Bolstering Dallas’ credentials as a high-ranking food city, we now have a robust birria taco scene.
Sometimes called quesabirria, birria tacos are most commonly made with braised, bone-in beef. Braising liquid that gets color and spice from guajillo and ancho chilies is boiled down to a consommé often served alongside the dish. Then, corn tortillas are dipped into pan drippings before going on a hot comal or griddle, where they’ll be topped with chopped meat and shredded cheese and doused with more braising liquid.
The result is a bright red, crunchy, cheesy taco that’s made even juicier by dipping into the accompanying consommé. After adding onions, cilantro and salsa, it almost seems like the dish is in some kind of competition to pile as much flavor as possible into one mouthful.
An Instagram-fueled obsession with the eye-popping tacos has become a major trend that’s spread from Los Angeles to other major U.S. cities, but birria is not new. Historically, birria was a goat stew reserved for religious holidays and weddings in Jalisco. Today, birria can be found throughout all parts of Mexico, where it’s most often prepared on weekends when longer cooking projects can occur. Like many Mexican dishes, it is commonly billed as a hangover cure.
As trendy as it might be, birria isn’t new to North Texas, either. Francisco Javier Aguiñaga and his wife Emilia, both from Ojuelos, Jalisco, opened the first Birrieria Aguiñaga location on Northwest Highway in 2006. There are other locations in Dallas, Garland, Grand Prairie and Ennis, where you can find birria stew (plato de birria) that’s prepared with lamb — the closest to the original goat version we have found.
The Aguiñagas’ son, Alejandro, who helps manage the restaurants, says they started a quesabirria taco plate as well as a birria quesadilla in March when they saw how popular birria was becoming. Here, birria comes with a side of griddled onions and a cup of rich consommé. The accompanying “mild” creamy poblano salsa isn’t very mild at all, and the red salsa is even hotter.
A couple of miles away from Birrieria Aguiñaga’s original location is a newer taqueria — Chilangos Tacos ― which opened in March of last year. It has already received national press for its costra tacos made with a hardened shell of fried cheese instead of a tortilla. On weekends, you can get in line for the off-menu birria taco that comes in a fresh-pressed tortilla or in crunchy costra form. In addition to red and green salsas, the thick avocado tomatillo salsa adds brightness and balances the grease from the cheese.
Owner Jon Garay aims to reflect Mexico’s City’s vibrant culture in the jovial storefront with an order counter that resembles a taco truck. His vision is to one day be the taco version of In-N-Out or Shake Shack, franchises that inspired him to leave a career in finance to pursue restaurant ownership. He’s already working on opening a pizza place next door, where, among other things, there will be birria pizza.
In south Dallas at the edge of Oak Cliff Nature Preserve is the luchador-themed Maskaras Mexican Grill that opened in November 2016. Co-owner Rodolfo Jimenez uses his family’s recipes from Guadalajara to prepare much of the menu, including the recently-added birria crispy tacos. Unlike other places, Jimenez says he isn’t “messing around with weekends only” birria, even though it takes 12 hours and 25 ingredients to prepare each time the kitchen makes it.
The birria tacos here come with three secret recipe salsas and will take 20 minutes to prepare after ordering. The consommé is an additional charge, but it’s more drinkable and less greasy than others, and actually feels restorative.
Other birria taco trucks have popped up as well, including Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez in Fort Worth, which was overwhelmed with business after going viral on social media after it opened in March. And Mestizo, a new tapas spot in Carrollton, offers birria ramen.
Most recent to arrive in Dallas County is Rellenas’ vegan “drippin” birria tacos, made with texturized jackfruit that’s stewed in three types of chilies. Adriana Soto-Vazquez says she knows it isn’t the same as the original, but she welcomes meat-eaters to try her cleaner version anyhow. She eliminated meat from her diet three years ago for health reasons and embraces the challenge of providing Mexican classics to people with health problems like diabetes. According to her, Mexican food was plant-based from the beginning, if you really go back, and she hopes to encourage all types of eaters to have more variety in their diet.
For now, Rellenas is a Saturday-only pop-up operated by Soto-Vazquez, a Dallas ISD teacher, and her husband Jacob Vasquez, who works as a sleep technician. Pre-orders begin on Tuesday and close at 3 p.m. on Friday, and orders can be picked up from their ghost kitchen in Northwest Dallas.
