Birrieria Tijuana’s cheesy, slow-cooked beef tacos should be your next Mexican meal

Birrierias make tacos, but not the kind you’d expect from a typical taqueria.

Gooey melted cheese — in this case, Monterey and two others — separates birria tacos from their cilantro-and-onion counterparts.

That and the juicy shredded beef.

At Birrieria Tijuana in Lakewood, there’s ample amounts of birria, as the slow-cooked meat is known. Traditionally from Jalisco, also home to most tequila production, birria is often made with mutton (lamb) or goat, though many recipes call for beef simply because it’s readily available.

Owner Fredy Zavala cooks three kinds of beef — 200 pounds at a time! — for three to four hours in a giant vat of broth, seasoned with a dozen or so spices, including cloves, cumin and peppercorns, and seven different chiles. Think darkly colored, mild chiles used for mole, like pasilla, morita and guajillo. Mexican oregano, which falls into the same family as lemon verbena, lends a bright note. It’s not intended to be spicy.

The result is a deep yet subtle flavor that comes through in every bite of whatever vehicle you choose to enjoy this shredded goodness.

After selling birria off a cart on the streets of Burien, Zavala — a self-taught cook from Mexico City who has lived in the United States for about 25 years — opened his first Birrieria Tijuana there, inside Guadalupe Market at 1111 SW 28th St. It had a full kitchen sitting unused, and Zavala insisted he could lure a crowd with his birria. The owner thought he was crazy for thinking birria would pay the rent, but “since the first day I opened the business, it has been crazy,” said Zavala.

His wife Jenny manages that restaurant while he is busy running the Lakewood location at 8302 South Tacoma Way, which opened in November. Several Mexican restaurants have come and gone from that building, which still bears the name of Birrieria Tijuana’s predecessor.

Try Zavala’s birria in its traditional stew form (birria en caldo, $13) or grab a cup of consomé ($3), teeming with cilantro and beef fat, for a Mexican dining experience a world apart from carne asada.

The consomé is, in fact, a must at Birrieria Tijuana. Even for two people, the small cup will serve you well if you over-order, which is easy to do when you see the menu and the food served by patient, attentive servers.

BIRRIERIA TIJUANA BRINGS THE BEEF

A few choices on the birria side of the menu seem similar on paper, and in practice, some of them are. The cheese taco sounds basic but essentially offers a larger version of the Tacos Dorado, a folded tortilla stuffed with birria and cheese. That full assembly is then lightly fried on the flattop to a golden yellow with spots of char.

That’s the specialty here: beef and cheese in pan-fried tortillas. People like cheese; they like it even more when it’s melted. The combination is very American, yet Americans seem a bit unfamiliar with birria, said Zavala.

“Why do they not know birria? They like it. Latinos, we’re used to eating birria, but now people are starting to eat birria here,” he told The News Tribune in a phone call.

When asked if the gooey cheese helped sell the style, Zavala replied, “Oh my gosh, the cheese taco! I sell a lot of cheese tacos.”

I rest my case.

Order the cheese taco if you want, but the rest of the birria options feature that familiar flavor, just in slightly different shapes and sizes.

Mulitas ($5 for one) resemble a quesadilla: a tortilla sandwich stuffed, again, with Zavala’s birria beef and cheese. It, too, is lightly fried until crisp — enough so that it holds together, but soft enough that you still get that chew. Rip or cut a piece off and dip into that consomé.

For extra crunch, try the Vampiros ($4 for one), so named because the tortilla’s edges should turn upward like bat wings as it’s fried on the flattop until dry and crunchy — but not nearly as crunchy as a tostada. Ours did not curve up so much as lie flat, rendering it useless for dipping into that hearty consomé. No matter: the crunch let the meat retain more of its inherent juices and offered an excellent taste of the meat on its own.

Just want meat? Birrieria Tijuana offers a plate of the birria beef served with rice and beans ($13). The rest of the birria options include a larger quesadilla, burrito and torta (all $10), plus standard tacos ($3 each).

After you order, beeline to the salsa bar, where you can — nay, must — stock up on a rojo or verde to add extra heat if you so desire. Fill a few small paper trays with lime wedges, radishes, chopped red onions and cilantro. Do not skip the delightful escabache de cebolla: a Yucatán condiment of sliced red onions, habanero and oregano marinated here in lemon juice. Take these back to your table and prepare to sprinkle them into your cheesy beef tacos upon arrival. Roasted onions and a jalapeno accompany each dish, too.

If you’re like me, you’ll accidentally dip too much of the salsa macha — a dark chile oil at each table in a glass jar with a dainty spoon — onto one of the aforementioned tacos and require quick relief from an agua fresca. I sipped the mango, served over ice with tiny cubes of fresh fruit within, but I suspect the other options — papaya, tamarindo, jamaica (hibiscus) — would also hit the spot.

CEVICHE & SEAFOOD AT THIS BIRRIERIA

We also tried the Ceviche de Camaron tostada ($7), a mountain of shrimp tossed with plenty of lime juice, cubed tomatoes and cucumber. Topped with several slices of avocado, we definitely did not need it, but other tables appeared to follow that path with us nonetheless.

In fact, fish dominates the other half of the menu, with eight tostadas ($7 to $12) including Callos de Hacha, a shellfish native to the Bajan coast. There are molcajetes spilling with fish ($30), towers of shrimp and oysters ($12 to $55), and massive botanas (plates) with an array of sea creatures ($18 to $55).

Zavala said he goes through some 5,000 pounds of beef a week at each restaurant. He opened a much larger, third location in Everett earlier this year.

Birrieria Tijuana

▪ 8302 S. Tacoma Way, Lakewood, 253-589-0760, birrieriatijuana.com

▪ 1111 SW 128th St., Burien, 206-751-0031

▪ 205 E Casino Dr., Everett, 323-519-9756

▪ Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily

This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 5:35 AM.