Choza PDX — Restaurant in Tualatin

This review is going to sound a little weird because my chief complaint was the excessively rapid speed with which our entree was delivered. My wife and I went in to have dinner last Friday. We each ordered a cocktail and when those were delivered to the table, we ordered our entree.

In less time than it took us to lift our cocktails and click glasses, someone arrived at our table with our entrees. It was literally LESS than 60 seconds. My wife and I were utterly confused, assuming they must be serving the wrong table. The server put our plates down and the food was just "warm" but not piping hot as one would expect, and again, the speed of delivery was instant, less than 1 minute. It was really weird. The servings looked like they were hastily scooped and slopped onto the plate.

We didn't even have a chance to sip our cocktails and enjoy them. It was just so odd that the plates were delivered to our table in less than 1 minute that we figured they must have been sitting on the counter for someone else but were forgotten, and so they just grabbed them and brought them to us in whatever condition they were in.

The food tasted extremely average and its room-temperature made it all the more bland. Normally in a restaurant, one orders their drink and has a little time to enjoy it while waiting for their food to be prepared. We've eaten at a million restaurants and have literally never experienced such a weird, instant delivery of a full entree without time to even take a sip of a drink. When dining, there is a thing called "pacing" to help the patrons enjoy their time and build the anticipation of their dinner.

In this case our food was scooped directly out of community pots, slopped onto a plate and rushed to the table and not even really heated. When we offered a suggestion to the manager about pacing regarding this rapid, instant entree delivery along with the medium temperature of the meal, her response was to argue back by saying "this is what we do, fast food". "No", I replied, "This is a sit down restaurant, not a food cart." She clearly did not hear what we were saying and didn't acknowledge our concern or opinion. She only wanted to argue her point that they prepare all of their food at once in the back and rush it out as fast as possible.

Again, in my lifelong experience of eating in all kinds of restaurants, it was just weird and off putting to have a full entree delivered so fast to the table, and one that was half warmed. It makes the experience feel cheap and that the restaurant just doesn't care.

This is a $30-$50/head dinner, not McDonalds. Allow your patrons to take a breath and enjoy their cocktail for at least 5-7 minutes, and deliver a dinner entree which tastes and looks like it has actually been prepared for them upon order, not drawn from a series of giant slop pots and served at only slightly warm temperatures, not hot and sizzling. The manager would not understand why we were complaining about having our entree delivered in less than 1 minute, and in fairness, if we were at a food cart, fast food burger joint or any other place like that then that would be great, but in a medium expensive restaurant it's just weird, and unfortunately their food was so average and bland that it didn't offset the benefit of instantaneous delivery.

I've never been made to feel so rushed to get in and get of their restaurant. I will not be back after spending nearly $90 on small sized cocktails, and an entree that had all of the charm and flavor of a...

A friend and I met at Choza and decided to stay as we saw their happy hour specials. We first sat in the dining area and ended up moving to the bar as the specials we saw outside were just in the bar. The waitress didn't seem too happy to move us. We ended up moving our own items over and got situated.

Our waiters seemed like they were nice, especially once we decided on our orders. My friend is sensitive to gluten and had a few questions. Some of the items he asked about said they were gluten-free on the menu, but the servers told us they were not. This happened a couple of times, and so my friend ended up getting a couple of chicken tacos. I got the street quesadillas and a side of refried beans.

Wow, and wow again! Our food was delicious! I like how the quesadillas were made. They were individually wrapped and stuffed with tons of pull able cheese, acocado, and poblano peppers. Everything came together so well, and I loved that it was topped with lettuce, crema, and cojita cheese. Omg! Every bite was amazing, and I loved the price.

To wash it all down, I got their berry margarita that was not super sweet and had tons of flavor. One is enough, so keep that in mind!

Minus one star for the service as the staff needs to be a little more knowledgeable about the items and that they can not guarantee their drinks or food can be gluten free--even if they say they are. It's okay if they do not know or can not guarantee it.

I would come back for another margarita and their street quesadillas. The chips and salsa were fabulous as well. The chips were crispy, and the salsa had a nice kick to it, which made sropping myself from eating more very difficult. I'm so glad there are...

I wouldn't return.

I try not to be negative in my reviews because I just expect a bad day is a bad day, but it's another not to care as much as this. Diners were spaced out for Covid, but they still had us sit and dine directly next to the pass.

The online menu doesn't match the in-house menu. Hoping to be greeted by calamari and wagyu beef carne asada, instead we'd find top sirloin mashed fascia-thin and the calamari completely absent from the menu.

I did order the carne asada and my partner the Mahi Mahi and we were met with true inconsistency. The tuna was lovely and juicy, well-cooked if a little over but the rice and black beans were completely unseasoned, the frijoles more frigid than cooked through. The top-sirloin, however, was overcooked to the point of inedibility but well-marinated. My rice was slightly over but nicely salted and my refried beans were quite lovely.

Like I said, I try not to be too negative so I let our server know that my beef was dry and that I wasn't looking for a refund, expecting that I wouldn't be leaving a review, just passing a note to the kitchen. The server then became defensive and told me that that's the best steak they could get and they couldn't control the temperature of the beef.

Look, this tells me two things: Number 1, you should take the item off the menu because you can't make it. Number 2, you've clearly received this complaint before and just don't care enough to do anything about it. You don't care.

And that's the problem, people like me, we don't complain to managers, we just eat somewhere else. Two stars because you know you should do better but won't. I...