Muelle 8, One of LA's Best Sinaloan Seafood Spots, Reopens as a Food Truck

Eater

17-07-2025

After much anticipation among Mexican seafood lovers, Muelle 8 has reopened in East LA with a smaller, tighter menu served from a food trailer. The Downey restaurant originally debuted in February 2023, garnering lots of initial praise, including a nod from the Los Angeles Times, serving regional Mexican seafood from Culiacán. The recipes were developed by its late founder, Abel Martínez, who was a victim of the ongoing violence in February 2024 that has plagued Culiacán in recent years. But before his untimely death, Martínez and his cousin, Jay Orozco, the current owner of the Muelle 8 brand in the U.S., had become dissatisfied with their former partners in the Downey restaurant, so they decided to close it in January 2024 to regroup.
After a lengthy health inspection process and complications in fabricating a food trailer to meet its needs, the Muelle 8 trailer opened on July 3, 2025, after being closed for a year and a half. Other issues created more delays. 'We also had to wait for our cooks and staff from the original location to make themselves available because they'd been working at other restaurants,' says Orozco. Chef Luis Cortez, the chef who oversaw the opening in Downey in 2023, is back, as is one other cook and a former cashier, who comprise the entire team of this smaller operation. 'I wanted to start with a trailer just to see how it goes this time around,' says Orozco, who is now the sole operator and owner of Muelle 8. His family still operates a very busy Muelle 8 restaurant back home in Sinaloa. Orozco is working once again with the same local and Mexico-based purveyors that they used in Downey, bringing in fresh Sonoran callo de hacha (a rare scallop found only in the Sea of Cortez), Mexican shrimp, and products from wholesale seafood markets here in Los Angeles.
The trailer's abridged menu draws from the most popular hits from the barra fría (raw bar) and barra caliente (hot bar) that were served at the restaurant. From the barra fría, spicy plates include the sashimi-like wheel of raw, marinated tuna strips with a fan of red onion slivers, half-moon cucumber wedges, and an ornate avocado rose in the center. The dish is finished with jalapeño rings set over each slice of tuna and then doused with salsa negra. The tostada chavita consists of marinated, cubed tuna that sits on a crispy wonton tostada, spread with cream cheese, and topped with fried leeks and black sesame seeds.
Muelle 8 seafood trailer in East LA. Bill Esparza
Ceviche rojo, made with a spicy red salsa, can be prepared with raw or cooked shrimp, or a combination of both. It's then tossed with diced tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onions. For botanas (seafood snacks), there's Platillo Jay, a duo of cooked shrimp and callo de hacha set over a shallow pool of salsa negra, and the combinado, a mix of raw shrimp, cooked shrimp, octopus, and callo de hacha, also paired with salsa negra. The campechana, or mixed seafood cocktail, boasts the seven seas in a cold shrimp stock that contains fish, raw shrimp, cooked shrimp, crab, octopus, sea snail, and octopus.
For the barra caliente, Orozco has brought back a few signature plates and seafood tacos. A pair of tacos made the cut at the new trailer. The popular quesitaco, a fried cheese envelope stuffed with shrimp on a corn tortilla, a pile of shredded cabbage, carrot strips, and limes, is back. The other taco is the mar y tierra, a surf-and-turf taco of grilled cabrería and shrimp over a roasted Anaheim chile that's full of melted cheese. It comes dressed in chipotle mayonnaise. For plates, there are camarones zarandeados, a half dozen grilled shrimp marinated in a piquant adobo, and Muelle 8's classic roca, egg-battered shrimp in a sweet glaze, sporting stripes of mayo and black sesame seeds.
While much of the Mexican seafood in Los Angeles that waves the prestigious banner of Sinaloan seafood, Muelle 8 stands among an elite group that employs veteran chefs from Sinaloa, such as Mariscos Chiltepín and Del Mar Ostionería. 'The challenge was to get back out there, but it's going really well and we've been selling out,' says Orozco. 'We had great feedback the first time around and want to honor the founder [Martínez] by staying true to the flavors of Culiacán.'
Muelle 8 is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Tuesday and closed on Wednesdays. It will be parked at 5221 E. Olympic Boulevard, East LA. (323) 797- 0423.
Jay Orozco, owner of Muelle 8 in Los Angeles. Bill Esparza
Callo de hacha ceviche. Matthew Kang
Tuna fit, a sashimi of tuna with cucumber and avocado. Matthew Kang
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