Pacific Catch Opens in Tustin

 Pacific Catch

3040 El Camino Real

Tustin, CA 92782

I've been writing this blog for a long time when I have been to three restaurants at the same address. This is the case with this review. In the early days of my blog, this location was home to a Black Angus. That restaurant was torn down to the studs, rebuilt, and turned into Bonefish Grill. They had a nearly five-year run before they closed their only California restaurant. The space sat vacant during the COVID years but has been reborn as Pacific Catch. 

Pacific Catch is a fourteen-unit seafood chain restaurant founded twenty years ago, with a significant presence in Northern California. The only other Southern California location is in La Jolla. Still, I've heard rumblings of two or more OC restaurants opening soon and one in Santa Monica. Good news for seafood lovers. 

They call themselves a West Coast fish house, but a Pacific Rim fish house might be more appropriate. With a quick glance at their menu, you will find influences from Japan, Hawaii, Korea, Mexico, and more dotted across the page. The menu includes starters, sushi offerings, mix-and-match entrees, bowls, tacos, and sandwich options. Starters range between $9 to $27, while entrees go from $15 for an ahi burger all the way up to $59 for a mixed seafood grill for two. 

We arrived at Pacific Catch on a recent Thursday at the peak dinnertime of 6pm and were met with a bustling restaurant. We had made reservations, so we got seated right away. This dining room seems much lighter now from when it was Bonefish Grill. Natural light pours through the large windows and the skylight in the dining room. A very relaxed and peaceful atmosphere plays into the island vibe they have going on here. Our order was promptly taken, and we were excited about our first experience at Pacific Catch.  

I don't usually get a drink when we eat out, preferring to save room for more food, but the island vibe I was getting from this restaurant drew me to the Mai Tai ($14). This was a very high-quality mai tai, not made from a mix. This beverage had a smooth feel with three kinds of rum, lime juice, and a housemade mixture of papaya, orange, and guava. I enjoyed this because it was not too sweet and made me feel like I was in the tropics. Very well done. 

When you check out the Pacific Catch Yelp page or look at other tables while dining here, you'll see just how popular this Pupu Platter ($27) is. Every table near us ordered one. This platter changes slightly with the seasons, but when we were here, it featured coconut shrimp, guaca-poke, two pork belly musubi, blistered shishito peppers, and a spicy cucumber banchan. My favorite of these items was the guaca-poke. The yellowfin ahi was dressed with their sesame-soy marinade, which was not too overpowering, so it let the ahi shine through. The guacamole was an excellent accompaniment. I have a love-hate relationship with coconut shrimp, as I usually find the breading way too overwhelming, so you can not taste the shrimp underneath it. That is not the case here. The outer coating was light, yet crispy, and did not need too much of the provided Thai sweet chili sauce. I popped many shishito peppers in my mouth, served with an addictive wasabi aioli. The pork belly musubi did not do it for me. I found it lackluster, and I'm a pork belly fan. It needed to be more prevalent, as the teriyaki glaze covering it, along with some grilled pineapple, sabotaged the richness of the pork. The cucumber was okay but not spicy, and we left most of that alone to focus on the more substantial items of this platter. 

Katie was excited to try the Sushi Bombs ($5 each). These are other items that I do not see on their current menu, so this may also be a seasonal item. We went with the original ahi poke and the serrano ahi poke versions of these. The tuna is encased in a sweet-soy inori pocket with some sushi rice. I enjoyed the relatively large size but found the original one too bland. Some soy sauce or another sauce would have helped liven things up with this. The Serrano version was better as it was dressed up more, and the slight spiciness awoke my taste buds. A much better pick.

Most seafood restaurants offer a mix-and-match menu, where you pick the kind of fish you want and the style and sides you'd like to complete your meal. At Pacific Catch, they call theirs the fresh catch meal. Out of the five types of fish offered when we were here, Katie selected the Kanpachi Yellowtail ($32). I was struck by the portion size of this cut of yellowtail. She picked the Asian chimichurri to top the fish and kimchi fried rice with a sunny-side-up egg and Mexican elote corn as her sides. Katie felt the yellowtail was cooked perfectly, moist, and tender. She was also a big fan of the chimichurri, which bursts with flavor. She enjoyed the uniqueness of the kimchi fried rice but felt that the elote fell flat in the flavor department, with only the pickled onion adding any taste. 

As usual, when eating in a restaurant for the first time, I get as many items on one plate as possible. That meant it would be the Korean Surf and Turf Platter ($35) for me this evening. As has been the case for most of this review, this is not on the current Pacific Catch menu, but it may come around again. It included grilled skirt steak, prawns, kimchi fried rice, glazed shitake mushroom, edamame, kimchi, and cucumber banchan. The skirt steak was nicely cooked to my desired preference of medium rare, with a simple marinade giving it a flavor boost. The prawns were large and filling. For the sides, I really enjoyed the kimchi fried rice with the sunny-side-up egg that bound everything together. The rest of the sides were filler. The glazed mushrooms and edamame, the pickled carrots and ginger, and the spicy cucumbers were okay but were not really anything that made me swoon. They were all boring. 

Our server was excited about these Crispy Dulce De Leche Spring Rolls ($12), so we tried them. I was not a fan. The cheesecake filling was very dense inside the spring roll, and it was hard to eat with a fork, so I just picked it up and ate it that way. The dulce de leche gelato and the caramel sauce were my favorite parts, but not enough to get this again. I'd go for the hula brownie sundae or their malasadas the next time I visited. 

Pacific Catch was hit-and-miss for me this evening. I feel that I really just ordered the wrong things. I should have gone the more seafood route with my entree and gone with my gut about our choice of dessert. On my next trip here, I'd veer towards their fish and chips, mixed seafood grill, or the mix-and-match fish option. The service we encountered at Pacific Catch was first-rate. Everyone was so cheerful, and the food was brought out promptly. I'm glad this address is active again after Bonefish Grill closed. We definitely need more seafood restaurants to choose from. 

For more information about Pacific Catch, head to their website by clicking here: https://pacificcatch.com/

** We were provided this meal for free in exchange for an honest review of their service/food. No other compensation was received. 

Making Out Like a Bandido in Tustin

Tacos El Bandido Express

13812 Newport Ave. 

Tustin, CA 92780

I usually take my nieces out to dinner once a year for their birthdays. This was not my niece Kaylie's birthday. We took her to dinner this time because she would be leaving with her church to visit the Philippines for two weeks. She had never left the country before, and we wanted to wish her well and learn about her upcoming trip. I asked her what she wanted, and she suggested tacos. She must have great taste in food, just like her uncle. I looked up places in the middle of where we both live, and the one that stood out to me the most was Tacos El Bandido Express. 

To tell you the truth, I don't know much about this place other than they have a very respectable 4-star rating on Yelp, and they opened in December of 2021. There's a food truck that is located on Garden Grove Boulevard that is named Tacos El Bandido. They use the same logo and have similar menus, so they might be related. There's no website listed for either place, so I'll assume they are somehow related.  

We arrived at this blink, and you'll miss it strip mall at 4pm on a recent Sunday. The best landmark I can give you is that El Bandido is across from Wahoo's, at the corner of Walnut and Newport Avenue. There are wanted posters above the register featuring large pictures of most of their menu items, which is helpful for indecisive eaters like my niece Kaylie. 

The menu is varied, and they offer descriptions of everything in both English and Spanish. One portion of their menu is dedicated to the hottest trend right now, birria. The menu does not clarify whether this is goat or beef birria, but as you'll later see, we can confirm that it's birria de res, also known as beef. There's a menu board of specialty items and another one listing the options for their tacos, burritos, tortas, and flour and corn quesadillas. Nine kinds of meats are offered, ranging from asada and carnitas to the more adventurous lengua, cabeza, and the always delicious suadero (beef) taco. Lots of options, so we quickly ordered and waited less than ten minutes before our food was ready. Let's see if this place would be an excellent send-off for Kaylie. 

It's not the most authentic of dishes, but I have been on a real Asada Fries ($10) kick lately. This version was straightforward, with pinto beans, cheese, pico de gallo, asada, guacamole, and sour cream topping the fries. I loved that they used crinkle-cut fries because they stay crispy longer than regular fries. The asada was seasoned well and was another standout. These fries could have been balanced out with some extra cheese and guacamole added to the mix. They were layered well, and I'd get them again. 

Katie is a big fan of birria and an even bigger devotee of Ramen Birria ($10). I used to think this mashup was just a fad, but it's pretty good. I should have had Katie lift some of the noodles with her spoon for the picture, but you'll just have to trust me that there is ramen in this rather large bowl. The birria was hearty and went well with the provided noodles. Katie calls this dish comforting and looks forward to the cooler days ahead when she can see this dish heating her up against the arctic chill that winter in Southern California can sometimes provide. 

Keeping the birria train running, we also ordered this Quesadilla Birria ($9.50). This is my favorite way to eat birria besides a quesa birria taco. The corn tortilla was handmade and provided a sturdy structure for the plentiful birria and cheese housed inside. It was not the easiest thing to eat, but it was satisfying. I should have opted for some consome to dip this in. Next time, I will know better. 

Here's a quick shot of the cavalcade of tacos we ordered this early evening. They have eight meat options, and these street-style tacos are priced at a modest $2 each. They drop to $1.50 if you eat here on a Tuesday. They are very reasonable, and they come with two corn tortillas and are dressed simply with some avocado sauce. Onions, cilantro, and red and green salsa are available at the salsa bar on the left-hand side of where you order. Let's see which tacos I liked the best. 

My first three tacos were Carnitas, Asada, and Pastor ($2 each). Each of these was very solid. I loved the pastor with its little chunks of pineapple, adding bursts of flavor with the marinated pork. The asada, like on the fries, was seasoned well but was more tender than what was on the fries. The carnitas were good, but I would have liked more variety in the carnitas. I like it when you have different textures of the shredded pork. Still, not a bad taco out of the bunch. 

For my last taco, the one on the left, I tried their Suadero Taco ($2). For those of you unaware, suadero is a brisket taco. It's cooked in its own fat until it becomes melt-in-your-mouth tender. The one here at El Bandido was very tender and not a taco to be missed. I've now made it my mission to order a suadero taco at every place I visit that offers one. I want to raise awareness of how delicious suadero is. The carnitas taco on the right was not mine, but I may have helped Katie finish it after she was too full from slurping down her birria ramen. 

I really enjoyed our visit to Tacos el Bandido Express. Everything we had was very good, and the prices were very modest, a combination you don't often find. Even though we were here at the early dinner hour of 4pm on a Sunday, this place was busy and had a good, consistent flow of customers during our stay. Even though a sign alerted guests that they made their food to order, so it might take a little longer to get their meals, we did not find that they took any longer than we had expected. I foresee plenty of return visits here in the next few months. 

Out of five locomotives (because one of the most famous bandits in history is Jesse James, a man who is presumed to have robbed at least 20 trains in his time), five being best to zero being worst, Tacos El Bandido Express gets 3 locomotives. 

As I mentioned before, Tacos El Bandido Express does not have a website, so for all the latest information about them, click here to check out their Yelp page: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tacos-el-bandido-express-tustin