How the Famous Combinations Work at Mi Casa

The Famous Combinations are where most first visits to Mi Casa land. You pick one, two or three items from a short list, and the plate arrives with two sides. The April 2026 menu prices them at $15.95 for one item, $19.45 for two items and $21.45 for three.

The pricing leans toward ordering more. Going from one item to two adds $3.50, but going from two to three adds only $2.00. A diner named S Chang wrote on Google that the group had "the 3 item combos" and that "the portions were huge." Another Google reviewer, Teri, said it this way: "I can never eat even half of my dinner." Guests describe the portions as big often enough that a to-go box is worth planning for.

What goes on the plate

The item list comes in four families: enchiladas, rellenos, tacos and tamales. Here is the whole list as the menu prints it.

• Enchilada: cheese, pork rojo, carne asada, chicken or shredded beef. The pork rojo, carne asada, chicken and shredded beef fillings are marked with an asterisk and add $1.
• Relleno: chile relleno green, or relleno puebla pasilla.
• Taco: baja fish, chicken, ground beef or shredded beef.
• Tamale: chicken or pork.

A few quick definitions help if the genre is new to you. An enchilada is a tortilla rolled around a filling and covered in sauce. A chile relleno is a whole roasted chile stuffed with filling, coated in batter and cooked until the outside sets. A tamale is seasoned masa steamed in a wrapper with the filling inside.

The menu doesn't describe how Mi Casa makes its rellenos, and it doesn't explain what separates the green relleno from the puebla pasilla one. That's a fair question for your server, especially if you're building a three item plate and want the items to feel different from each other.

Two sides, six choices

Every combination comes with two sides. The choices are rice, refried beans, black beans, corn salad, side salad and sautéed veggies.

Corn salad shows up in guest reviews. Cindy B posted a photo of a famous combination platter with a chile relleno, rice and corn salad, and wrote that "the corn salad is good when paired with the cilantro lime dressing." She also called the service and the ambiance really good.

A simple way to choose: if the plate leans rich, say a cheese enchilada next to a relleno, a side salad or sautéed veggies gives it some balance. If the main items are lighter, rice and beans fill it out. That's general advice, not a house rule, so order what you like.

Building a plate that doesn't repeat itself

With four families to draw from, the easiest approach is one item from each of the families you're curious about. A taco for crunch, an enchilada for sauce and a tamale or relleno for something softer covers a lot of ground on one plate.

If you're ordering for a table, have each person pick a different combination and pass bites around. With the enchilada fillings alone, you can sample cheese, pork rojo, carne asada, chicken and shredded beef across a single table, and the upgrade is only a dollar per asterisk filling.

The 1986 plate

The combination idea has history behind it. The timeline on the our story page records that in 1986 President George H. W. Bush dined at Mi Casa and ordered the #12: a taco, an enchilada, a chili relleno, rice and beans, and two Tecates.

That's three items, two kinds of sides and a cold beer, which is the same shape as the three item combination on today's menu. Mi Casa opened on East 17th Street in Costa Mesa in 1972, and the plate-with-sides format has stayed at the center of how people eat there. One longtime guest on the restaurant's own site says she has been coming for 35 years and calls the tacos great and the portions more than generous.

Lunch and ordering tips

On weekdays until 3 PM, the Lunch Special is listed at $13.45. The menu describes it as a one item combination plate in a lunch portion, with two sides and a soda. If you want the combination format at a smaller size and price, that's the one to look at.

The menu page shows the full list, and the restaurant takes online orders for pickup through its ordering link. If you'd rather ask a question first, the phone number is (949) 645-7626 and the address is 296 E 17th St, Costa Mesa. Prices here come from the April 2026 menu, so check the menu page for any changes before you order.