On a pizza and in a taco? Find corned beef in the weirdest places right now

By mid-March, as St. Patrick’s Day approaches, we will have entered the territory of all things corned beef.

It’s on sale at the store. It’s on restaurant menus everywhere, served between slices of rye, slow simmered with potatoes and cabbage or fried up with potatoes for hash.

Or served in a tortilla or on a pizza.

Wait, what?

Here’s where you can get corned beef served in super weird-sounding dishes.

ON A TACO

Where: O’Malley’s Irish Pub, 2403 Sixth Ave., Tacoma; 253-627-9403, facebook.com/allthewhisky

Taco Thursday is an every-week thing at O’Malley’s Irish Pub in Tacoma’s Sixth Avenue neighborhood. Corned beef is the unlikely ingredient on that Taco Thursday menu, served for lunch and dinner.

O’Malley’s kitchen slow simmers its corned beef in Coca Cola and Guinness, then serves it on double-layered grilled corn tortillas with a cabbage slaw flavored with shredded carrots and cilantro. The tacos also sported zigzags of creamy aoili and spicy verde salsa.

They’re priced two for $3.75. Two is a small meal and four is a feast. The tangy, rich, slightly spicy tacos go down swell with Guinness. (They also serve beef, chicken, pork or fish tacos on Taco Thursdays).

IN A BUN

Where: Taste of Samoa Manapua Bakery, 13817 Pacific Ave. S., Tacoma; 253-267-9367, tasteofsamoa.com

Call them Samoan tacos with an Irish twist.

Edward Leota, owner of the Parkland Samoan-Hawaiian bakery and deli, has created a line of Samoan tacos that come with fillings such as chicken teriyaki, chicken curry and turkey. The most popular Samoan taco is corned beef, said Leota. He credits their popularity to the intersection of salty and sweet flavors paired with a fluffy bun, which is a flattened-out manapua. Those are Hawaii’s version of a steamed Chinese hum bao.

He folds the manapua over, taco style, and fills it with slow-cooked corned beef with a drizzle of a lightly sweetened soy sauce and a sprinkle of scallions. It’s rich, tangy, lightly sweet and unexpectedly delicious.

Priced $3.50 each. Also on the menu, a corned beef rice bowl ($6.50) and a corned beef plate lunch, Hawaiian style ($15).

ON A PIZZA

Where: Farrelli’s Wood Fire Pizza locations in Tacoma Sixth Avenue, Tacoma Point Ruston, Parkland, Sumner, Frederickson. farrellispizza.com

The owners of Farrelli’s Pizza know a thing or two about corned beef. They also own McNamara’s, the Irish-themed pub and restaurant in DuPont.

Farrelli’s gets into the corned beef game (for March only) with its pizza of the month, a corned beef pizza with Reuben-esque toppings. The pizza starts with a layer of olive oil, is sprinkled with cheese and topped with corned beef simmered in house with pickling spices.

Once it is finished baking, it is topped with sauerkraut, caraway seeds and a drizzle of tangy Thousand island. It’s a tasty pile of goo and tang. I’m a fan. Pizzas are $11.99 (personal sized), $18.99 for a 12-inch and $27.99 for a 16-inch. It’s on menus through the end of the month.

This story was originally published March 14, 2018 at 11:00 AM with the headline "On a pizza and in a taco? Find corned beef in the weirdest places right now."