La Choza was located in the old adobe headquarters of Mercer Ranch with a large adjacent parking lot.  The name means “the shed” which is the name of their sister restaurant in the historic square.  Frankie has visited both but prefers La Choza.  You can read about a past visit here.  They do not take reservations so go into the building to get your name on the list as soon as you park your car.  There are options to sit at tables inside or outside as well as seating at two bars.  (I even heard someone request a patio seat where they could have their dog with them).  The place has multiple indoor rooms all enhanced with colorful decorations.  We were meeting friends there so I got to take photos of some other plates and everyone agreed the food was quite good with generous portions.  The red sauce is supposed to be the spicier of the two but both had a good bit of heat, at least initially.  I found as you ate the hot portion rounded off into simply lots of flavor.   The heat aspect varies with the chilies used that day.  Service was great and I’d easily recommend this place to anyone for lunch or dinner.

Set-Up

Food

We started with an order of chips and the Trio, which is guacamole, queso and Choza salsa.  The crispy chips were both yellow and blue but in truth, I couldn’t taste a difference.  Both were nicely corny and crisp without being greasy.  The guacamole was well mashed and very mildly flavored.  The queso was runny and accented with pepper pieces.  I liked it.  The salsa had a mild spicy component and was good with the chips.

Blue Corn Burritos were 2 blue corn tortillas filled with cheddar cheese, onion, tomato and lettuce with a choice of beef or chicken.  Served with pinto beans, posole, lettuce and tomato they are usually smothered with red or green chile but our friend had it on the side so you just see the cheese on top.  He also had the vegetarian style posole, which can be requested when you order.

Blue corn chicken enchiladas were made with blue corn tortillas stacked between two layers of cheese and a sprinkle of onions and then covered with red and green chile. Served with pinto beans, posole, lettuce and tomato, these were side by side so easy to separate the sauces.

The Enchilada plate was blue corn tortillas stacked between two layers of cheese, a sprinkle of onions and covered with red or green chile. They were served with pinto beans, posole, lettuce and tomato and we added carne adovada with pork to the enchiladas.  Adovado is made by slowly cooking lean pieces of pork in a rich marinade of chile caribe, oregano and spices. If you don’t want to choose your chile you can order “Christmas style” and get both red and green sauces, which we did.  This plate they covered half with each sauce so you could blend in bites of posole and pintos with each too.  It was cheesy with really flavorful pork chunks.

All entrees are served with sopaipillas but you could have French garlic bread or tortillas instead.  Honey was on the table.  We got the sopaipillas and they came out with the food.  We all left them until after our plates were through which was a mistake I think, as they were no longer hot.  I’ve had these before and they’re great but they are way better warm than room temperature.  The Shed usually presents the garlic bread which is also good.  Either should be eaten with the meal while warm.