Baja’s Bar & Grill – Sushi y Mariscos

Sipping a cold Kirin Ichiban as mariachi music streams from the restaurant’s sound system. Killing time with chips and salsa while waiting for an order of sushi to arrive. Maybe calling for a Michinolada – that’s a michelada braced with Japanese beer. And yet there’s nothing wrong with this picture.

Well, it is more than a little disconcerting to be sitting at a two-top inside Baja’s Bar & Grill with said surroundings – a bit of culinary confusion. The restaurant recently rolled out a more conventional menu, with fish tacos, birria, aguachile ribeye and the like. Yet it is the sushi stall that draws attention.

The idea of merging Asian and Mexican flavors has its advocates. At places around the country, dishes like Gochujang-marinated pork in a street-style taco has people turning their backs on al pastor. So an ura-maki with grilled beef and avocado should work nicely.

But “should” is a cranky word.

One roll at Baja’s shows both the promise and problem of Mexi-sushi. In the Tejano Crunch Roll, the play of surly red meat with the cool richness of avocado and enigmatic sweet flush from pepino bring out hues rarely seen in a drab wrap of nori. The dried seaweed offers a rustic shade to chunks of beef. It picks up on the faint grassiness in the avocado and perks against slivers of the melon.

But the roll is ambushed by a glob of cream cheese so jealous of the disparate voices coming into harmony that it waves the chorus to a halt, yanks the curtain down and leaves you in silence, moping over what was lost and wondering why you suddenly crave bagels.

Cream cheese intrudes on the El Jalapeño Roll, as well. What should be a blistering presentation calmed only by another dollop of crab salad becomes a test of one’s affinity to a certain Philadelphia brand. In this case, cinders of jalapeño cleave through the deadly cushion of cream cheese and clutch to the back of the throat. Even then, it feels like you’ve just tried a spiked cheese spread.

At Baja’s, the team also rolls more traditionally – if that word can be used to describe a place serving a roll of crab, avocado and, yes, cream cheese dusted in crushed Hot Cheetos. They prepare items like a salmon roll influenced only by avocado and a “Volcan” tuna roll topped with jalapeño. These are plates within the realm of Americanized sushi. (And keep in mind, it was someone north of the border who first slathered cream cheese into an inside-out roll).

On the poke side of Baja’s menu – yes, there is a poke side – things are more familiar. Well, except for the teriyaki chicken poke. Whatever you want to call a rice bowl with teriyaki chicken, it’s a hearty dish. The meat carries a welcome swarthy, earthy savor and it slips apart with a wonderful tenderness.

This is a concept in progress. If the crew begins to ignore those tubs of cream cheese and deliver on the possibilities hinted at in the Tejano roll, the meal of carnitas maki and Japanese beer will work quite nicely indeed.

Baja’s Bar & Grill – Sushi y Mariscos 435 Pajaro St., Salinas. Sun-Wed 11am-8pm; Thurs-Fri 11am-10pm; Sat 11am-11pm. 800-7445.