Slow Baja - Travel Talk With Slow Baja Meet Javier Martinez Of Boules Restaurant Ensenada

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

Travel Talk With Slow Baja Meet Javier Martinez, owner of Boules Restaurant. Today's Travel Talk with Slow Baja has me chatting with Javier Martinez, owner of Boules Restaurant in Ensenada. I wanted to sit down with Javi to learn why everybody is raving about Boules and its gregarious owner? I loved the food and the atmosphere. #SlowBajaApproved  Boules Av Moctezuma 623, Zona Centro, 22800 Ensenada, Baja California [phone] Visit the Boules Restaurant Website Read Boules reviews on TripAdvisor Follow Boules Restaurant on Instagram Follow Boules Restaurant on Facebook

Hello, hello, hello, Ola, Como Astas, amigos. Thanks for making some time for Slow Baja today. My heaping dose of gratitude goes to Jeff Hill and the Baja bound insurance team for organizing that amazing Baja Lifestyle and Travel Expo last week down at Humphreys and San Diego. It was really an amazing, great venue, great turnout. I was delighted to be part of it all. And, you know, I was just talking.

Baja, talking slow Baja, seeing old friends, people who've been guests on the show, meeting new friends, meeting listeners, just well done, five stars, Baja bound insurance. As you know, from last week's show, I was in the Nora booth with Mike Pearlman, again, Slow Baja alum. It just blows me away that Mike's dad was the father of a florist from Tarsan. It was just the father of off-road racing. You know, he had an employee who didn't know how to shift his old manual transmission land cruiser and got it out on the highway and just blew up the motor. And Mike's dad, Ed, just kind of being a cheapcase.

So, well, what are we going to do here, you know? Let's go to a junkyard and see what fits. Found a little Chevy V8 that dropped right in. And all of a sudden, he's ripping around the desert. And I wonder if he could set the speed record from Tijuana to La Paz. Well, he didn't do that. but he did realize that, hey, we should have an off-road race, and the 1967 Mexican 1000 was the result of that.

So it was super cool to be in the Nora booth playing the film 27 hours to La Paz, that great documentary from the first race in telling people about that history and telling people that they come down with me and the Slow Baja class in their regular 4x4. So I just want to say big thanks to Baja Bound, Huge thanks to Nora and Mike Pearlman for letting me be in the booth. And I just want to also say gratitude, real serious gratitude here, get choked up kind of gratitude over all the Slow Baja listeners who came over and said hello, told me a little something about which show they liked or what keeps them listening to the show. And that was just really amazing for me to just have, you know, have sort of been out. this for a couple years now and to meet all those Baja lovers in one place really, really, really

made my day. And then I just had to blow out of there and get off to my other great love baseball. I went to see my son play at spring training. He's up with the Giants. That was an awful lot of fun to go right from that venue, that amazing venue with all the Baja peeps over to Scottsdale and watch a little baseball. Well, enough about me, my family, and boy wonder. playing ball with the Giants. Today's show is with Javier Martinez of Bul. You know, I muff that. I know I'm going to muff it five more times. Bull is a fabulous restaurant in Ensenada. Carlos Valenzuela, my Mexico Baja travel fixer brought me in for dinner. We had a fabulous, fabulous dinner, lots of wine, enjoyed ourselves immensely. And then I went back the next afternoon,

thinking I could scoot in before the dinner rush and just have a nice quiet chat with Havi. Well, that really didn't go so well. He's like super gregarious guys, like Tigger and Winnie the Pooh. He's just bouncing all over the place. I had to cut the first five minutes of the podcast because people just kept coming over to say hello and he's waving at people and he's here and he's there and he's talking to me and he's talking to somebody else and I just couldn't make sense of the edit. So we just chopped it off and we just kind of dive right in.

So I'm doing a little setup here. But without further ado, let's get on with today's show. Restaurant Tour, Javier Martinez, a boule in Ensenada. Slow Baja approved, a beautiful indoor outdoor venue, great wine store right next door, buy a bottle, have corkage fee, buy great wine, buy the bottle, buy the glass, great food, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, recommended. All right, on with the show. Hey, this is Michael Lemery.

Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade and small batches and hands down my favorite tequila. Hey, I want to tell you about your new must-have accessory for your next Baja trip. Benchmark Maps has released a beautiful, beautiful Baja California Road and Recreation Atlas. It's a 72-page large format book of detailed maps and recreation guides that makes the perfect planning tool for exploring Baja. Pick yours up at BenchmarkMaps.com.

Well, we're at your restaurant, Bulls. Bulls? This is a French word? Yeah. That means balls. Yes. It's the nickname for Petank. Yes.

Yes. And basically I named it because it was my first restaurant going solo. This is my third restaurant. So I started with no money, no nothing. I did just balls to do it. Really. So that's what kind of took it. And we love the game.

So that's why we name it. And a lot of people calling me like bulls, like the Chicago Bulls or whatever, or bollies or whatever. I really don't care. I'm not, how do you pronounce it? It's a French word, so supposed to be bull. But I just want people to be happy, so I really don't fight it.

It's like people call me Xavier, you know, they cannot say Javier, you know, I don't know why. But it's hard for some people. and the Jaha, Javier, you know. All right, well, one of my, well, let's get started. It's Slow Baja, it's travel talk. I'm at Bulls, balls, balls. I've got the guy by the balls right here.

I got the guy from the balls. Bull. Bull. Bull. I'm at Bull in Ensenada. And I'm here at Carlos Valenzuela, my new Ensenada fixer. My new Baja fixer brought me in. And one of my listeners had suggested

one of the Baja, Slow Baja community had suggested that I get in here, and so I was just thrilled. Nice crowd last night, great food, great night. We're eating outside under the stars. So tell me, Javier, how'd you come up with this idea? The idea was kind of forced, you know. I was a partner in a restaurant, very successful, but at that point we expanded.

So it had kind of, was not enough money for all of us. So I decided to go solo. And I started with my ex-wife in San Miguel on the third point. I don't know if a beautiful, also beautiful, beautiful setup, but it's kind of far away from the city. So mainly was only the weekends when it was happening. And the lease ended, and we moved here eight years ago in this patio. That totally make it happen.

I'm very, very happy here. Awesome. Do you think we can squeeze the music a little lower? I will turn that off. My editor's going to kill me. I record in all sorts of places, you know, street noise, all sorts of. So, and I like to have people feeling like they're sitting here with me at the table, but my editor's going to have my balls.

Okay. Exactly, exactly. So, eight years. Eight years. Eight years. And they look at, total, 12. Okay. We're going for 12 in March.

And so you have how many tables here? 25, 30. I'm guessing I'm looking around. Capacity is 125, 130 person. Okay. Seating. And it looked like it was pretty lively on the court yesterday. Last night, people are playing.

They're rolling the balls, tossing the balls. A lot of young people, young crowd comes and plays once in a while. I mean, there's a lot of fun. People are having a great time. So, Patonk versus Bachi. It's the French versus Italian. A lot of people named, are you guys playing Bochie? Because Boch is, I think, way more popular than Petanke.

Yeah. But Boch is the Italian game, bigger balls. You can run. Different. The rules are kind of similar, but different. A little bit different. Yeah. I've seen the Patonk in the south of France with the gypsies.

With the gypsies, Mercedes, Marseilles, the capital, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Throwing the balls in the gravel. In the gravel, correct. So, explain. your cuisine. We had the... Carlos is going to tell me.

Carlos did all the ordering last night. So tell us to Carlos what we had. And then, Javier, you're going to tell me what it's all about. Thank you. Risotto, Poblano with Arrachera, with steak. And then we have tacos of Chistora. Very good, right?

We started with a tuna starter, which was amazing. That was, yeah, the first one. It's Tiradito from tuna. Very good. So there's nothing that I love more than going to a restaurant with a local and having them do all the ordering. I never saw the menu. I didn't care. I was having my tequila.

It was great. We switched to wine. Everything was wonderful. The steak, the steak, orangeade was perfect. So tell me about the cuisine. The cuisine is normally, I've been a restauranteau for 20 years now, so we try to work as. very common sense you know work with the local ingredients

like the bluefin tuna it comes from the farms or the yellow tail whatever is fresh we try to to put it there's a lot of farms also so the veggies and that everything goes to the states a lot of states here so we try to work

with that and a little fusion with the risotto that is a lot of people like it and a lot of people don't do it so a lot of people come here for the risottoes but normally we try to do the the seafood, like the savages and the real fish. So would you say your Mediterranean cuisine based? With the touch of a Baja spin?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, like my ex-partners, they influenced me a lot. The guys from Manzanilla and the guys in the kitchen been working for me for 15 years now. Wow. And that's whatever I found fresh, you know, sometimes you go to. to La Beauforta and you can see some, we call them Centailles, it's very similar as the king crabs.

So we grab whatever it's, oh, we got this, Javi, we have some Maboloni, we have, so the guys can cook whatever. So the menu is changing all the time. We try. Yeah. It's nice to order. Well, we have like the classical, like the Chistora tacos and the flanksic tacos and the baby clams.

And how about the wine pairing? All local wine, French wine? All local wine. All local Mexican wine. All right. Well, it's what, 15 minutes away? 20 minutes away? 50 minutes away, it will be the first one.

And also we have the store here. I don't know if you walked into the store. It's called La Contra. They carry 472 labels. And that's also one of the keys because a lot of the customers, they can buy very good wine for only $200, like $8 more for a corkage fee. That is what we call. So people are happy and they can try.

I live them in optional. Sometimes I walk with them to the store. They want recommendations. But normally I would like just to get lost and see what the local wineries are offering. Like 20 years ago, when I started, there was only like 12 wineries. At the moment it's more than one, I think close to 200. Yeah. Some small, some big.

Yeah, but I have seen people that started with one barrel or two barrels, like the guys from Benakaba, Piu-Anne, and now they're big, big wineries. Hey, do you wish you had joined us on the Nora 500? well, here is your chance. It's double the mileage, double the fun, double the parties, double the dirt. It is the Nora Mexican 1000. We're going to drive by day.

We're going to party by night. I'm pouring Fortaleza tequila, April 30th through May 6th, 2022. We're driving the entire peninsula. You don't want to miss out on this one. Again, if I can do it in my 1971 Toyota Land Cruiser, totally stocked, you can do it in any modern 4x4. the Nora Mexican 1000 is the happiest race on earth.

Check it out at nora.com, n-r-r-r-r-a-com, or on Slow Baja. Here at Slow Baja, we can't wait to drive our old land cruisers out of the border. When we go, we'll be going with Baja Bound Insurance. The website's fast and easy to use. Check them out at Bajabound.com. That's Bajabound.com, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. Now again, you're selling lots of wines. Are you able to share any favorites?

Do you have any, can you help my Slow Baja community pick four or five favorites that you really love that maybe somebody's never heard of, smaller wineries? Yeah, of course. Normally, but the house wine, or basically my partners, it's called Aborigin. We had that last night. It's lovely.

And I like Piuwana a lot. The Chimul wines, there's also Benakava, Cruz. that is also small. And La Lomita, there's a lot of, but those, Madra Cinco,

but they're going big. They're a lot of them they start in the garage and now they're, they're even in the states on all over Mexico. So as I'm sitting here with a couple of Ensenada locals,

guys who are in my middle years category. Remember music from the 80s. I'm going to put it that way. They remember the music from the 80s, maybe lived it. Where are you guys going when you're taking your wives, go friends, what have you?

Where are you going for a weekend, getting away from Ensonata? There's so much that's within a few hours of here. Where do you go? What do you do for recreation? For recreation? Normally I used to go to the States. Normally.

Okay. Not really. We used to run to the States. Now we stay here, I think. Normally, I go to the Valley State in some of the local boutiques. But really, now I'm traveling a little bit farther than the stay here. But then I was planning to go to Tijuana. Carlos take me to a very cool hotel in Calley Revolution that I was totally blown away.

And I was saying, I should experience DJ because normally I only go all the way, Playa's, Century Lane, San Diego. And off. And off I go. And now that my wife is from San Diego, normally, I was going a lot to San Diego for the last five years. Gotcha. All right. Well, I'm always looking for Baja tips.

Carlos, represent here, buddy. Give me a Baja tip. Where are you going when you're taking your wife and going someplace? Well, El Balle also, of course. And when I was in the tourist department, I think I told you. We traveled all over the state like Baye, Los Angeles, San Luis Gonzaga, San Quintin, Rosarito, Mexicali, Tecate, everywhere. I mean, it was my job and also it was a thing that I wanted to do, and I really enjoyed it. All right, back to your restaurant, Javi.

You had an interesting crowd last night. Good mix from young people to, you know, middle-aged folks. I didn't see many tourists here. It's a place that the locals are here in supporting. Yeah. Normally, I think it's 80 to 20. 80 local 20. There was a point that I used to have a little bit more people from the U.S.

with COVID is a different equation, I will say, or different ballgame. My clientele went totally changed, really. I think it's like you nail it. The middle-aged people got an abop, got afraid of going out. So the juncture, all the bars and all the, all the places, they were totally locked down. So they started coming here because I was only of the few spaces with a lot of open space. Yeah, you've got all open skies.

It's easy. So they were happy with the distance and a lot of people, a lot of young people start coming. Like, I have to remember, because I like to know my customers. I really like to get more personal. Hi, Carlos. Hi, Michael. Hi. So, and I like to, how are you doing? And I have to, at the beginning I didn't care about the names, but they start coming very often, very often. Hi, Andres, hi, Arturo, hi.

Because I like you, I like to remember what you eat, what you have, to make it more. I think it's part of the bull's success, I think. Well, it looked pretty successful last night, and it's filling in now. So we're going to wrap this up so we can turn the music back on. and you can get back to being local hobby. Okay. I hope Lobaja comes back and it's my pleasure to be talking to you guys, Mike. Slow Baja will come back.

But my friend Pepe Giza calls you loco Javi. He said you have the best job. All you do is talk to people and smile and laugh. So I think he's got you pegged. Yeah, but that's what I say, you know. It's not easy to come always every single day with a smile. It's not for everybody. Oh, you know, I love my job.

I really love to meet people. You know, people is what make me, I say, okay, it's the food, but it's also the service. So it's like, if you come to the table and nobody, nobody's, okay, I kind of have a beer? And they take, and then you look and you say a waiter or texting or whatever, I said, where's my beer or where's my wine? I like, I'm quite hyper, so I really kind of, I have to be moving and I like to, I really like to people to live with a, with a smile. Yeah, I sound like that. what they remember. They can have a beautiful meal but the waiter or even me, I can totally

fuck it up and I bring their own things, but I like people to live with a smile. All right, so wrap it up. You've got a beautiful wine store here. You've got capacity for 120, 25 people in, I don't know, 30-something tables, right? I'm just guessing behind you here. A nice staff, they were able to pour me a beautiful ranch water last night, Blanco Tequila and Bacchico, that's my favorite, and then we moved on to some wine, which was lovely. The dinner was fabulous. How do people find out about Boll? And where are you?

Your Instagram, Facebook, website, where can people find you? Right now we're consolidating on that, because at the beginning, as you can see, have a tiny little sign. I really just believe in the war of mouth. And actually, when we moved eight years ago, it's like, I was, We were like only five people, now we were 20. Five with me, basically. I used to shopping and I used to bartend and wait and everything.

Now I have, my nephew Andres helped me a lot. So I'm able to be more off. But I love to come here and see the faces and see people smile and laugh. And that's all good food and laugh. Yeah, I saw a lot of that last night. And you're bouncing around like Tigger, you know? You're here, you're there, you're everywhere with a smile and a laugh. So, hey, Slow Baja approved.

If you find yourself in Ensenada, get down here. Roll the bull. The bulls. The bull. All right. Well, thanks, Avi. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, guys.

Good times. And Slow Baja approved, highly recommended. Good times, Carlos. Thanks for bringing me in. Of course, man. Anytime. Well, that was fun. Short and sweet, as they say.

Hopefully I'll get back to Ensenada and do something serious with a hobby sometime soon, but the food had arrived. We had a full table of folks. The wine was there, and everybody was doing their best to stay really quiet while we were doing the podcast. It was kind of funny. But anyways, if you like what I'm doing here, please, please, please share the show

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The food, the setting, the pool, it's all spectacular. Adobe Guadalupe.com. For appearing on Slow Baja today, our guest will receive the beautiful benchmark map 72-page Baja Road and Recreation Atlas. Do not go to Baja without this, folks. You never know when your GPS is going to crap out, and you're going to want a great map, in your lap, trust me.