Give it a minute. Blowing on it doesn’t help. The consommé at La Súper Birria is served so hot it could melt paint off of an airplane engine. Let it cool. Focus on the tacos first.
La Súper Birria is a new taco shop tucked inside Dulcería El Caracol, a store that sells Mexican candy, popsicles and piñatas. They have only one kind of meat for tacos: birria de res, or beef stewed with red chilies, which they also serve by the bowl.
The basic “red tacos” are superb, especially if you opt for the fresh hand-made tortilla upgrade. The meat is tender and moderately spicy from the infusion of the dried red chilies.
Instead of dousing the tacos with salsa, they drench them with beef consommé that’s created from the leftover juices and marinade from the pot in which the beef was stewed. (If you want salsa, they do make an arbol chile salsa that’ll make you think you’ve been hit by lightning.)
They serve the consommé (sold separately) in styrofoam cups with a spoon. And while they call it consommé, its texture and viscosity more closely resemble a very thin apple sauce, like maybe all the fatty, meaty and collagen scraps have been salvaged and sent through a blender. Once it cools down enough to not require a tongue transplant, the broth is hearty and soulful, flecked with the confetti of pulverized chilies and ground cumin.
Good stuff.
La Súper Birria, 1041 W. First St., Santa Ana, 657-245-3810
This article originally appeared in the Orange County Register. My new Taco Tuesday column runs every Tuesday online in the Register. To view more of my work for the Register, check out the archives.
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