You may know a LOT about food in LA, but you know NOTHING of Baja.  The Valle de Guadalupe is an amazing, peaceful region.  Its taking some time- but they have been building it up slowly and carefully and it really is a beautiful place creating some very good wine and very good food as well. 
It is not a “border town” nor is it a dangerous place by any stretch of the imagination.  This kind of post only serves to perpetuate the myths in the media re: Mexico and their drug cartel violence problem. I urge you to reconsider and visit this region before you judge.  By way of disclaimer, I live part time just south of Ensenada and truly love this wild peninsula and her people (Tijuana is another story all together)
It is not necessary to drive through Tijuana (the only city with any REAL violence problems in all of the 1000 mile long peninsula) to experience Valle De Guadalupe and Mexican Wine Country.  Drive through the border at Tecate — the Ruta del Vino is right there- I promise you, it looks nothing like the Rumarosa Grade in your video (incidentally, not a bad road either on the toll road despite the video).
There are some great people making a real, positive change for the future of the country.  I suggest you try it out before calling “Bullsh*t” on the whole venture.

P.S. i did like your comment about American dopeheads- because truly, without the market (US drug consumers) there would be no profit and thus, no gangster/cartel wars.  On that, you are spot on.

You’ve written many posts here where your credibility is stretched thin, but this one may be the worst offender. I debated whether it was worthwhile responding, because I don’t think you’ll actually learn anything, but I decided to because it may save someone else the trouble.

Let me start with what you got right: the border crossings all suck, and they suck even worse in the last six months or so. The US government has decided to sacrifice half the lanes at each of the major crossings to people who have that ridiculous passport card, and to make matters worse, they’re reconstructing the San Ysidro crossing to eventually expand it, so a place that used to have 24 lanes for traffic now has 5 for “Ready Lane” people and 6 for people with the usual passport book. It sucks and that more than anything will keep Americans out of Baja. Even Tecate, which used to be reliable for never having more than a 20-30 minute wait, is up to an hour and a half these days.

Now then… the rest. Look, the restaurant has “gourmet” in its name! That must mean it’s alta cocina, right? Ever been to Thai Gourmet on Oxnard St. in North Hollywood? How about China Gourmet on Broadway in Chinatown? Super high-end places, right?

Of course, if you actually knew anything about the history of Baja California, you’d know that the reason there are thousands of Chinese restaurants in northern Baja is because Harry Chandler—you know, the legendary publisher of the Los Angeles Times—imported thousands of Chinese labourers to dig ditches to irrigate the southern part of the Imperial Valley, which lies (surprise!) near Mexicali. You appear to have ignored everything that’s good to eat in Mexicali, including their outstanding carnes asadas. You could have taken your American friends to La Carnicería on Justo Sierra or to experience the only-in-Mexicali Heidelberg on Madero just a block off the border at H St, but instead you’re complaining about holes in the wall.

Also, you don’t speak Spanish; please don’t make up “facts” about it. The word “chino” is not capitalised in “arroz frito chino” because nationalities used as adjectives are never capitalised in Spanish. On the side of the road in the Valle de Guadalupe, you can buy un pay de manzana americano, with no capitalisation of the A.

Speaking of the Valle de Guadalupe, guess where some of the high-end stuff you complained about Mexicali not having is? That’s right, on dirt roads in the wine valley. Your readers should go eat at Corazón de Tierra and at Laja, and go wine tasting at Monte Xanic and JC Bravo and La Villa del Valle, and then go twenty minutes away to Ensenada and eat the seafood at Manzanilla and Muelle Tres. If they’re still hungry, stop in Tijuana and eat at Misión 19 or the revitalised Caesar’s (yes, on so-touristy Revolución) or Erizo or Cheripán or any of the places in the zona gastronómica. You can go, too, but I assume you’ll hate it, because your M.O. is to be the “maverick” and you appear already to have made up your mind that nothing good can come from Baja California.

The shrimp that they pull out of the Gulf at San Felipe and Loreto is light years better than the flown-in prawns they serve in the Cantonese seafood houses of Monterey Park. How do I know? I’ve had both, many times.

Your hatred for Baja seems to be based on hassles with the police; while this does happen occasionally, it also happens here in the United States. Don’t believe me? I can post anecdotal evidence just as well as you can: go look up Tenaha, Texas or Quartzsite, Arizona as an example. For my part, I’ve never been pulled over in Tecate. We did go through the routine military checkpoint north of the first tollbooth in Ensenada, though, last week, and they were polite if abrupt, and let us pass without searching us. I’m a dozens-of-times veteran of the one south of Rosarito on the free road, and I’ve never had any issues at all.

Also, going and doing a YouTube video after looking at Google Maps is not the same thing as actually driving from Tijuana to Mexicali. It’s not scary at all, on either the toll road or the free one—you just need to sack up and quit complaining about things you’ve never done. Incidentally, have you forgotten that Mexicali was rocked by a major earthquake two years ago? Both Highway 2 (free) and Highway 2D (toll) are still whole and standing. When you actually do go do that drive, make sure to stop at La Cabaña del Abuelo in La Rumorosa for their grilled partridge and their outstanding rabbit al mojo de ajo, dishes unavailable in Los Angeles.

In the meantime, save the hatchet jobs for things you actually know about, like, say, Chinese food in the SGV.

We’re planning our trip now… San Diego, thru TJ, down to Rosarito for a night, down to Eneneada for lunch, up thru the wine country to Tecate.  Haven’t been pulled over in Baja, ever… been to Tecate more times than I can count. Looking forward to seeing how much BETTER it has gotten over the past 35 years. 
Pussy.

The responses to this are predictable. People have a stake in trying to make the border into something its not. 

Just a couple of things I’d like to add here… First, not sure you have been to Tuscany, but most roads there are as bad if not worse than the ones you describe in Baja. That does not make going wine tasting on the Italian hills a nightmarish experience. Second, “New Tuscany” clearly refers mainly to the wine production and the beauty of the vineyards. At a minimum you could have mentioned something about the subject instead of going off on Chinese restaurants. I suspect you know little or nothing about wine, Italian, Mexican or any other, so perhaps you just did yourself a favor. Third, I also suspect you are a quite lousy driver if you managed to get pulled over three times during one trip.
In any case, writing a controversial blog always draws readers, so I can see what you are doing here. But please keep it a bit more real as your bitterness about driving in Northern Baja is quite unprofessional considering this is a wine/food related article.