Jorge Meraz: Folks, today on "Crossing South" we are at Oja, a restaurant in Valle de Guadalupe that blends culinary artistry with natural beauty of the landscape, creating a dining experience like no other, and it's all coming to you now.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jorge: You know, the Valle de Guadalupe has a world class offer in regards to food pairings with its wine, the produce, and not only that, it's adding the whole atmosphere, the ambience, the architecture, your experience when you come to the Valle.

It's not just the food as if it wasn't enough, it's also everything that surrounds it, the experience that they provide wrapped around delicious food and delicious wine.

And one such guy that's pioneering that kind of experience is the one standing next to me right here.

Javier, how you doing, my friend?

Javier Caro: Hey, how are you, man?

Nice to see you.

Jorge: Nice to nice to finally meet you.

Your mustache is as famous as your-- Javier: Thanks so much.

Jorge: It's a look, right?

It's a-- Javier: It's been a while.

I did it when I was very young.

I was doing a play and then now my kids like it.

Now I can't take it off so-- Jorge: You're an influence.

I'll tell you, I have a friend of mine who is like in his early twenties.

After watching you, he's been rocking that mustache.

Javier: Oh, that's so cool.

Jorge: You're influencing people, my friend.

Javier: Yeah, well keep on going.

Jorge: I don't know what to ask you first.

The reason for the name of your restaurant or this atrium that looks just--what a thing to walk into before going into--we haven't even started and you're already welcoming your patrons with something like this.

Tell me about it.

Javier: Well, the thing here is that we love so much nature.

Then we're invited this beautiful, amazing place, right?

And it was all done and all started by our ancestors, the Cumais.

So, all about the tenants of Cumais.

They love water, they love earth, they love everything.

So, how does--how about we start with some water, a circle that in circle means oja means rock, and the rock, it becomes a circle.

Jorge: Oh really.

Javier: So, that's how we start this big journey, yeah.

Jorge: So, Oja is the name of your restaurant.

is that right?

Javier: Oja was the name of Ojavalle, yeah.

It's a rock.

Rock means we're solid.

We try to be a family.

We try to be a group.

We try to be something steady.

So, yeah, it's all about-- Jorge: would this be like the equivalent or homage to like the village fireplace sitting together or-- Javier: It's something like that.

We can all get together here.

We sometimes get together and have meetings and stuff here-- Jorge: Oh, really?

Javier: And it's pretty cool, yeah.

At night when everybody just leaves, we get a little bit of fogatas going on and stuff, and yeah, we talk a little bit here and see what's gonna happen the next day when we have festivals and stuff like that.

It's a great place to just have a meeting.

Jorge: Oh my goodness.

Javier: And the echo here, it's amazing.

Hear it.

Jorge: Ah!

Whoa.

Then when it rains, I can just imagine that the water just coming through that-- Javier: It just drops and it's so cool that sound, yeah.

Jorge: Yeah.

Javier: It's all about nature, man.

Jorge: Well, you certainly have a deliberate intention.

What is up with this layering in your walls?

I see them all throughout.

What is that?

Javier: So, this is actually ramped earth construction.

Jorge: Okay.

Javier: So, it's all ancestral.

All this is obviously dirt from here, but the color--you can see the pigment of this.

It's this small thing called chinchilla.

It's like an animal.

It's like an insect and that's how we can-- Jorge: It looks like a flea.

Is it different?

Javier: It is, but it's more like an ant.

It goes that way.

That's why the colors are kind of different.

See here are more blacks.

Jorge: There's some even a lot darker.

This one looks like carbon.

It adobe or is it cement or what is it?

Javier: It's 20% cement and the rest-- Jorge: Is dirt.

Javier: Is just water with dirt.

And it's compact.

So, we did this big like walls of wood, put the dirt in, start compacting.

Each one you lay it, take it out and go for the next one.

Jorge: I've already seen this really cool construction with a story.

And now I have this walkway.

You're taking care of people by not getting their feet muddy when it rains.

Javier: Of course.

Jorge: I mean, you're thinking of everything.

Javier: It's all about a concept and trying to make people feel in nature but still, you know, on a kind of restauranty fun place.

Jorge: Oja immerses you in its ecosystem from the moment you arrive, where nature and gastronomy harmonize seamlessly.

He's prolonging that immersion and very gradually whisking patrons away so that when they arrived to the table, the transition was as smooth as possible.

Jorge: Okay folks, we're about to go into the food tasting part, but it's no ordinary place we're gonna eat.

This is very native.

This is very much in contact with nature.

So, the place where we try the food should also reflect that.

And what better way than this teepee behind me.

"Crossing South," coming your way, folks.

Don't miss it.

This is a really good part.

Okay folks, this is what Oja has brought out and you can see Javier's words come true to light, right?

You've got the dishes, the variations that he created based on his grandma's dishes.

You've got your torta aguada, you got your flautas, you got your filet here, but look at all the other stuff as well.

This is the stuff that Baja is known for.

So, we're gonna get to see that right now, alright folks?

"Crossing South," let's get into this.

Check this one out right here.

This octopus carpaccio, you see that vinaigretta.

It's got Asian peppers, a little touch of lime, some onions, and decorated with local flowers.

And as you can see, there's--it's adorned with some tasty little capers.

You know me folks, I like to try it as is without messing with it.

Let's try this octopus carpaccio.

Oh man, it is so delicious.

It's one of those dishes, and I've seen that a lot.

The ones that are smart, I think, are the ones that do that where the ingredients are not just ornamental, but they're actually the seasoning.

Like I would describe this dish, if you wanted to have someone, you know, who normally doesn't eat spicy food.

How--I wonder how it feels to eat spicy food.

I can't take it.

This has the flavor without that biting, you know, aspect of spicy food.

Okay, so this is a filet mignon is wrapped in bacon.

You see his mashed potatoes.

And it's got this mushroom reduction.

Then I guess it pours over, but you know me folks, I like to try things before I mess with them.

So, before I pour that, I wanna just try--let's just try that first, all right?

Oh man, it is so tender, seasoned to perfection.

You can taste the pepper, you can taste what salt bay probably does the, you know, the whole thing, the whole jigma thing, you know.

Okay, so I'm trying with some mashed potato.

This is so good.

The last one I'm gonna try.

I'm gonna pour that mushroom, you know, reduction.

Look at that.

Look at that mushroom sauce.

The sauce is good.

Look at that drippage.

Let's just make sure nothing gets away from us.

Normally this is the point where the whole mouthful collapsed on me, but I think we're gonna make it.

Javier: Me and my brother, we own Hostina, right?

In Revolucion.

It's been 10 years, blah, blah, blah.

But the cool thing about this is that once over there it's very traditional to see a donkey that's painted as a zebra, right?

Jorge: Right, right.

Javier: So, once we were cooking and everything and then we saw a donkey walking by going back to the stable.

Jorge: The zonkeys.

Javier: And then the zonkeys--exactly.

So, we grab one and we're like, "Hey, can we take it in the restaurant?"

And the guy was holding, she's like, "Why?"

"Just let me take it."

So, we grabbed it and we took it in.

It was full packed of people.

Everybody was looking at us like, "What are you doing with a zonkey in your restaurant?"

So, then my brother, he tells me he's like, "One day we should have real zebras."

So, I'm like, "One day we'll have one."

And then we have don't one, we have two now.

Jorge: Do they require any special care?

Javier: It's more or less like a horse, a little bit more special.

Gotta take care of a lot with their--what they eat.

It can be humid, you know, because their stomach and stuff like that.

Jorge: Everything has to be dry.

Javier: It has to be dry.

They eat a lot of fruit too.

Jorge: Even though-- Javier: Like carrots.

Jorge: Even though they have like humidity in them?

Javier: Yeah, yeah.

But that's totally fine.

Those kind of vegetables, it's fine.

Javier: Welcome my friends to the temple Abuja.

I, your Chef Javier will like to take you to a gorgeous, wonderful journey.

Jorge: So, as you're walking into the restaurant, you're already gearing your clients up.

They've gone through the atrium.

They've gone through, you know, your audio production.

You know they're seeing all this nature.

Your boys here, your zebras.

Where do you want them to start?

You know, what is your intention towards your clients here?

Javier: What we try to do is to feel a place very environmental, feel the nature, feel what really value it's about.

It's about these gorgeous olive trees.

We planted 59 of them-- Jorge: Olive trees.

Javier: But we had other ones here.

Then we had those trees.

These green, green trees are called algarrobos.

This used to be a farm of algarrobo trees.

Algarobo, it's a substitute for chocolate.

Jorge: Really?

Javier: Yeah, so-- Jorge: Is there food made out of algarrobos right now?

Javier: It gives the seed out and when it dries, you do a process with them and then it can become a chocolate.

It'll taste a lot like chocolate.

Jorge: Really?

Javier: So, there's a lot of companies that use that substituting chocolate.

Jorge: Right, right.

Javier: So, we got a lot of those.

So, what I did is that I said, "I wanna keep those and put a little bit extra."

And that's why we got the olives.

It's a lot of valle.

Then we got our grapes here on the side.

Then we got the algarrobos.

This is the amazing algarrobos.

This is dry.

We can crack it right now.

See, we'll try to keep this a little bit more in the oven so it gets drier.

And then you do a little bit more process.

Is not that easy, but it'll give this amazing taste.

Jorge: The ones in the know, the real ones, they don't raise the landscape when making a project, but rather embrace it.

And they let it dictate to a degree how the design will flow.

Respect for the environment, respect for traditions, respect for the past.

Jorge: These are flautas.

Now flautas are a dish that I consider a flawed dish because no matter what you put on top, the mouthful just falls down.

But this is a dish that's close to Javier's heart.

So, look at what happens.

You grab a flauta, that's what happens, right?

The side is flawed, but look at what he did.

He put a little bowl here with all the condiments basically below it on top of the marlin inside the flautas.

And you're supposed to do something with flautas.

I'm gonna put some of the bottom part here on top again.

Flautas is supposed to do something with them.

Down south this is how they eat them.

They always have this stew full of flavor, full of seasoning, full of peppers, you know, different.

It's a broth that's very typically eaten with flautas.

You're supposed to just pour it all.

Just let it go.

Make them nice and soggyish.

Let's get into the flautas.

It takes me back literally to homemade food, comfort food, because I thought it was gonna have marlin inside.

No, it's got potato.

It's almost like a smash--a mashed potato type of substance.

Many of the Mexican flautas dishes and menus, instead of having your shredded meat, your carne de sebrada inside the flauta.

La papa, which is potato, a mashed potato inside.

So, the marlin is really outside.

It's making you interact with your dish, playing with it.

You're determining how much marlin your flauta is gonna have.

Okay, so this one is the torta ahogada.

Now, normally in Guadalajara, which is where his family hails from, normally this torta would be drenched, I mean soaked in this sauce.

And I guess maybe, you know, he wants you to look at it before.

Like even--so much where every molecule of the bread would be soggy.

So, this one, it's got like a pork cheek right there, kind of like an avocado aioli, the tomato sauce, and a cured onions there just to honor the dish.

You know, there's the reason why I brought it unsoaked.

So, I'm gonna bite it unsoaked before I do the honors, okay?

Really well seasoned meat.

The pork cheek tastes really good.

I like that the bread is not like stiff.

Many times when you--somebody--when I get a dish like this, the bread gets really hard really fast.

It's not.

Okay, so let's have an ahogada now.

I'm just gonna pour it all, all right?

There's a reason why he brought it like that.

So, I'm gonna do the honors and I'm just gonna--I will gather the torta.

I'm gonna drown the torta in all of it because I think that's why I brought--that's the portion, right?

That's the portion.

Okay, so now that it's drowned, now that it's a bonafide ahogada torta.

That was really good.

I prefer it without the sauce, but both mouthfuls were really good.

The pork meat and the bread.

Jorge: The valle's got such good produce.

Baja's got such good produce.

Javier: It does.

Jorge: What's your style?

Javier: It does.

Jorge: How are you manipulating it to create this culinary experience?

Javier: Well, obviously you just said it.

We have so much amazing protein.

We got the beautiful sea that we get this beautiful sea urchin.

You get the bluefin tuna that is amazing.

The clams we get here are amazing.

So, it's all about trying to really use everything that we have.

We cultivate a lot of our stuff-- Jorge: Really?

You grow stuff here?

Javier: Carrots, vegetables, all that kind of stuff.

So, I think we try to keep it as more homegrown as we can and everything try to buy as much as we can around here.

Obviously there's a lot of stuff we can't.

But whatever we have the opportunity and people come and say, "Hey, I grew these vegetables around here."

Please-- Jorge: Bring them.

Javier: Like of course.

It's all about that.

It's all about having as much high quality as you can because flavors, we use a lot of smoke.

Flavors, good smoke, a good olive oil.

You don't need much-- Jorge: Oh my goodness.

Javier: Sea salt, that's all you need.

Jorge: What's been your influence, your muse for Oja Hostina for your whole project here Javier?

Javier: Here, it's more about grandma.

Jorge: Oja is about grandma.

Javier: Ohio has that more feeling about grandma.

We--when we did this place, at the end of it, we're like, "Wow, it's kind of pretty big, but it's kind of ancestral.

It has this history.

It's all about the Cumias, the dirt."

Trying to feel that hear of the water, you know, that kind of ambience that makes you feel like really native, you know.

And I remember how grandma used to talk to us about when--because she's from Sinaloa and Guadalajara, so all that tends is that when she used to cook in iron pans and stuff like that.

So, what I try to do here, you can see this beautiful place, but the food is more grandma kind of style.

You know, it's more kind of family style.

That torto guys, it's our own scene perception of it, you know.

We bring that from Guadalajara.

We do our style and our twist, but it's still--it's all about that.

We do these flautas with marlin on top, but they're very simple, but just the taste and the flavor.

You'll taste grandma in that.

It's like--it's so cool.

I just love that kind of food.

A lot of people thought that it was gonna do a very like high end plate and, you know, very structural and very fancy and like all manterres blanco, you know what I'm saying?

Jorge: Yeah, yeah.

I know.

Javier: And no.

I'm like, "No, I wanna do my grandma's comfort food, my taste of Mexican food," and this is how Oja became Oja.

Jorge: Javier's dishes are based on classic Mexican food, but he takes it to another level.

He's sort of a magician in the kitchen.

Jorge: Okay, so this is the ceviche, the faustina ceviche.

Look at it in there.

That's curel fish inside of that.

These were actually, you know, corn pops.

They're actual kernels that pop.

Well, those are nicely seasoned.

You see that the reduction, that white sauce, that's called the tiger milk.

Can you milk a tiger?

No, I'm just kidding.

It's a Peruvian method.

In this case, they kind of boil and extract from fish, you know, fish bone, fish skeleton a sauce and then they mix it with coconut milk and that's how they create that reduction all around.

That's actually sesame seed oil.

And all of it is also infused with pepper ashes.

So, we're gonna have it with a tostada.

These Peruvian corn puffs are a nice snack.

Let's put all these coral fish on it.

Some of the tiger milk, let's grab a spoon here.

I wish I could describe you how good this dish is.

It's got all the virtues of the best of each I've ever had along with flavors that I've never thought to combine.

It's very spicy though.

That serrano pepper slice is something else.

Serrano peppers don't play.

I can describe it as a punch.

It's citrusy.

It's vinegary.

It's soy-y.

It's peppery.

It's spicy and sweet.

I honestly think that you should try to endure the serrano pepper because it just creates this chemistry that's there with the serrano pepper bite.

Okay, so this is a tiradito.

It's the name of a dish, almost like sliced salmon.

So, look at that.

It's mounted on a bed of avocado with a ponzu, the Japanese style sauce, the ponzu sauce with habaneros peppers, serrano peppers.

I'm gonna try that just like that.

I'm not gonna use a tostada with this.

I'm just gonna try it as is just to see.

Tastes like a very good sushi.

Let me try with all the other ingredients to see if there's something different.

Avocado, the cucumber.

That's right, with the pimento.

Let's try the sprout, the green pea sprout.

It's delicious, it's creamy.

Probably the only thing that I would say, it's not as impactful or surprising as the others.

Jorge: How did you get into the culinary business, Javier?

Javier: I went first to do administration school.

Jorge: Really?

Javier: Yeah.

Jorge: You're an administrator.

Javier: Like, eighteen years ago, and-- Jorge: Hey, it's needed to run a business, right?

Javier: Exactly.

So, you need it.

So, I'm not that wrong right there.

So, as soon as I was gonna graduate, I knew that if I graduated I had to kind of work with my family's business, and I'm like-- Jorge: Was your family restaurant a choice?

Javier: No, no, no.

They're more like on like administration like companies and all kind of-- Jorge: Oh, gotcha, gotcha.

Javier: I didn't wanna do that.

I didn't wanna be behind a desk.

Jorge: Right, right.

Javier: So, that's on me.

So, there was this big awesome school here in Tijuana that was doing very well, and I love my mom.

She's an amazing cook.

She's an amazing cook.

Jorge: It always takes a little bit of foundation.

Javier: Exactly.

It's all about moms, right?

So, when we were--when I was younger, she always tried to show me how to cook and do the family kind of broth and we used to do a lot of Thanksgiving.

She loves Thanksgiving.

So, I was always helping her out.

When I found out that I was about to graduate, I'm like, "You know what?

I'm gonna go to another school because I don't wanna graduate."

So, I went to culinary school.

Jorge: No way.

Did you-- Javier: I went to culinary school, I told my mom-- Jorge: You quit before you graduated?

Javier: I quit a semester before graduating so I could go to culinary school.

Then I paid my first semester.

Jorge: On your own?

Javier: And I didn't tell my mom.

Jorge: On your own.

Javier: Yeah, I didn't tell my mom nothing.

Jorge: Mom, I'm going to school.

I'm going to administration.

Javier: I'm going to school and--but she--then she found out because I didn't have any more money and I'm like, "How am I gonna pay this?"

Then I'm like, "Hey mom, I need to talk to you."

And she's like, "Do you wanna talk to me about why you're Philippines are not clean or?"

I'm like, "Oh man, now you know."

So I'm like, "Mom, guess what?

I moved to culinary."

And she's like, "Well, you can do whatever you want.

I'm always on your back, you know.

I always can help you--" Jorge: Way to go, mom.

Javier: "So go on," so, this being twelve years ago and-- Jorge: Way to go, mom.

Javier: Love you, mom.

Jorge: Is your mom incredibly proud of the result of that decision to back up her son?

Javier: I think she's pretty happy with what I'm doing now.

[both laughing] Javier: I think now, yeah.

Jorge: I think even the most optimistic mom would have had a hard time imagining how far this passion would take Javier.

Oja is a definite bookmark in the Valle, and I'm about to tango into the dessert phase.

I'm excited folks because in my opinion, the Valle has the highest ratio of on the mark desserts than any other city or town in Baja.

Jorge: Okay, so this is your chocolate truffle with mousse, chocolate mousse, nuts.

It's got some berries, you know, you've got some raspberries, some blueberries, some blackberries.

It's chocolatey, but it's not overly sweet.

It's almost like a dark chocolate flavor.

There are desserts like this that I would not be able to finish because the chocolate is so overbearing, not this one.

It's prudent.

Just sweet enough.

Sweet, delicious corn.

So, this is a corn flan.

You see the Mexican flan style?

Normally it's caramelized on top because that's how it's fried.

They normally--the technique is you have a frying pan with the caramelized sugar, you know, caramelizing on the heating part of the skillet or the vessel.

And then you pour the mix on top of that.

So, when you flip it, all that caramelized sugar stays on top.

Let's just get this upper corner right here.

Oh, it's creamy.

The density just--that's how you know when it's gonna be a good flan.

The density of it has a lot to do with it.

Let's see.

It did not disappoint.

Whoa, last one, the old classic key lime pie.

A little lemon zest, a little bit of the crumble also.

You've got the layerage, you've got the key lime on top, and you've got the cheesecake layer at the bottom.

You see the cheesecake part's frozen.

Oh, this is gonna be refreshing.

Makes all the difference.

Makes all the difference.

Jorge: This has truly been a find, but it's not over yet.

Right across the highway, Javier opened a second place called La Hostina del Valle, which has become one of the most popular photo ops in the Valle de Guadalupe.

But that, my friends, will have to be for another episode.

So, after indulging in Javier's culinary creations, we're left inspired by his passion for local ingredients.

His dedication to ancestral and sustainable dining amazed me.

And his vision of hospitality leaves us wondering what other adventures we'll get to enjoy the next time we get to cross South.

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