#3 - Mama Roja - Oklahoma City OK

We wanted to eat at Lake Hefner last night.  Redrock Canyon Grill was our first choice--and one of my favorite restaurants in OKC--but last month it almost burned down in a fire. Good news is, they said from the day after the fire that they're going to rebuild. I had never been next door to Mama Roja's, but had always seen lots of people waiting to be seated, so we decided to give it a try. 

The wait was about 35 minutes, which apparently is pretty normal for a Thursday evening.  But it seemed to go by pretty fast, and we got a great table on the patio, right next to the roll-up windows.  If it wasn't 500 degrees outside that would have been an even more prime table with the windows open.  It's got a great view of the boats on the lake, and very serene.

It's a Mexican place so of course I had to have a margarita.  Lo and behold, one of their specials is the Thunder Up, so I didn't need to look any further.  I don't remember what was in it, but it was blue and really tasty, so I had 2 of them...

We started with the chili relleno appetizer, on the recommendation of our server.

Stuffed with fajita chicken, black beans, cheeses,cornmeal crusted and flash-fried. Served on verde sauce and drizzled with chipotle sour cream.

I've never seen a chili that big!  It was really good, and the cornmeal crust gave it a great flavor.  The first bite I took hit hard, so there must have been a few chili seeds still in there.  But I just took another sip of the margarita, and all was well.

I guess I'm on a fish taco kick, because I decided to try them here too.  They had a choice of grilled or fried, so I decided to try one of each

Flour tortillas filled with grilled or crispy Haddock, Baja slaw, tomatillo-avocado sauce, chipotle sour cream and fresh mango salsa.

The grilled haddock was okay, but a little over-cooked.  The fried was much better.  The sauce had great flavor, and the mango salsa was very light and tasty.  The borracha beans were awesome!

We were full, but decided to split a sopapilla since it's nothing more than some bread, sugar and  honey.  Well, the split didn't really work since I hate half and Beau didn't touch his half.  But I controlled myself, and left the other portion there. 

Will I go back?  Yes!  The margaritas are good, the chips/salsa was very fresh and they bring you queso with it too, and the location is fantastic.  I also want to try some other stuff on the menu.