Fish Tacos with Best of Tours

If you follow me on twitter, you might have read my tweets this past weekend about eating fish tacos, riding in Chevy cars, and wondered what the heck I was talking about. Well last week, I was contacted by the a PR company for Chevrolet, inviting Boyfriend and I to join their Best of Tours in San Diego, where they would be checking out fish tacos.  All the food would be  paid for and we would get driven around in various new Chevrolet cars.

After receiving the invitation, I looked into it a bit more.  It seems Chevrolet has recently launched these Best of Tours around California (they've done one in SF and one in LA), where they invite some local bloggers to take a tour of some sights and foods in their city, while riding in Chevrolet cars. (I guess Chevy has realized the power of food bloggers!)

I'm really glad I was invited, as I had a great time. This past Saturday was absolutely gorgeous, the perfect day to be out and about on a food tour. Through this event, I got to meet bloggers I didn't know about, bloggers I have talked to but never met, a food writer whose column I read, and a bunch of other great people. I also got to visit some food spots I normally wouldn't because of hard to find parking (and not having to worry about parking or driving), and I got to ride in some pretty cool cars.

Chevrolet coordinated with local food blogger Susan from Food Blogga.  She picked the taco places we would be heading to.  Our first stop was South Beach Bar and Grille in Ocean Beach. I usually never venture to OB during the weekend because it gets so crowded. But with drivers in each car, they simply dropped us off and went somewhere to wait for us while we go our food.

I made it a point to try to ride in a different car on every stop. So the first car I chose was the Equinox. It felt like your standard SUV. I did like that there were tv screens on the back of the front seats.

As expected, South Beach Bar & Grille was packed. We ended up having to huddle around one small table.

At each place we would be sampling two tacos.  The two tacos from South Beach were humongous. If all the tacos were going to be like this, I knew I'd definitely be in trouble. Chevrolet had provided us with some tupperware to bring back food, but the tacos at our first stop were so big, they would have barely fit in the containers. One taco was battered and fried.  The other was simply grilled. I believe both tacos contained mahi mahi as the fish.  The tacos were doused with tons of salsa, sauce and there was a thin layer of melted cheese at the bottom of the tortilla.

I enjoyed the grilled one better because it was super moist with lots of flavor.  All in all though, I liked both tacos. 

While each car had a professional driver, we were encouraged to drive
the cars if we wanted to. I don't know that much about cars, unless
it's a hybrid. When I scanned the list of cars that would be provided, I
only really recognized one: the Camaro, which I knew from the
Transformers movie. I had told Boyfriend that there would be a Camaro on
our trip and that he could test drive it. He replied with "why would I
want to drive?"  Of course, when we arrived that day to the event and he
saw the Camaro, all he could do was talk about how he wanted to drive
the Camaro! So for the next car, we rode in the
Camaro with Boyfriend driving. I have to admit, it was pretty cool
stepping into a flashy car. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to snap a picture of the outside of the car.

A bunch of people were walking around
in OB and were checking out the car when I got in, and I got a certain
thrill pretending that it was my car or Boyfriend's car.

Our second stop was the Brigantine Seafood Restaurant in Point Loma.  It was a nice change in atmosphere. At Brigantine, they had a whole patio section set up for us. It was great to be able to sit down and properly enjoy our tacos. Unfortunately, they only offer one fish taco on their menu, so we were given two of the same taco. Here, the tortilla was made of corn, and I liked the taste of the corn tortilla a bit better than the flour one. The fish was just alright for me. A bit on the small side compared to South Beach. I wasn't a fan of the huge amount of cheese sprinkled on top . There wasn't as much salsa on the tacos either.

For our next ride, I chose to ride in the Malibu. It reminded me of any other mid-sized sedan. Not nearly as thrilling as the Camaro.

Our third stop was Blue Water Seafood and Grill in Mission Hills. By this time it was almost 3, so I was surprised to find that the place was still packed. They were so packed that they didn't have room for us.  They just gave us two bags of tacos and sent us on our way. So we ended up eating in the parking lot, some people ate in the back of the truck.

Here, we were served a mahi taco and a yellowtail taco. Both were grilled, and you could taste that the fish was fresh. The mahi taco had sauce, the yellowtail did not. However, I felt they were both slightly overcooked. I also felt that the taco had too much raw cabbage. I did like that they grilled the tortillas.

After Blue Market, I chose to ride in the Silverado truck. I didn't realize how big the truck was until I tried to get in. I literally had to climb into the truck because it was so high. I had to jump to get out too. Probably my least favorite car because of the difficulty getting in and out.

Our last stop was World Famous in Pacific Beach. It was really the perfect way to end the tour.  The view of the beach in PB was so gorgeous. We were all pretty stuffed by this point. Here, we got shrimp and fish tacos. I ended up picking out the fish and shrimp and leaving the rest of my tacos. I wasn't a fan of the flour tortillas here, but I did enjoy the battered shrimp.

On our way home, I got to ride in the Traverse, which has three rows of seating.  It was nice and comfortable having so much room. Of course, being a Chevrolet tour, we did get educated a bit on the cars. I thought this would bother me, but it didn't. Like I mentioned, I'm pretty into fuel efficient cars ever since having to do some research in high school on finding alternative fuel sources. I was surprised to learn some interesting things, like the fact that Chevrolet is coming out with an all electric car next year, the Volt, and that it has a sedan right now, the Cruze, which gets 40mpg.

All in all, it was a pretty fun adventure.  I was so stuffed by the end and I had leftovers. There were a couple of surfers that were with us for the trip, and they managed to eat all the tacos at each stop plus extra. Amazing. Thanks again to Chevrolet Best of Tours and Food Blogga for organizing such a fun event!