Queso Critique: Sazón

Sazón (Austin)

It was a hot, sunny Saturday in August, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Amanda and I decided that it would be the perfect day to spend frolicking in a park   paddleboarding in the lake   attending a training on Child Protective Services. Neither of us was particularly excited about spending a Saturday afternoon learning about types of child abuse, but we figured we could have a late lunch/early dinner afterward and try out a new queso. We chose Sazón mostly because it was the nearest restaurant that we hadn’t already tried, BUT we also knew it’d gotten great reviews.

Sazón is truly a hole-in-the-wall place. We opted to sit outside on the patio, which featured wobbly floorboards and mismatched chairs. I decided to take this as a good sign – obviously, the people working there were too busy making deliciously cheesy things to care about silly things like floors.

Once again, the menu offered two different quesos – a more traditional and creamy option, and one that was sort of a “layered” concept of cheese, chorizo, and pico de gallo. We chose the latter option, because chorizo. The restaurant even smushed the words “chorizo” and “queso” together into ‘Choriqueso’ – much like the media does with celebrity couples’ names.

Think of Choriqueso as being the Brangelina of food.

The Choriqueso looked quite different from quesos that most people are used to seeing and eating, a fact that Amanda and I appreciated. The cheese, which was browned on top, was lightly melted together with the other ingredients, but was not in liquid form. Rather than dunking chips in, it was meant to be scooped up with spoons and spread onto warm, fresh tortillas.

(If you made an “Mmmmm” noise after reading that, then you and I should be friends. Unless we already are friends, in which case we should be even better friends, because we clearly have a lot in common.)

This queso was simply fantastic. Amazing. It was cheesy and flavorful, and had an excellent cheese-to-other-ingredient ratio. Having all of that flavor wrapped up in a tortilla was the icing on the cake – or the queso on the tortilla, if you will.

I wanted to climb into the dish and continue eating it with my face, without using my hands or utensils. I know that’s an incredibly weird thing to say, but you just have to experience it in order to fully understand. We gave the Choriqueso a near-perfect 9.5 (Revised: 4.5). Other quesos should be jealous of it.

Sazón’s website