Recipes
Browse by: Dish Type Ingredient Cuisine Cooking Method Diet Season Menus Recipe Collections Quick Dinners View All
How-Tos
Cooking Techniques Ingredient Guides Equipment Kitchen Tips Entertaining View All
Product Recs
Equipment Reviews Taste Tests Buying Guides Editors' Picks Books Shop View All
Culture
Cuisine Guides Food History Food Science Personal Essays Podcast Travel Diaries Profiles Food Industry SE HQ View All
Dining Out
Boston Chicago Los Angeles New Orleans New York Philadelphia Portland, OR San Francisco Washington, DC View All
Your account
Saved Recipes >
Follow us
Recipes
Browse by: Dish Type Ingredient Cuisine Cooking Method Diet Season Menus Recipe Collections Quick Dinners View All
How-Tos
Cooking Techniques Ingredient Guides Equipment Kitchen Tips Entertaining View All
Product Recs
Equipment Reviews Taste Tests Buying Guides Editors' Picks Books Shop View All
Culture
Cuisine Guides Food History Food Science Personal Essays Podcast Travel Diaries Profiles Food Industry SE HQ View All
Dining Out
Boston Chicago Los Angeles New Orleans New York Philadelphia Portland, OR San Francisco Washington, DC View All
Saved recipes >

Search for recipes and articles

Popular Searches

Staff Favorites

  • Burgers
  • Korean
  • Corn
  • Mexican
  • Brooklyn
  • Bushwick
More Breadcrumbs
  • Recipes
  • Cuisine
  • Mexican
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Brooklyn
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Brooklyn
  • Bushwick

Mexican Eats: Cholula Deli

Scarlett Lindeman
0 Printer-Friendly Version
Published: March 6, 2012 Last Updated: August 12, 2019
cholulapicadas.jpg

A highlight of Bushwick's culinary geography is Cholula Deli, equal parts bodega, juice counter, grocery, and restaurant—one of many outer-borough stores selling Mexican wares. Owner Angelo Tapia opened the first Cholula almost eight years ago on Myrtle Avenue. Starting with a small grocery store, Tapia sold Mexican products which were then rarities in Bushwick. When waves of immigrants flocking to the neighborhood started asking for tacos and tortas, he installed a two-foot electric grill in back and started cooking.

Three years ago he opened a second location on Wyckoff, and a third, on Broadway. Today, the three stores each have restaurants with similar menus. Past the rows of Mexican bulk candies, bottles of hot sauce, and bags of the dried hibiscus flower to make the tart scarlet drink jamaica, there are small, clean dining rooms. The Myrtle location expanded last year to include more seats, a beer fridge, and a larger grocery.

Cholula is an archetypical taqueria, a fixture of the neighborhood that meets a multitude of needs: to spend the evening over a platter of bistec and grilled nopales listening to the frenetic trumpet in a Norteño tune blasting from the jukebox; mornings of crunchy chilaquiles and milky coffee; or, just picking up a bouquet of cilantro, some tomatillos, and beet juice to-go.

The menu covers usual ground with large platters of fried fish, thick and rich mole poblanos, and decent tacos. They never forget the papalo on the cemitas, which are layered with enough avocado, cheese, beans, and chipotles to make a Big Mac look like a slider. Guacamole is well-done here, with just cilantro, onion, and slivers of jalapeno; and the rice and beans are killer.

cholulachips.jpg

What's New On Serious Eats

The restaurant also does wonders with pork. All selections are stained a deep chile orange but smack with different layers of flavor: the al pastor is dotted with pineapple; the chorizo, perfumed with cinnamon; the carnitas, a pure porky essence; and the carne enchilada, with plancha-crisped edges, contends for the best in the neighborhood. You can get any porcine variety, or chicken or beef, in tacos, tostadas, or enchiladas, under mounds of shredded lettuce, crema, and green sauce. The huaraches, sandal-sized toasted corn patties layered with beans, onions, and lots of crema, are a favorite.

cholulacemita.jpg

Greens are not a strong-point for most New York taquerias; though I particularly like their expansive avocado salad here. It is served on a bed of iceberg lettuce but comes with carefully sliced coins of radish, crisp white onion rings, and what seems like 1 1/2 whole avocados, sliced into wedges. Sprinkled with lime, oregano, and salt, it scours away most indiscretions.

Cholula Deli

222 Wyckoff Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11237 (and 2 other locations) (map) 718-417-0941

All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.

Scarlett Lindeman
  • Profile
  • Facebook
  • Contact
0 Printer-Friendly Version
Tags
  • brooklyn
  • bushwick
  • mexican eats
  • taqueria

Mexican Food

(and Tex-Mex favorites)

  • Mexican
  • Brooklyn
  • Bushwick
More Breadcrumbs
  • Recipes
  • Cuisine
  • Mexican
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Brooklyn
  • Dining Out
  • New York City
  • Brooklyn
  • Bushwick
HIDE COMMENTS
Sign In or Register
No comments
Comments are closed
HIDE COMMENTS

Popular Recipes

Christmas

The Best Crispy Roast Potatoes Ever

These are the crispiest, most flavorful roast potatoes you'll ever make.

J. Kenji LĂ³pez-Alt
Baking

Detroit-Style Pan Pizza

Pan pizza, Motor City–style.

J. Kenji LĂ³pez-Alt
American

Shrimp Scampi With Pasta

This is not the time to hold back on the butter or the garlic.

Daniel Gritzer
Fish

Spaghetti con la Bottarga (Spaghetti With Bottarga, Olive Oil, Garlic, and Lemon)

Shower spaghetti aglio e olio with briny grated bottarga.

Sasha Marx

More Brooklyn

The Brunch Dish: Chorizo Corncakes at Lodge, Williamsburg

The Brunch Dish: Chorizo Corncakes at Lodge, Williamsburg

Sandy Dee Hall's Favorite Restaurants in Crown Heights

Sandy Dee Hall's Favorite Restaurants in Crown Heights

Serious Eats Neighborhood Guides: Sam Sifton's Red Hook (and Southwest Brooklyn)

Serious Eats Neighborhood Guides: Sam Sifton's Red Hook (and Southwest Brooklyn)

Serious Eats
  • Latest
  • Masthead
  • Contact
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Jobs
  • Sitemap
  • FAQ

Follow Us

  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Your California Privacy Rights
  • © 2021 Serious Eats Inc., by Dotdash

Welcome! Please sign in.

Forgot password?