La Taquiza – Downtown



Cuisine

Latin, Mexican



Meal Periods

Breakfast/Brunch



Dining Format

Buffet



Phone

(281) 846-6154



Address

800 Capitol St, inside Understory
Houston, TX 77002



Website

taquizahtx.com



Cuisine

Latin, Mexican



Meal Periods

Breakfast/Brunch



Dining Format

Buffet



Phone

(281) 846-6154



Address

800 Capitol St, inside Understory
Houston, TX 77002



Website

taquizahtx.com

EXPERIENCE

Beneath downtown Houston’s Bank of America Tower, La Taquiza turns Sunday into a cazuelas buffet. The restaurant sits inside Understory, the food hall connected to the tunnel system by a tall atrium. It’s an unexpected destination for a Mexican home-style lunch: mole chicken, birria, soups and chilaquiles in a place many people first encounter during the working week.

The setting is part of the outing. You’re eating in a shared food hall, with communal seating and daylight reaching down through the atrium, while La Taquiza’s round illuminated sign marks its counter. The restaurant is one of Understory’s food-hall businesses, so the surrounding hall supplies the dining space. Sunday’s cazuelas give this downtown counter a meal of its own to gather around.

Owner Oscar Garcia Santaella developed the family business through catering for local bars, food trucks and then food-hall locations, with his wife and children involved. Mexico City street food and family recipes remain the inspiration. Sunday’s cooked dishes give that background a particularly good setting: the family taqueria serves a broader home-style meal, with painted earthenware pots making the guisados easy to recognize as the focus.

The recurring buffet runs from 10am – 2pm, with both reservations and walk-ins welcome. Dishes change with the season and customer favorites, so a return visit can bring a different selection. The appeal is a downtown Sunday excursion with a clear purpose: take a seat in the hall, enjoy some Mexican cooking and give lunch time to last beyond a quick taco stop. There’s no office meeting to fit around it.

FOOD

La Taquiza’s Sunday buffet is built around home-style Mexican cooking, served from rows of painted earthenware cazuelas. The selection rotates with the season and customer favorites, with mole con pollo, birria, menudo and chilaquiles among its examples. That puts stews, soups and sauced dishes at the heart of brunch, alongside the taco meats associated with the family’s street-food business.

Mole con pollo gives chicken the richness and layered flavor of mole, with rice and frijoles de olla as natural companions. Rice is especially welcome beside a generous sauce, while the pot-cooked beans add their own gentle, earthy flavor. Birria brings the richness of a meat stew to the same part of lunch. Chicharrones en salsa verde adds pork skin softened in green sauce. These are foods to enjoy for their stewed meats and sauces, with the accompaniments close at hand.

The soup choices have their own attractions. Menudo offers the distinctive chew of tripe in broth; pozole brings plump hominy kernels and chunk pork to the bowl. Sopa de fideo is a noodle soup, with fine strands of pasta that make it a comforting beginning to lunch. Consommé provides another broth option. There’s room to enjoy one of these before the guisados, particularly if Mexican weekend soup is as much a part of your brunch plans as chilaquiles.

Pastor, chorizo and bistec bring the taqueria side into Sunday’s buffet. The three meats cover seasoned pork, Mexican sausage and beef, with chorizo offering the fuller sausage flavor and a particularly natural partner for chilaquiles. Pastor or bistec can be enjoyed alongside a bowl of soup or one of the guisados, giving lunch some of the appeal of a taqueria order as well as the stew pots. That combination fits a family business built around Mexico City street food.

Chilaquiles makes the brunch connection through corn tortillas dressed with salsa. The tortillas soften in the sauce, bringing corn flavor and salsa together in each helping. It’s a comforting breakfast dish that fits easily beside the guisados.

Churros finish the meal with a familiar fried-dough sweet, served from a painted earthenware bowl like the rest of the cazuelas spread. After mole, soup and perhaps some chilaquiles, a small helping is a cheerful way to end Sunday lunch. Beverages are purchased separately.

FOOD HIGHLIGHTS

♛ Mole con Pollo — chicken with mole among the rotating guisados.

♛ Birria — stew cooking given a place beside the taco meats.

♛ Menudo and Pozole — Mexican soup choices within the Sunday spread.

♛ Chicharrones en Salsa Verde — pork skin served in green sauce.

♛ Pastor, Chorizo and Bistec — taco meats within the changing buffet display.

♛ Chilaquiles — salsa-dressed tortillas for a Mexican brunch.

♛ Churros — a sweet finish served from a painted earthenware bowl.

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