Birria Mi Casita

🇲🇽 MÉXICO (Michoacán)

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: An updated version of this article (24 May 2024) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/birria-mi-casita

As the pandemic has taken a wide toll on the restaurant industry, many home-based businesses have been taking to Instagram and Facebook and growing their operations. Of course they offer good solutions locally for neighbors, but home pickups with orders placed over social media or by text have never been more desirable, making them good options for those coming from afar as well.

 

In sprawling Sun Valley, the home of Chef Don Javier and La Jefa Ninnette exists on an arm of the neighborhood that reaches out between the north end of the Burbank Airport and the 5. They were first open for business in 2018, where presumably word of mouth in the area kept them busy on weekends. To reach a wider audience, their Instagram and Facebook pages were created in April and May of last year, respectively, and now their business is offered to anyone in the city.

Down a residential street packed with double-parked pickup trucks and with plenty of ranchera music audible from houses during good weather, small signs in front announce both birria and carnitas available on weekends. The style here is from Michoacán, but it is also estilo Sun Valley. A bull in their logo shows that they originally specialized in beef birria, but now they also offer goat.

You can order both for $12/lb, or get a plate with rice and beans. The birria de res plate ($10, above) like its goat equivalent is good value especially because of their outstanding beans, so full of fatty umami. Large chunks of beef swim in delicious birria broth and should be blanketed by the included cilantro and onions. It already contains some citrus flavor so give it a taste before squirting more in.

Despite that bull on the logo, their birria de chivo is even tastier. Enjoy it and its consomé with a quesotaco plate ($12, above), which is also served with all the fix-ins. Quesotacos deserve to be eaten immediately off the grill for maximum crispiness, so grab at least one or two of them before throwing them in the trunk.

 

The goat meat to cheese ratio of these small tacos is perfect, and the deeply flavorful consomé is perfect for dunking or drinking, or both. The spicy chile de árbol salsa can really bring the heat so use it with caution at first.

On a next visit, the carnitas will have to be tried and that report will be updated here.

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SUN VALLEY San Fernando Valley

7757 Ferncola Avenue

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Birrieria El Guero

🇲🇽 MÉXICO (Michoacán)

EDITOR'S NOTE: An updated version of this article (08 December 2023) is available as part of the Historical section of our Substack page. Check that out here:

https://eattheworldla.substack.com/p/birrieria-el-guero

 

Thanks to GPS, travelers in South Los Angeles often times end up on Alameda Street on their way to points north or south, stuck between 18 wheelers and a thick blanket of black exhaust fumes. While traffic flows nominally better than other parallel streets from Vernon to South Gate, those that prefer a nicer drive, and the chance to roll their windows down without choking to death, usually switch to other avenues.

But if you do get caught, the first respite on the way south from downtown is after about 15 minutes or so and comes at the busy intersection of Alameda and Gage. Along with a lingerie store, a barber, a florist, and a donut shop, the Robin Plaza is home to Birrieria El Guero. The simple setup is complemented by a simple menu, basically birria in all its forms, cooked in the style of Michoacán.

After opening the door, you are faced with the menu at the back and two rows of booths and tables. Murals on the walls show rural scenes from Michoacán, where goats are being cooked, turned into meals, and eaten. Fresh masa is pressed and made into tortillas cooked on a comal next to farmland and topped with birria by smiling staff. Where is this heaven?

I did not meet "El Guero" while visiting here, a term used for folks with light hair or skin, but the excellent kitchen staff was doing the shop proud and replicating those idyllic scenes as best they could on the smoggy Huntington Park thoroughfare. Tables here all seem to have orders of birria as soup, piled up on its own, and as tacos, a trinity that can satisfy each member of the family.

An order of tacos de birria ($1.75 each, above and below) come on fluffy and fragrant house made tortillas and are topped with your choice of cut. Those shown here are surtido, or assorted, bits of meaty strings and fat and everything else. You can also get maciza, more "solid" pieces of leg only, and aldilla, what might be called the love handle of a goat just below the ribs.

You can use bowls of soup for dunking, but also get a small cup of consomé (free, not pictured), the broth created by the cooking of the meat. Rather than load up the tacos with salsa, it is even more delicious to dip into this oily neon liquid.

They also have a few other taco options for customers that are not feeling like goat during their visit, but none of these seemed appropriate for now at least.

What is unquestionably necessary as part of the meal is a bowl of birria en caldo ($13, below), which somehow tastes as lovely as the deep brown-red broth looks. It may also be worth getting an extra order of their tortillas for $1.50 to give the fatty hunks of goat another home.

The caldo can also be ordered with different cuts, so select your favorite and enjoy.

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HUNTINGTON PARK Southeast Los Angeles

6365 Alameda Street