Mariscos El Conchal might not deliver the most oceanic fireworks in Tijuana. Especially compared with nearby Mexican seafood specialists like Mariscos Ruben, but El Conchal co-owner Umberto Buelna and chef-brother Oscar have still carved out quite a niche for themselves with their Sinaloa-style seafood shack. The Buelna brothers hail from Culiacan. For the past 15 years, they’ve dispensed all manner of seafood that’s protected by a shell, known in Spanish as a “concha.”

Mariscos El Conchal customers can mix and match from columns that includes oyster (ostion), clam (almeja), conch (caracol), shrimp (camaron), cockle (pata) and sea scallop (callo de hacha). Seafood selections are available in either cocktails, tostadas or ceviche.

We each devoured a tostada mixta loaded with silky sheets of sea scallop, raw shrimp and sea snail. The restaurant treated each tostada with an umami-laden Maggi-spiked marinade and topped with fresh shucked avocado and a dice of tomato, onion and cucumber. La Guerrerense taught us not to fear sea snail, a creature packed with supple clam-like meat. Since there’s rarely such a thing as too hot in a group of food bloggers, we dressed our tostadas with dynamic chiltepin hot sauce that provided an added spark to our meal.