I’ve been giving recommendations for fish tacos a lot lately, prompting me to want to revisit South Beach Bar and Grille, which is usually one of my favorite places in San Diego for fish tacos.
Located next to the ocean, the restaurant offers a great view of Ocean Beach.
It was semi-busy when we arrived, but for some reason our food took more than thirty minutes to arrive and all we did was order four fish tacos. I was slightly irritated by the wait, especially since we had already hit lot of the beach traffic while driving to the restaurant.
Mahi Taco
The grilled marinated mahi is one of their most popular tacos. The fish is marinated overnight and packs a powerful punch of sweet teriyaki flavor. It’s then piled high with shredded red cabbage, salsa fresca, and a creamy white sauce. All fish tacos are served on flour tortillas unless you request differently.
In the past, I’ve never minded the flour tortillas, but they were not working for me on this visit. They tasted like subpar packaged tortillas and they distracted from the taco filling.
Baja Fish Taco
We also had their fried pollock taco. On previous visits, the battered fish serving was quite huge, so I was a little surprised that they seemed much smaller on this visit. Again, I was not a fan of the flour tortilla and ended up just eating the filling and leaving the tortilla behind.
Overall, this was not a great visit. When we left, Mr. K commented that he remembered this place being better. I do too. I don’t know if this was a fluke, or if the place has simply gone downhill. I did read a fish taco article last year where the writer also was not a fan of this place and I remembered being quite surprised, but now I’m wondering if the quality of this place just isn’t what it used to be.
South Beach Bar & Grille
5059 Newport Ave San Diego, CA 92107
Right across the street from the very mediocre SB is the fantastic and mostly fresh fish of Mike’s Taco Club. It used to be Oscar’s but not sure why it closed. Their tacos are quite large, marinated in a delicious sauce, and have cabbage and some salsa on top. They make three kinds of very delicious sauces to go on top, but they almost don’t need it. I live right here in OB and don’t understand why more places here don’t serve fresh fish. Also try Mike’s breakfast burrito, made with uber tender flank steak and ginormous! Their homemade chips and gauc are first rate too. I also agree that Mitch’s Seafood is fantastic and probably has one of the best clam chowders I’ve tried next to Ironside in Little Italy.
thanks for the recs! I don’t get into OB much, but I’ll definitely try to check these out next time.
Never understood why people go to this place – flour tortilla, yellow cheese, white sauce – one of the most americanized fish tacos in SD. There are so many better places to get fish tacos, e.g. one of the Mariscos trucks
Well you have the corn tortilla option. I used to like it because i thought they did a good job with the fried pollock, keeping it moist and crispy, plus the portion was generous for the price. But the portion was much smaller on this visit and the batter a little dry. Also the wait sucked.
I’ve been meaning to give PB Fish shop a try. 🙂
you definitely should!
We’ve also noticed a decline in SB quality… I still like their pico, but the fish wasn’t as good as before (and their prices have gone up). Have you tried Mitch’s Seafood in Point Loma? We recently gave that another try and liked it a lot.
I haven’t tried Mitch’s. I will need to check it out. Thanks for letting me know about your SB experience. I have been really curious what other people’s experiences have been.
Oh no… Where are you gonna go for fish tacos now?
my favorite is still PB Fish Shop. I also like Oscar’s. SB was like my third favorite, but I think i might be taking it off my list