TRUE story: I’m perched at a high table at La Choza here scooping so-so guacamole with giant fried plantain chips and simultaneously and pretty aimlessly Googling: why do these tacos keep falling apart.
It’s a slack mid-week night on downtown Albion Street, La Funka by Ozuna is playing (think of music to drown by) over the air. Beyond those plate glass windows people wander languidly by completely unaware that Houston: we have a problem.
Take this butter bean, black bean, jalapeno and avocado taco. It looks pretty much exactly like a modern, and currently in vogue with the Hipster generation, ow-then-tic taco should look like. The tortilla has been pressed thinly, there’s colour from the hot plate and without even putting it in my mouth I can see the tell-tale texture of proper masa-harina, that nixtamalised (what a word) corn flour vibe that has its own, never-forgotten and pretty fabuloso flavour.
So far I’ve tried to squeeze the taco from its wavey metal holder: result? Crumble, crack, threatened collapse and impending ruin. Then I think about sliding it out. Result: It’s stuck. Ugh. Finally? I slide one finger under an edge, spider other fingers around the sides, lower my fat face as close as possible to the action, and therefore and classily, to the table and with blobs of green and red sauces a-splattering, beans a-tumbling and tortilla slow-motion breaking apart like in a Hollywood catastrophe movie, lever up what I can.
I don’t actually verbalise the grunty mwoooh sound that’s running so loudly through my head with all this effort. That, at least is fortunate. Because somehow a waitress has breezed up so right beside me that when I raise eyes, slobbers all over my chops, she’s looking down and uttering the restaurant world’s most insincere phrase; how’s your meal tonight? Ah. Now you’re thinking this? Ask her how to eat it dopey. Ola?
I know how to eat a bloody taco. And anyway I’ve already used up my only-one-question-or-they’ll-think-you’re-mad quota. To query where exactly the crumbled charred halloumi is on the guacamole with (absolutely no sign of) crumbled charred halloumi. Answer: the block is apparently charred and then the apparently completely un-charred bits are grated on the guacamole. Caramba, I’ve just paid £7.50 for a bowl of guacamole with a dusting of one of the world’s top 10 blandest substances, somewhere between Chicken McNuggets (No1) and water. Damn. Yes, I could also ask for taco eating advice from that open kitchen behind me but somehow I get the impression in there and out here, that well, they’re not actually, er, Mexican. Or even hipsters.
So I do what we do. Ask Mr Google. Not enough fat in the mix is one suggestion. Nah. I’ve now gone through the indignity of the pork carnitas and pineapple salsa. Pretty pleasantly porky, pineapple a bit tough. The slow cooked beef shin, spring onion, even more guacamole. Again there’s flavour to that beef but enough with the guacamole please. And I dis-assembled to eat the Baja white fish taco with Pico De Gallo.
They’re not going to win any awards for the Baja white fish batter, unless someone creates a sustainable torpedoes category, but it’s fine. All tacos collapse, yet amongst the chaos there is undoubtedly that reassuringly soft and comforting masa-harina taste.
So yes, there’s fat in the mix. Yet, while the base ingredients, the beef, the pork, maybe not so much that white fish, are distinctive, somehow the accompanying ingredients, not every single one has guacamole, don’t have enough punch, pizazz.
Says Mr Google? It sounds like you’re buying old tortillas. Nope. These are defo fresh. Are your tortillas warm enough? Ooh, hey, hang on. That’s it. It’s those stupid cold steel holders they’re served in. Sucking all the heat out. Making them collapse. But why don’t La Choza know this already? It’s not like their online customers reviews are not full of it.
La choza
84 Albion Street
Glasgow
Opening: seven days
Menu: proper freshly made, hand-pressed masa-harina tacos are quite rightly now a thing and they’ve worked that out in here with slow beef, marinated pork, white fish fillings and many more. 4
Atmosphere: they’re proudly not going overboard with the Mexican food cliche decor so it’s cool, spacious, comfortable, but weirdly ends up with a minimalist Japanesey vibe. 3
Price: Seen some grumbling about £7.50 for two meaty tacos and £8.50 for tiger prawns, I actually think the prices are okay for the Merchant City. 3
Service: Chirpy and cheery, pretty quick off the mark on a quiet mid-week night, no complaints. 4
Food: Liked the beef shin flavour, the pork carnitas too, maybe the formulaic side flavourings lack punch but the biggest problem is after all that work making tortillas they’re served on cold steel and collapse. 5
Total: 19/30
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