nowhere as good as others. The shrimp in both tacos were on the overcooked side as well. The spicy shrimp taco was interesting....I wasn't fond of the very finely diced cabbage mixed with crema. Though it served to buffer the heat, it was like dumping coleslaw all over a taco.

The shrimp were spicy, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they use habaneros for this. The overall flavor was pretty one dimensional.

I'd say that El Jefe, wasn't quite "the boss" of Mariscos trucks in San Diego. Probably not in my top five. But like the woman said, "the price of gas now is so high, we have to find alternatives to driving to South Bay."

Mariscos el Jefe Truck
5599 University Ave

Comments

[paulina]

I always see this truck when I drive by and I've always wondered if it was any good!

[Kirk]

Hi Paulina - I think it's ok....but not great.

[kat]

looked good, must've been quite spicy because you mentioned it several times :)

[Kirk]

Hi Kat - Yeah, it was.....so that's how you figure out how spicy things I write about are huh? ;o)