Sitting on a white-sand beach, on the outskirts of Todos Santos in Baja California, I was waiting for my cousin Dylan to emerge from the ocean, where I left him spear fishing. I did not have any luck fishing, had given up and swam to shore. I could see his snorkel cruising back and forth along the rock reef below the surface. Normally this spot is where we came to surf, but the swells had disappeared and for the previous two days, we had kept busy by collecting oysters and spearing fish.

As I was waiting, my other two cousins, Marciano and Yoshi--two locals--drove up from the house in their sandrail, and five minutes later, two of their friends from town stumbled upon our gathering. They had been collecting driftwood and pau d'arco branches; the latter is a common building material in Baja. I looked up and Dylan was walking from the water with a large Sierra wiggling on the end of his three-pronged Hawaiian sling. Fresh fish, how glorious! Our excitement was compounded by the sudden materialization--from one of our visitor's backpacks--of tortillas, limes and hot sauce.

We took some of the driftwood and started a fire. Yoshi gutted the fish, split it in half, and placed it skin-side down on a thin piece of wood. We built up sand berms to keep out the wind and placed the narrow strips of pau d'arco above the small flames to keep in the heat. In twenty minutes the fish was done and we were filling our bellies with the most amazing fish tacos I'd ever eaten. No doubt they were different from those we ate, with frequent regularity, in town, as they were missing the standard toppings of red cabbage, onions, cilantro and crema, but the freshness of the experience was incomparable.

In my family, Baja and the fish taco have been consistent parts of our lives, and the surf, sand, and sun mixed coupled with lime, corn, pescado and hot sauce is a recipe for life. Since that serendipitous moment described above, each time I eat an authentic fish taco, no matter the location, I am transported back to that time on the beach when we laughed at the deliciousness of it all.

In my life, the tip of the Baja Peninsula and New York City could not be any more distant, and after three years of trying to find, in this fair metropolis, a worthy example, I decided that I needed to introduce the fish taco in its true Baja glory. With twenty years experience as a cook in a variety of restaurants and natural food cafes, not to mention the hundreds of times I have cooked fish tacos for parties, friends, and foodies, I knew I could deliver. In stepped the Brooklyn Flea, who offered me a spot at their Sunday location, in Dumbo and under the Brooklyn Bridge. From there I started Saturdays at Ft. Greene, and when the weather forced us inside, we moved to One Hansen Place.

So join us at the Brooklyn Flea and enjoy one of Choncho's crispy beer-battered treats topped with fresh, raw veggies, and of course, do not forget the lime and hot sauce.

With the success of Choncho's at the Brooklyn Flea, we have expanded our menu and opened an outdoor/indoor café called the Loading Dock, just north of Flatbush on Tillary. You can follow our developments on this website, or tweet us at: www.twitter.com/chonchostacos.