Don’t miss Taco Tuesdays for great if oily tacos
This week is San Leandro Restaurant Week and I saw Tuesday as my opportunity to try Habibi’s Birria. I’d been wanting to try this Middle Eastern influenced taqueria for a long time, but Mike had had a couple of meals there and he hadn’t been impressed. He couldn’t (or at least didn’t try to) say no to their $2.50 taco deal, so we headed there last Tuesday night and had the tacos.
Like most taquerias, Habibi’s Birria is a casual place. You order at the counter and then you wait for your food to be brought to you either at the dining room or in the waiting area by the counter.
Most people we saw that night were getting food to go, but the restaurant has a clean, simple dining room with well spaced tables as well as some outdoor eating. Like most people, we got our tacos to go.
The $2.50 deal is only for birria, al pastor, asada (grilled beef) or chicken tacos. I got a couple of each. They are packed five to a box and each box comes with a lemon wedge and little cups of salsa verde and red pepper sauce. The salsa verde tasted just like Herdez‘ and the the pepper sauce was so spicy that after just a little bite of tortilla dipped in it, my mouth and throat were burning. As it turned out, the tacos were flavorful enough that they didn’t need anything added – not even lemon juice.
All the tacos comes with double fried tortillas. The tortillas are freshly fried and warm and, as one can expect, pretty oily. It’s best to eat these with napkins. While I liked the flavor of the tortillas, I found it too strong as it competed with the flavor of the meat. Ditching one of the tortillas in each taco helped a bit.
The tacos only have meat plus a little bit of chopped onion, if they were cooked with it. That was OK, as the meat was all delicious. They are served in street tacto tortillas, so they are very small. I can’t imagine paying the regular price for them. You basically need 3 for a meal.
My favorite were probably the carne asada tacos. The chopped beef was nicely spiced, only slightly spicy and was very flavorful. I really liked it.
The chicken tacos were also very good. I think they had the same spicing than the beef, they were also chopped and he chicken wasn’t dry.
I was almost as fond of the birria tacos. The shredded meat (and I really don’t know what meat it was) was tasty, juicy (undoubtedly from the broth the meat was cook in), though the cinnamon flavor was a bit too strong for my taste. These tacos had more filling than the others, making them a better deal. These are my daughter’s favorite tacos.
I was also happy with the al pastor tacos. The meat wasn’t as sweet and fruity as other al pastor meat, though it was acidic and it had been clearly caramelized. I still preferred the other tacos to these, but my husband really liked them.
In all, we were quite happy with Habibi’s Birria’s tacos. Even Mike liked them. It would seem by the sign that Taco Tuesday is a regular occurrence, not just a product of San Leandro Restaurant week, and if this is the case, I’m planning to return.
Habibi’s has a second location in Hayward. The one in San Leandro is right next to Koolfi ice cream and in front of the Oriental Tea House. Habibi’s doesn’t have a website, though you can follow them on Instagram and you can order delivery through other delivery services.
Habibi's Birria
403 Lewis Ave
San Leandro, CA
(510) 935-8611
Mon-Fri 11am-8pm
Sat-Sun 12pm-8pm
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