Taquería Xochi

“What do you want for dinner?” asked my husband, at like…11 a.m.

“I dunno, something small and relatively healthy,” I responded. I threw out some suggestions. We had walked past Taquería Xochi on our long trek to dinner last night and that sounded more exciting than the neighborhood Mexican place. Plus we could order via Grubhub and drink a Cutwater margarita on the couch, so it was win-win-win. Seeing that they offered both beef and lamb birria sealed the deal.

We started with the esquites, aka elote loco. It was mostly a puddle of melted mayo by the time it arrived, but the corn was delicious and plenty spiced. I will never complain about this, but at the same time it’s not much of a test. It’s pretty difficult to mess up something that’s 85% mayonnaise. Mayo is love. Mayo is life. Moving on…

We obviously had to get birria tacos. They offer both lamb and beef, in either standard or queso-fied format. I decided to go with the un-queso-fied lamb which, despite being more traditional, seems to just not be the norm around here. I had to choose a second taco platter for us, and herein lies the first of my two complaints: you have to order three of a kind, no ifs, ands, or buts. So narrowing down the choices became an actual issue.

I settled on the carnitas. Big pro: the tortillas held up! I don’t know if they were some corn/flour hybrid, but they not only survived the delivery process, they also held together in our time of need–the moment they are dipped into the birria. So no complaints about the general construction of the tacos, nor the very simple, traditional presentation. Raw onion, cilantro. Some random radish slices. What else is there, really? But I did mention that I had a second axe to grind and this is it: the pork carnitas were just…not…great. Too simple, very dry, kinda fatty. A disappointment–especially having had to order three of them–that was only slightly ameliorated by their delicious chipotle salsa.

On the other hand, the lamb was awesome. It had that rich lamby flavor without being too intense. It was shredded and that meant no gross chewy bits. The birria was awesome and not too salty. All around, three tacos were definitely enough. I regret not getting the quesabirria, but that’s on me. Next time.

Price: $25 per person, including delivery.

Bottom line: Xochi is a real, authentic taquería in line with El Sol (edit: I attempted to insert a link to a blog post on El Sol that I never actually wrote. Whoops. It’s good and you should go there). Perfect for an easy street food meal.