Cholita - Revisit

While hubby and I are vaccinated and can be a little looser with the rules about where to eat now, the kids still aren’t and we’re still on the quest for good patios (please continue to share your favorites), Cholita is a good option because it is enclosed with plastic sheeting, but there are still large gaps of fresh air, and the tables are pretty well spaced (although when we were there, there were several patrons walking about one end of the patio
without masks).

It has been quite a while since I have been here, definitely over a year—and I was looking forward to trying it again. I will admit the last time we went (probably at least 18 months ago), things had fallen off a bit—there was a lot of cabbage and not a lot of the meat/veggie stuffing or other more interesting toppings. We started out this visit with some chips and salsa ($3) and the queso fundido ($8). We also had a couple different margaritas. The chips and salsa hit the spot and I like their salsa. It has a nice flavor without being too spicy. The queso fundido is tasty too, although a little challenging to eat with the little wedges of soft tortilla on the side-they taste good together but eating it with the chips was easier. The cheese is super rich and I appreciate the spicy salsa chile morita (smoked jalapeno) they serve with it to cut through the richness and add a kick of heat. The margaritas are tasty, but I recommend the top shelf because the regular house margarita is a little tart.

The menu is pretty much tacos after that, and they have a lot of good options including a rotating monthly special. Hubby and I shared a fish taco, a fried avocado taco, a shrimp taco, and the special chicken tinga taco (a “side piece” includes three tacos and beans for $13.50—you can also buy a la carte and the tacos range from $3.75-$4.25). The fish was so, so good. It is fried cod topped with shredded Colby cheese and cabbage and has a “California wine sauce” and pico de gallo. This was my favorite of the night. The fish was a light tempura-type batter and tasted fresh and super crunchy. All the toppings were just right. 

The fried avocado also really good, and is topped with baja sauce, pickled vegetables, cabbage and pico de gallo. I really like the additional of crunch in the texture of the fried items in the tacos. That combined with the creamy avocado was tasty and I think the pickled veggies add a great hit of acid to balance all that. 

The shrimp is fine, but not as good as the others. It was topped with all the same things as the avocado, but maybe the lack of texture variation made it not as interesting. The shrimp was cooked properly though and had an adobo taste. It definitely brightened up with a hit of lime. 

The special chicken tinga was the last one and probably the least favorite. There was nothing wrong with it, but not as much creativity in the toppings—mostly cabbage and sour cream.  I am intrigued by the hot fried chicken version and will try that one the next time. 

All in all, it was a very tasty meal and a good place to go eat on a patio and be protected and warm if necessary. I am glad to see they have made it through the pandemic (and it was about as full as it could be). Who has been lately? What’s your favorite flavor?

Cholita

1001 Broad Ripple Ave

Indy  46220

317/389-5555

www.cholitatacos.com 

Cholita brunch

I know it hasn’t been that long since I wrote about this place, but I feel like it is my civic duty to inform you all about their Sunday brunch. So, it’s $15 and it’s all you can eat. And it’s not a buffet, but you order off the menu. It is a different menu than their usual one, and actually it has even more choices. I have been twice already and have tried a lot of different things because both times I was with several people. 

They have some drink specials including several flavors of mimosas ($10). The first time I tried the passionfruit mimosa, but I stuck with margaritas after that. The mimosa was mostly just a glass of sparkling wine with some passion fruit syrup that sort of sunk to the bottom and never really mixed in well. Their margaritas are quite good though.

As far as the food goes, it was mostly all good, and some things were exceptional. My favorites are probably the chilaquiles and the tlayuda. The chilaquiles are made with nacho cheese Doritos and they served them in the split open bag—the chips at the bottom with cheese, bbq carnitas, boiled peanuts, pico de gallo and a fried egg. This was a popular choice at the table-- hubby especially liked it. It is definitely on my must-order list here. The tlayuda is a good thing to split with a group, otherwise it might fill you up too fast because it is big. It’s like a Mexican-style pizza—the crust is a giant crispy tostada topped with cheese, seasoned ground chorizo, scrambled eggs, beans, crema, salsa verde and pico. It’s really tasty. The first time I had it, I brought leftovers home to hubby and my son and they ate it immediately. A good mix of various flavors. And if you order a side of guacamole (it’s $8 though, not included in the all you can eat price), you can put some of that on top too. 

Speaking of guacamole, they have certainly improved it since my first visit. I felt like there wasn’t a lot of it when we went the first time and that it was mainly a lot of pico. But now it feels like you are getting a full serving of it. You can get chips and salsa as part of the $15 and their salsa is good. It is fire-roasted and has that deeper flavor that comes from roasting the tomatoes and peppers. I recommend getting some to add to various other dishes as well. They serve those homemade fried flour tortilla chips, which I particularly like, even if they are a tiny bit greasy. 

Hubby loved the bacon wrapped hotdog, which basically comes served as 2 tacos with the hotdog, beans, cheese, egg, guac, pico and hot sauce. I will admit, it was pretty darn tasty and not something I would typically order. It had a nice breakfast flavor with the eggs, bacon and pork. If you like sweets for brunch, the chocolate waffle is darn good as well. I had to be forced to take a bite because I usually avoid sweets for brunch, but I was really glad I did—it is really rich and chocolatey, with just a little bit of spice in it. It has dulce de leche, vanilla custard and banana with it. A great combo. They should add this to their dinner menu for dessert. You can also get churros, and they were better the two times I had them as part of brunch then the first time we had them for dinner. I think they have perfected the fry time on them and they are crisp outside but still slightly soft inside. And they have caramel and chocolate drizzle underneath. 

Back to savory though, I also enjoyed the pozole soup much more than I thought I would—the spicy chile broth was so tasty—it has a smokiness to it and a depth of flavor that was really spicy, but not hot spicy. There is chicken, hominy, cabbage and radish in there too. And they serve it with big fried tortillas. Seriously something I wouldn’t have probably tried but was glad I did (and it was thanks to our server who brought it when we told her to surprise us with a couple of things). The other thing she brought us was the drowned eggs, which I have now had both times. These were poached eggs cooked in tomato chipotle salsa with chiles, cheese and crema. I liked this as a very flavorful option with less carbs than most other things. You really got the smoky flavor from the salsa and they know how to poach an egg here. They were all just right. 

There was also a poached egg on the carnitas gorditas, which were pieces of masa cakes with beans, cheese and some sliced avocado. There was a verde hollandaise as well. It was sort of their version of an eggs benedict. I liked the flavors here, and again a nicely cooked egg. This was one I was torn on-- the masa cakes were strangely hard to cut, but you could bite through them. The flavors were good, but they were just maybe one of the weaker choices. 

I also tried the chicken and cactus and egg tacos. Both are good, especially with some of the salsa on top, although compared to the rest of the things, they are maybe slightly less exciting. The only thing I had that I just did not like were the tamales. They are pretty dry. They do have various sauces drizzled on top, but it isn’t enough to make up for the dense dry interior. 

Overall, this is one of the better brunch options in town. You can try all kinds of tasty treats. And the drinks are nice too. For $15 you can eat as much as you want, and the food is freshly made. Let me know what you think if you have been. There are still a few items I haven’t tried…

Cholita

1001 Broad Ripple Ave

Indy  46220

317/389-5555

www.cholitatacos.com 

Cholita

Hubby and I were looking for something new and decided to try Cholita. It’s in the ill-fated 10 01/Miss Behavin spot (what a terrible name). We went in slightly worried just because of the past experiences but were pleasantly surprised to see they have revamped the interior and that it was comfortably crowded even before 6:00. There is a large bar area in the restaurant that was full, and there is a good-sized seating area that was about half full with families as well as groups of adults. Our server was prompt and got us a drink quickly. I also liked that she didn’t have us order everything at once, as the food comes out pretty quick.

We each got a Cholita margarita (regular is $8, grande is $13). They were very tasty. They had a nice tart taste and weren’t overly sweet, which I appreciate. They use a bit of seasoning in the salt on the rim, which make it have a little kick. We also started with the queso fundido ($8) and added the chorizo option ($2). They serve this extremely hot bubbling cheese with tortillas to fill with the cheese and meat. It was really good. The edges of the cheese kind of burn on the little bowl it is served in. That crispy edge peeled out and put in a tortilla was delicious. I liked the chorizo, and appreciated that it was ground so it was easy to eat, but I thought there was maybe just a little too much of it. It sort of overtook the cheese in quantity. It all tasted really good though. The salsa that they served with it was also really tasty. It has a smoky flavor and we saved it to use on everything else. It added a nice extra dimension to the cheese and tortillas. We did not get any chips, and I am curious to know how they are. If you’ve had them, let me know. 

The majority of the items on the menu are tacos, so we got a bunch of different ones and shared them. They make all the tortillas in house and it shows. They are really good. The two seafood choices were great. Probably my two favorites. The shrimp one ($4.75) was amazing. It has bite sized pieces of shrimp (it has been cut up), cabbage, pickled onions (lots of pickled onions here), pico de gallo and baja sauce. I loved, loved the acid from the pickled vegetables. And I don’t know exactly what the baja sauce is, but it was really good. It was a great balance of flavors. The baja taco was also delicious ($4.50). It is a large piece of beer battered fried cod with cabbage slaw, pico de gallo and pickled tartar sauce.  Great crunchy taste and again, plenty of acid to make me happy. And did I mention they give you a bunch of limes to squeeze on top too? And not those dried out things you get sometimes.

The Brussels sprout taco was probably my next favorite ($4.50). They also offer a fried cauliflower veggie option that is intriguing as well. Next time. Anyhow, the Brussels sprouts version had roasted and grilled halved sprouts with melted cheese, caramelized onions, chili cream, pickled veggies and pico de gallo. Seriously, this was great. Loved the cheesiness. This was one of hubby’s top picks for sure. Really interesting and really well done.

Meat-wise, we had the skirt steak ($4.75) and the al pastor ($4.25). I have to say, after the acid and pickled veggies and all the flavor of the others, the meat ones were my least favorite. The steak was good though—it has pinto beans, guacamole, salsa and cactus pico de gallo. It is a hearty one for sure with the steak and beans, and the steak was nice and tender. Lime helped jazz it up. Don’t get me wrong, it was very good, just didn’t wow me as much as the others. The al pastor had chunks of pork, chipotle salsa and pineapple (which is the classic accompaniment). You’d expect a lot of acid with this mix, but you’d be wrong. For whatever reason, this one just fell a little flat for me. Compared to the others, it was just kind of bland. The pork was well done though and a couple of bite of just the pork showed that it was well cooked and seasoned. 

Brussels Sprout taco

I am so excited to have this place in Broad Ripple. Other than a couple of notable exceptions, I feel like Broad Ripple restaurants are just so so over all. This is a place that will certainly go into regular rotation, assuming they keep quality at the level it was on our visit. Oh, and downstairs, they have a tiki-style bar where you can order the same food, but where they offer a range of more tiki-inspired drinks. It’s cozy and nicely decorated, and I can see sitting down there and eating tacos when the kids aren’t with us.

Yay! A new place. It’s reasonably priced and they have tasty margaritas. I can’t wait to taste all the other taco flavors too. If you have been, what have been your favorites? Oh, and they have a mighty fine looking all you can eat brunch menu. 

Cholita

1001 Broad Ripple Ave

Indy  46220

317/389-5555

www.cholitatacos.com