Birria, a Mexican dish of goat or beef marinated and stewed in a sauce made with vinegar, dried chilis, garlic and herbs, is having a moment here in the US. Quesabirria tacos, tortillas filled with birria and melted cheese, are suddenly all the rage and have been added to the menus of both Mexican restaurants and taquerias all over the place, while people try to recreate them at home. It’s thus no wonder that Trader Joe’s would come up with its own, frozen beef birria.
I tried it last week and I was unimpressed. The beef just lacked flavor.
The beef comes in large boneless pieces swimming in sauce. While you have to heat it in the plastic bowl it comes in (it’s frozen, after all), you do need to transfer it to a different plate to shred it. Obviously this is still less work that making your own birria, but I’d preferred if the meat was pre-shredded. That might also have helped it draw some of the flavor from the sauce. The sauce wasn’t super flavorful either, but a bit better than the bland beef.
Now, the beef does work well if you are going to add more flavorful elements to your tacos. I didn’t have any shredded cheese at hand – and I wasn’t about to chop anything – but I added some commercial sour cream and guacamole (not usual for birria tacos) and they were better.
The 16oz dish was $8, which doesn’t seem too bad, but I wouldn’t order it again.
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
This restaurant-within-a-bar is popular in town, but did it impress me?
I’ll admit it. Until a minute ago, I thought the name of this restaurant was “Por qué no? Tacos” or “Why not? Tacos” which made quite a bit of sense to me. Why not have tacos tonight? Really, why not? Alas, after visiting their website I realize it’s actually named “Porque no? Tacos” which translates to “Because no? Tacos”. What exactly does that mean? Your guess is as good as mine. Not that any of this matters, but my daughter thought the name sounded like one that gringos would give to a Mexican restaurant, and now I have to wonder if that’s indeed the case.
Be that as it may, I wasn’t there to research the ownership of the restaurant but to have some tacos. Or rather, I had intended originally to get some tacos, but after perusing their menu and reading some reviews, I was actually more interested in a couple of other dishes – though I still had to try a taco. My experience was sort of mixed, as you can read below.
Porque no? Tacos is the “grill” part of Frank’s Bar and Grill on Marina Blvd. The restaurant part takes up most of the space. You order at the counter and food is brought to you to the table. The problem with Porque no? Tacos being located in a bar was that the music playing was extremely loud. We could hold a conversation without quite having to shout, but we did have to raise our voices. For old folks like us, that was pretty uncomfortable. If I returned, it would be for take out.
Indeed, Mike reminded me that he had gotten me take out from this restaurant some time before, but I forgot all about it. I do remember, that this place was much hyped a couple of years ago and that I had been very curious to try it. I guess it neither met my expectations or disappointed me enough to register in my memory.
The first thing I got was a grilled steak street taco ($4). This consists of two small corn tortillas filled with chopped steak, chopped onion and chopped cilantro. They have bottles with somewhat spicy green and red sauces that you can put on it. I enjoyed this taco quite a bit. The filling was abundant, and the beef was tasty, particularly after I squeezed the lime on it and added some of the sauce. I did think it needed some sort of crema, however. Maybe a lime crema? Still, I’d have it again.
The All Day PQN? Chilaquiles ($20) had gotten great reviews, particularly when combined with al pastor pork, that I had to order them, despite the fact that I much prefer those with green sauce, and these came with red sauce. I wasn’t thrilled with them when I tasted them. First, I didn’t really like the al pastor pork, which had a sour-bitter though not quite burnt taste, and none of the sweetness I expected. All I can say, the marinade just didn’t do it for me. I also didn’t like all the raw red onions. When included in a bite of chilaquiles, they totally overwhelmed the other flavors. I would have preferred that they had used guacamole instead of fresh avocado. The avocado wasn’t quite fully ripe, so it made it hard to mash without breaking the tortilla chips further – plus the dish needed more acid. And it really needed some sour cream. In all, this dish was not as good as the sum of its parts.
I had the leftovers the next day – with some cream cheese, as I was all out of sour cream – and they actually were better, the flavors had combined by then and developed umami.
I was very intrigued by the Torta Jalisco ($15) consisting of “three day marinated Aguascalientes style pulled pork, tomato, lettuce, onion, avocado, house cheese and jalapeños,” so I ordered it for Mike. It came with fried potato chips. Mike liked it quite a bit – aside from the ingredients he dislikes and took off. He liked the flavor of the pork and the level of spiciness. He’d have it again. I, however, was a of a different mind. To me, the pulled pork had a similar flavor profile to the al pastor pork, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they used the same marinade. It had those bitter undertones. I wouldn’t order it again. The chips were OK, too hard for my taste but the flavor was fine.
Service was cordial and quick. I might go back for tacos and even try a burrito – and might even get the chilaquiles again, but all with steak.
Porque no? Tacos 2014 Marina Blvd San Leandro, CA 94577 (510) 984-9711
Taco Bell, like sister companies Habit Burger, KFC and Pizza Hut are on the boycot list, as their parent company, Yum brands, invests in Israel. Please help stop apartheid and genocide by Israel by not doing business with companies that financial benefit from the killing, torture, maiming and oppression of Palestinians and who de facto support crimes against humanity.
I’ve eaten tacos for years, decades really. Not too many tacos, though, because I never quite got the point of them. Often, I wasn’t fond of the toppings, or the taco sauce and the tortilla-to-meat ratio never seemed to make sense to me. Plus I’m not a huge fan of corn tortillas in the first place. So, for me, it’s been all about burritos. Until a few nights ago, that is, when my daughter had a taco hankering herself and decided to drive to Tacos Los Amigos in East Oakland to get some. I asked her to bring a single beef taco and boy!, it was love at first bite. I finally get tacos.
I can’t tell you what it actually is, but the combination of beef, diced onion, cilantro and whatever else was on those tiny tortillas just did it for me. I don’think it was the sauce because when I got them again, they had a white sauce (it was a more orange one that first night). But both sauces worked. The tacos just tasted fresh and authentic (though I think I don’t know that I’ve ever eaten tacos in Mexico, my travel adventures there are limited to the Yucatan, the land of salbutes and panuchos, which are delicious, but not really tacos). I actually appreciated, for once, the flavor of the corn tortilla. They were tiny, mind you, but they were gooood.
Al Pastor Tacos
I was just as happy with the two al pastor tacos I got during my second visit (or rather, the second time I sent my daughter to get them). The slightly sweet pork was tasty and went very well with the other standard toppings. I might have even liked them more than the carne asada ones.
There are several problems with Los Amigos, however. One is that as it’s located in East Oakland, I don’t feel very safe sending my teen daughter to get me some (though she does), plus the truck is not really close to my house. Second, they are not cheap – at around $3.50 for pretty small tacos (think 4 tacos for a normal dinner). Third, Los Amigos seems to have eclectic hours – they weren’t there last Sunday evening when I sent my daughter to get more tacos (but they were Monday night). But the biggest problem is that I’ve been left wanting more tacos now.
Surprisingly tasty dinner is not the best deal in town
In the last couple of years, I’ve tried a few of Costco’s ready-to-heat meals and I have generally been pleased enough with them. I don’t remember exactly what tempted me to get this particular kit, but it got fairly good reviews online, it wasn’t as carb-heavy as Costco’s pastas and I probably had no other plans for dinner that night. In all, I was fairly happy with it but I found it to be overpriced at the $19 instacart price, so unless I’m actually at Costco and it’s significantly cheaper, I don’t think I’d get it again.
The kit consists of moderately spiced cooked chicken, shredded cabbage, shredded Mexican cheese, a quartered lime, pots of salsa and cilantro lime crema and 12 small flour tortillas. The chicken had a pretty good flavor and it was fairly moist. To warm it up I simply heated up some oil on a skillet and cooked it, stirring often, for a few minutes. It didn’t dry out but it did acquire a nice charred flavor on some parts. The salsa was pretty standard and also a tad spicy – I would have preferred pico de gallo myself, but then again, I often do. The cilantro lime crema was OK, but I also would have preferred plain old sour cream and chopped fresh cilantro. Now, I understand the difficulty of including cilantro in a kit like this, but the crema was really not a good substitute. Finally, I did miss the kit not including guacamole.
Altogether, the ingredients put together on a tortilla made very tasty tacos. Perhaps not as good as those from my corner’s Mexican restaurant, but still tastier than I had expected.
The main problem with the kit is that it’s just not very large. I’d say it feed 2 hungry people or 3 if you use up all the cabbage and tortillas. Now, that’s not bad for $19, but not great either, in particular when compared to the just-cooked and ready-to-eat fiesta packs from El Torito – which cost twice as much but give you more than twice the food, plus which you don’t need to heat up.
We’ve continued to get these fiesta packs every once in a while over the last couple of years, and right now they’re back to being a good deal. That’s because while inflation has hit the US hard, the prices have not gone up significantly. The fiesta fajitas are now $48 while the fiesta tacos are $38 (note that El Torito charges a $2 surcharge on all online orders – and maybe in person as well). Given that they offer enough food to feed 6 people (and even more if they fill up on rice and beans), they’re pretty much the best deal in town. For now, I’m sure prices will go up soon.
What hasn’t changed, at least at El Torito in San Leandro, where we get take out from, is the randomness of the included side dishes. I truly don’t think they can remember which sides are supposed to go with the fiesta fajitas and which ones with the fiesta tacos. This last time we got the fiesta tacos and they came with a lot of meat, large trays of rice and beans and the big bag of chips, plus shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, salsa, pico de gallo, guacamole and tomalito. We didn’t get the sour cream that’s supposed to come with this pack, but the guacamole and tomalito are supposed to come with the fajitas one. So all in all we scored 🙂
And the food was very tasty, the meat was tender and not too fatty. I’m sure we’ll order again soon, at least if they don’t raise the prices.
Update 1 – My last two experiences at El Torito have been less than stellar.
Since I wrote this post the fiesta/party packs – at least at my local El Torito in San Leandro, California – have both increased in price and decreased in quality. The packs now cost $5 more, and the last couple of times we ordered, they were missing some of the sides we originally got. I’m not sure if this is because the fiesta packs no longer include them or our El Torito was particularly busy now that California has reopened, and the workers were careless with what they packed in our orders.
The Fajita Fiesta Pack
The fajitas pack is now $48 and our last order included the beef fajitas (and we felt we got less meat than in previous occasions). Still, it was very tasty. In addition to the meat, we got rice and beans, warm tortillas, guacamole and sour cream and chips and salsa. What we didn’t get was the corn pudding we enjoy so much.
The Tacos Fiesta Pack
We ordered the taco pack once before and in addition to the stuff shown in the photo (meal, rice and beans, tortillas, chip and salsa and corn pudding) it came with sour cream, pico de gallo, shredded cheese and shredded lettuce. This time, the last four listed items were unavailable. That made for very, very boring tacos.
That said, the beef for tacos is very tasty, flavor wise it’s better than the fajitas. The chicken, which we got the previous time, isn’t as flavorful and it’s a bit dry. They also offer carnitas.
Photo shamelessly stolen from El Torito website
El Torito, a California-based chain of Tex-Mex (or Cal-Mex, for that matter) restaurants, is offering a great take out deal during the pandemic. For $30-$40 you can get a tacos, carnitas fajitas or combo (enchiladas, tamales or chile relleno) deals that feed at least four people. Given that an order of steak fajitas for just one person is $21.50, $40 for four times that amount is as good a deal as you are likely to get. Indeed, at $10 per person (or less, depending on how hungry you are), it’s the same or lower cost than the mid-priced meal kits I’ve used so much. For $20 more, you can add a pitcher of margaritas (not my thing).
The fajitas pack comes with large containers of beef strips and onions, Mexican rice, beans (choose between re-fried or de olla), corn pudding, salsa and guacamole, a stack of warm tortillas (your choice of corn or flour) and a huge bag of tortilla chips.
They tell you at what time the food will be ready when you order (or you can specify the time), and it’s very, very quick. El Torito offers delivery (sans alcohol) for something like $3, as well as curbside and in-restaurant pickup. The food is ready when it says it’ll be.
I used to be a huge fan of Chevy’s back in the day. Then it declined, and then the one in San Leandro closed, and then most of them closed. At some point, the remaining ones were bought by the same parent company from El Torito, which carried Chevy’s influence into El Torito’s kitchens.
You can taste this influence in the fajitas pack. The beef marinade now resembles Chevy’s, as does the salsa – while the corn pudding is practically identical to Chevy’s sweet corn tomalito. The chips are still not as thin as Chevy’s, but they’re thinner than other restaurants.
All in all I’ve enjoyed their meals, and I think I will give their other offerings a try later.
El Torito
5 Monarch Bay Dr,
San Leandro, CA
510.351.8825
M-Th 11 AM - 10 PM, F 11 AM - 11 PM, Sa 8 AM - 11 PM, Su 9 AM - 10 PM
The key to the dish is the sauce, of course, so I imagine I’ll have to experiment and find one that my daughter might like. Safeway has a pineapple peach salsa that might fit the bill. The cauliflower for these tacos is basically sauteed for 3-4 minutes with green pepper (which she didn’t like so I’ll omit next time), you then add some cubed pineapple, 1/4 cup of water and the al pastor sauce, and put it in a 400F oven for 15 minutes.
This kit also taught me how to make mashed black beans – you put the canned beans in a pot with a little bit of water and a teaspoon of vegetable stock concentrate, cook it for five minutes and then mashed.
The cabbage in the kit was supposed to be mixed with a cilantro aioli, but this wasn’t vegan, so I had to skip it. The cabbage was sort of blah on its own, but it added some crunch to the tacos.
Again, all in all she liked them and she wants me to make them again.
And I will, because I’m certainly not going to pay $26 to make this meal. I paid $10 with a promo, and for that it was a bargain.
Tacos & fajitas seem to be one of the most common meals offered by meal kit companies. I’ve ordered them a few times, simply because I didn’t see anything else they offered that we might like, but it’s not a top choice for me. I can get three ready-made tacos of a similar size at the Mexican Restaurant in the corner for $13, and I don’t have to spend the time cooking them. Or, of course, I can make them myself for a few dollars.
Still, some of the taco recipes I’ve made have been good and I’m always up for a discovery. This recipe for carne asada fajitas with pickled onions and lime cream, however, did not produce one. The tacos/fajitas were pretty straightforward and just OK flavor wise – indeed, they might have been better without the southwestern flavoring.
They were fairly easy and quick to make and at $13 for a meal for six tacos, they were pretty cheap.
I got this kit for free, with a special one-time code that someone gave me. The regular cost for the two serving kit is $13, including shipping. Use this link to get $20 off your first box.
Of all the Home Chef’s meals I got on my first week, this kit for jerk steak tacos with caramelized pineapple slaw was my least favorite. The biggest issue was that it wasn’t very filling. With no starches to speak of (3 small flour tortillas don’t count for much), 5 ounces of beef won’t take you very far.
I also wasn’t thrilled with the flavor of the jerk sauce. Don’t get wrong, it wasn’t bad – but it wasn’t anything spectacular either.
On the plus side, I did enjoy the pineapple slaw as part of the tacos. By itself, it wasn’t very good, but in the tacos it added crunch and sweetness to the meat and worked very well. The quality of the meat was good and the meal was very quickly put together. It just needed something more.
I paid $8 for this meal as part of a first week deal. Regular price is $20.
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