Pacific Beach Fish Shop Wins Taco TKO At San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival

Grilled Mahi Mahi Tacos Take Top Prize At Annual Event

By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Nightlife Blogger

After three hours of serving up countless tacos to a couple hundred people, Pacific Beach Fish Shop won the people’s prize of “Best Taco” at the 2018 Taco TKO on the final day of the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival.

The large-sized taco (most other competitors served small “street” tacos) contained grilled mahi mani, covered with a bbq sauce and served with nuts and other toppings that put it over the top. The tacos were voted on by the people at the event, who dropped a token into a jar of their favorite place.

In all, there were some 20 San Diego area-restaurants serving up tacos. Perennial contender and frequent winner Sand Bar finished second in the voting.

Held in a courtyard of Liberty Station, Taco TKO pretty much TKO’d me on having any tacos for a while, as the amount and choices of them were more than one person could consume on the sunny Saturday afternoon.

Coming on the heels of another spectacular Grand Tasting event on Saturday, it proved to be the perfect ending event for PubClub.com’s three-day coverage of this week-long festival.  It featured a rockin’ Latin band as well as several craft beers, two wineries, tequilas and even Kenny Chesney’s rum.

For the most part, I stayed away from tequila shots and tacos, but could not resist the mezcal margaritas. They paired perfectly with the great variety of tacos and overall the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival served up another fun and tasty event.

My PubClub associate Digger was not with me but I struck up conversations with some fun people, including a group of two girls and two guys, all but one wearing the free white promotional sunglasses given out by a vendor. The lone dark shades person would not put away his Ray Bans to confirm to the others and we had a few laughs about that, as well as a cheers for Digger.

The ticket price of this event was $55 “and it was well worth it” a departing patron said as she finished up the last of her wine.

It was, in many ways, a knockout of an event.

Cheers!