Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
South of the border comfort food
Voodoo Stu brings Southern home cooking to Tijuana
Voodoo Stu likes his gumbo dark.
Place
Voodoo Stu’s & Black Magic Mael’s Gumbo Shack & Juke Joint
Pasaje Rodriguez (between Third and Fourth on Revolución), Tijuana, BC
Voodoo Stu probably could have gotten away with calling his cooking “Rural-Creole-Baja Cuisine” or some drummed up stuff like that, but he didn’t. Instead, the Atlanta-raised chef simply calls it “Southern comfort food,” and it speaks volumes about what the two-month-old eatery is up to.
Stu and Mael met in Atlanta and set up shop in the Pasaje March, 2015.
The most recent addition to Tijuana's re-reinvigorated Pasaje Rodriguez
Located in the art-centric passageway of Pasaje Rodríguez, Voodoo Stu’s & Black Magic Mael’s Gumbo Shack & Juke Joint serves home-style dishes on paper plates to the tunes of Delta blues oozing from a vintage stereo. A gold gator head grins next to a time-worn Coca Cola marquee. The close-quarters eatery is stenciled in Moroccan wallpaper and the tables are fashioned from old doors. Stu flips shrimp in the open kitchen while his girlfriend Mael, a Tijuana local, brings sweet tea to guests. The overall effect is just enough tongue-in-cheek kitsch to be charming without becoming a caricature.
Fried catfish, with a local take on mustard greens
Banana pudding, just like Grandma used to make
Following the origins of Creole and Cajun cooking, Stu draws on locally available ingredients, improvising with Baja produce while focusing on authenticity.
Case in point? Stu’s classic Louisiana hot sauce makes use of whole chiles de arbol in place of Tobasco peppers. His fried catfish is a local river catch (sometimes he substitutes corvina) and is served with Hopping John black-eyed peas and a chard-like market leaf steamed a la mustard greens. The fish batter is crispy, light, and flavorful, crumbling around the fork to reveal moist and flaky fish inside.
Similarly, Stu’s Holy Trinity is derived from the French culinary base of equal parts onion, celery, and carrot. The South substitutes peppers in place of the carrot, and Stu makes it his own by using local poblanos and serving over rice. The hearty bowl goes for just over two bucks and is a fitting addition to the vegetarian-friendly Pasaje. Even better, because Stu favors olive oil over butter, all veggie dishes are by default vegan and everything feels light on the gut.
“There’s a lot of debate about what makes a true gumbo, but I just make it the way I like it,” Stu says of their namesake dish. For him, that means marinated chicken and browned, homemade Andouille sausage; slow-cooked roux (Stu uses peanut oil and flour for a dark, nutty base that carries the meats); and a smattering of filé (ground sassafras) just before serving. A bowl goes for 50 pesos (about $3.25) or 70 with pan-seared shrimp. The ample stew comes out spicy, earthy, and bitter, with a lingering parsley zing.
Fried Chicken Fridays. Tasting is believing.
Batman is known to frequent Voodoo Stu’s.
Fried chicken is the house special every Friday, and it’s some of the best I’ve ever tasted (and easily the best in town). The chicken is marinated overnight and breaded with Stu's own Cajun mix. It’s substantial yet light and explodes with Southern spice.
Saturdays are blackened fish, Sundays are shrimp and grits, and daily sides have included boiled peanuts, pimento cheese, seasonal veggie plates, coleslaw, and many others.
If you can’t make a Fried Chicken Friday, stop by on a Sunday and check out the Pasaje’s new weekly market, which brings the tianguis market tradition of interior Mexico to a local forum.
Here's something you might be interested in.
South of the border comfort food
Voodoo Stu brings Southern home cooking to Tijuana
South of the border comfort food
Voodoo Stu brings Southern home cooking to Tijuana
Voodoo Stu likes his gumbo dark.
Place
Voodoo Stu’s & Black Magic Mael’s Gumbo Shack & Juke Joint
Pasaje Rodriguez (between Third and Fourth on Revolución), Tijuana, BC
Voodoo Stu probably could have gotten away with calling his cooking “Rural-Creole-Baja Cuisine” or some drummed up stuff like that, but he didn’t. Instead, the Atlanta-raised chef simply calls it “Southern comfort food,” and it speaks volumes about what the two-month-old eatery is up to.
Stu and Mael met in Atlanta and set up shop in the Pasaje March, 2015.
The most recent addition to Tijuana's re-reinvigorated Pasaje Rodriguez
Located in the art-centric passageway of Pasaje Rodríguez, Voodoo Stu’s & Black Magic Mael’s Gumbo Shack & Juke Joint serves home-style dishes on paper plates to the tunes of Delta blues oozing from a vintage stereo. A gold gator head grins next to a time-worn Coca Cola marquee. The close-quarters eatery is stenciled in Moroccan wallpaper and the tables are fashioned from old doors. Stu flips shrimp in the open kitchen while his girlfriend Mael, a Tijuana local, brings sweet tea to guests. The overall effect is just enough tongue-in-cheek kitsch to be charming without becoming a caricature.
Fried catfish, with a local take on mustard greens
Banana pudding, just like Grandma used to make
Following the origins of Creole and Cajun cooking, Stu draws on locally available ingredients, improvising with Baja produce while focusing on authenticity.
Case in point? Stu’s classic Louisiana hot sauce makes use of whole chiles de arbol in place of Tobasco peppers. His fried catfish is a local river catch (sometimes he substitutes corvina) and is served with Hopping John black-eyed peas and a chard-like market leaf steamed a la mustard greens. The fish batter is crispy, light, and flavorful, crumbling around the fork to reveal moist and flaky fish inside.
Similarly, Stu’s Holy Trinity is derived from the French culinary base of equal parts onion, celery, and carrot. The South substitutes peppers in place of the carrot, and Stu makes it his own by using local poblanos and serving over rice. The hearty bowl goes for just over two bucks and is a fitting addition to the vegetarian-friendly Pasaje. Even better, because Stu favors olive oil over butter, all veggie dishes are by default vegan and everything feels light on the gut.
“There’s a lot of debate about what makes a true gumbo, but I just make it the way I like it,” Stu says of their namesake dish. For him, that means marinated chicken and browned, homemade Andouille sausage; slow-cooked roux (Stu uses peanut oil and flour for a dark, nutty base that carries the meats); and a smattering of filé (ground sassafras) just before serving. A bowl goes for 50 pesos (about $3.25) or 70 with pan-seared shrimp. The ample stew comes out spicy, earthy, and bitter, with a lingering parsley zing.
Fried Chicken Fridays. Tasting is believing.
Batman is known to frequent Voodoo Stu’s.
Fried chicken is the house special every Friday, and it’s some of the best I’ve ever tasted (and easily the best in town). The chicken is marinated overnight and breaded with Stu's own Cajun mix. It’s substantial yet light and explodes with Southern spice.
Saturdays are blackened fish, Sundays are shrimp and grits, and daily sides have included boiled peanuts, pimento cheese, seasonal veggie plates, coleslaw, and many others.
If you can’t make a Fried Chicken Friday, stop by on a Sunday and check out the Pasaje’s new weekly market, which brings the tianguis market tradition of interior Mexico to a local forum.
Comments