Mariscos El Conchal: Specializing in Sinaloa-Style Shellfish

Restaurant Tijuana

Mariscos El Conchal might not deliver the oceanic fireworks of nearby Mariscos Ruben, but Umberto Buelna and chef-brother Oscar have still carved out quite a niche for themselves with their Sinaloa-style seafood shack in Tijuana. The Buelnas hail from Culiacan. For the past 15 years at Mariscos El Conchal, they’ve dispensed all manner of seafood that’s protected by a shell, known in Spanish as a “concha.”

Mariscos El Conchal customers can mix and match from columns that includes oyster (ostion), clam (almeja), conch (caracol), shrimp (camaron), cockle (pata) and sea scallop (callo de hacha). Options include cocktails, tostadas or ceviche.


Seafood Tijuana
We each devoured a tostada mixta loaded with silky sheets of sea scallop, raw shrimp and sea snail, which were all treated with an umami-laden Maggi-spiked marinade and topped with fresh shucked avocado and a dice of tomato, onion and cucumber. La Guerrerense taught us not to fear sea snail, a creature packed with supple clam-like meat. Since there’s rarely such a thing as too hot in a group of food bloggers, we dressed our tostadas with dynamic chiltepin hot sauce.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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[…] E-mail (will not be published) (required) Website. Notify me of follow-up comments via email. …Food GPS Mariscos El Conchal Tijuana, B.C., Mexico …Mix and match from columns that includes oyster (ostion), clam (almeja), conch (caracol), shrimp […]

This is just a pure Sinaloan shack with fine ingredeints and no frills.When are you coming to Sinaloa, Josh?

It’s a tough choice for the next Mexico trip. Sinaloa? Oaxaca? Mexico City? So many options.

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