Then & Now: Best Fish Taco in Ensenada

Then:

Summer 2011. I was a 27-year-old USC grad student with lots of insecurities and big Hollywood dreams, living in super cool Los Feliz. I spent my days at my on-campus work-study job because my internship at The Good Wife fell through. The rest of the time, I explored LA, hung out with my classmates and tried all the food places I didn't have time to try during the school year, somehow, on the most meager budget I've ever lived on.

That July, I went to the Los Feliz Street Fair and had the best fish tacos of my life from Best Fish Taco in Ensenada. Soon after, I visited Best Fish Taco's actual brick-and-mortar location on Hillhurst Avenue for more. The fish was fried, but not too crispy or oily. The potato tacos were soft but never mushy. There was a salsa bar with cabbage, radish, and crema. I learned what horchata is, took my first sip of it, and was never the same.

Thus began a great love affair.

Look, Best Fish Taco in Ensenada isn't the most glamorous place in Los Angeles – it's a dive that looks like an unfinished tiki hut that needs a new paint job – but it became my happy place, especially as my MFA program grew more intense. Starting to get feedback on my thesis? Time for Best Fish Taco. My thesis professor told me, "Mallory, this isn't good enough – you need to dig deeper"? I need two fish tacos and some horchata. Drama in the cohort? Get me to the salsa bar, stat.

My love for Best Fish Taco became well-known among my friends. They sent me Groupons for it, so I was able to buy more tacos for less (even though the tacos were already like $1-2 each). To my delight, fellow Eastsiders started to text me to say, "Wanna go to Best Fish Taco?" (The answer was always yes.) As the pressures of my thesis increased, I made fan art.

After I graduated from USC in 2012, I got an apartment with a classmate in Culver City. I was excited for a new adventure on the Westside, but what broke my heart the most was that I'd leave behind my beloved Best Fish Taco in Ensenada. I'm completely serious. I was so sad about it that I had a Goodbye to the Eastside dinner there, but it was really a Goodbye to Best Fish Taco. Everyone who attended understood, because they loved Best Fish Taco, too.

I wish I could say I continued to make the trek back east for fish tacos, but I only did it a few times in the year after I moved. Slowly, I lost touch with my Best Fish Taco friends. Then, I got new jobs and new friends and everything happened: breakups and trauma and burnout. Then, in my 30s, I had the glamorous life my 27-year-old self wanted, filled with celebrity interviews, movie junkets, red carpets, premieres and international work trips. It was fun and ephemeral, but also exhausting and overwhelming. I was so focused on climbing the corporate ladder that I never had time for a jaunt across town to revisit an old favorite. When the pandemic threatened all of our favorite restaurants, I pledged to go back after hearing a rumor that Best Fish Taco had closed the salsa bar out of precaution.

But I didn't return...until 13 years later.

Now:

September 2026. I was a 40-something USC adjunct professor at one of those LA events that didn’t serve enough food. I knew from my glamorous Hollywood party days that this was pretty typical and the only solution was to sneak out and buy my own food. Before I left, I remembered what I had been telling myself for the past year: You need to go back to Best Fish Taco.

I had spent four and a half years making the crosstown trek to USC every week, and that summer I kept going east to meet friends and work all over the Eastside. You really need to go back to Best Fish Taco. You just have to. But a few questions kept gnawing at me: What if I went back to Best Fish Taco and it wasn’t the same anymore? I only had mild heartburn when I ate there at 27, and now I’m middle-aged. What if my stomach couldn’t handle the fried fish anymore?

What if they really did get rid of the salsa bar??

That night, the lack of passed appetizers and snacks at the party left me so hungry I'd forgive Best Fish Taco if the salsa bar was gone. I checked Apple Maps and it said I was only 24 minutes away from Best Fish Taco, so I braved some Friday night traffic on the 101 and the 5 and drove through my old neighborhood.

The Albertsons was still kicking. My favorite bar, Public House, is long gone, but the new hottest spots were Vandell and, I kid you not, Jeni's Ice Creams. I peeked inside The Alcove and families were ordering and eating dinner. The blocks seemed quieter. Maybe I didn't just get older, but Los Feliz did, too. The vibe used to be "too cool for school" and now it was "I have a dog and a house." It used to be nearly impossible to get parking in the neighborhood on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but I had no problem securing a spot on the same block as Best Fish Taco.

Walking inside felt like a time warp. I still saw the spot where my Goodbye to the Eastside dinner took place. The salsa bar was still there, but it was nicer!! The prices went up a little bit, because, you know, inflation.

I ordered my usual fish taco, potato taco and horchata, but I also added some taquitos. I remembered my exact salsa bar preferences as soon as I walked up with my tacos. And then, I took a seat on the patio and enjoyed the tacos; thankfully, they tasted just as good and my stomach was fine. It felt like coming home. As I ate, I looked around, marveling at how little had changed here, but also how much I had changed.

It’s weird to live somewhere long enough to feel nostalgic for who you used to be and what you used to love there – especially when it isn’t your hometown. I'm used to having these pangs and yearnings for New York City, where I grew up, but I had always seen Los Angeles as this grand new adventure. As of July 2026, I've been living in LA for 16 years – hardly new! – from my late 20s through all of my 30s and into middle age. Three different eras, three different Mallorys I have a lot of feelings about – not all of them good.

Look, I had to dive into my old Facebook account to dig up a lot of those old Best Fish Taco photos, and I full-body-cringed the entire time. Not all of those memories are fond in hindsight.

I'm different from those other Mallorys, but they aren't separate from me; each one became the next, like Pichu evolving into Pikachu and, eventually, Raichu. I'm finding that a big part of middle age is reconciling those past selves, looking back at my youthful ignorance and forgiving myself for my many, many mistakes. Those bad decisions and errors in judgment taught me hard lessons and led me to a life I enjoy, even if it's no longer the glossy Hollywood life I dreamed of when I first moved to LA.

I wondered how 27-year-old grad student me – equipped with her Best Fish Taco Groupons and USC swagger – would feel about who I am now. Would she be disappointed that I gave up all the glamour and ended up back at USC as a part-time professor? Would she hate me for losing touch with the friends she thought were forever? Would she blame me because it took 13 years to return to her favorite taco place in LA?

I don't know, but I'd tell her that the parties and premieres are fun in the moment, but they'll never leave you fully satisfied or happy. Sure, teaching isn't glamorous, but seeing your students have an "Aha!" moment in your class is infinitely more rewarding than all the celebrity interviews, red carpets and movie junkets you'll do in your career. I'd tell her that losing touch with friends happens for so many different reasons – some beyond your control, but also some because those people really needed to GTFO of your life.

But I’ll take the blame for making us wait 13 years to return to Best Fish Taco. That was 100% my fault — and I won’t let it happen again. Seriously. I went back again less than a week later.