Birria Y Birria: Casa to the Best Tacos in Hong Kong

Say “Hello” to my little friend…and my new favorite restaurant in Hong Kong – Birria Y Birria. Before I dig into why this (relatively) new Sai Ying Pun shop should be on your Hong Kong dining bucket list, there’s a chance that if you’re reading this, you don’t even know what birria is. The “WHATTTT?” comes before the “why,” or the “OKAYYYYY” if you’re Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz. So, we should clear some things up first. Come closer and choose between the red pill and the blue pill. 

Birria refers to a Mexican meat stew or consomme made from almost every meat you can imagine (except pork) that is marinated in vinegar, garlic, dried chiles, and other colorful, herbaceous spices (oregano, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and cloves). After bathing in that witches’ brew of caliente Mexican spices for hours, the tender meat is then flavor-fied even further and is cooked in that deep red broth. 

The result? A savory, smoky, somewhat gamey, sweet, and warm, mahogany concoction of everything right in the world. 

If that wasn’t already getting you more torqued up than 12-year-old me when I’d “accidentally stumble” into Blockbuster’s ‘adult section’ (R.I.P. Blockbuster), which was just sectioned off by a tiny curtain, then you’re about to be. In the late 2000s, Birria, unlike the ivory-billed woodpecker, evolved from its humble roots as an accompaniment to bean, rice, bread, and tortillas, expanding its gustatorial repertoire and entering into a not-so-surreptitious affair with tacos, cheese, and even ramen. 

At this point, birria is a lifestyle. FUBU. For us, Birria Us.

Now that you have that same look on your face I did right before my mother would angrily grab my wrist and drag me out of Blockbuster, punishing me with no MMORPG marathons with my then online girlfriend “who lived in Virginia” and I suspect was actually a man in his twenties, let’s dig into the details of where you can find Birria Y Birria in Hong Kong. 

Birria Y Birria: Hong Kong’s First Birrieria

Look, I’ll be honest here, the pictures I took don’t come anywhere close to doing the food at Birria Y Birria justice. 

Website, Address, & Details: https://www.birriaybirria.com, https://www.instagram.com/birria_y_birria/  

• Location: Hang Hing Court, UGF, 123-125 Third St, Sai Ying Pun
• Price: $ – extremely reasonable and fairly priced for the quality and amount of food.

Located on Third Street in Sai Ying Pun – a stone’s throw away from the Western Street/Third Street intersection and the irretrievable breakdown of one of my ten-year-long friendships – Birria Y Birria is Hong Kong’s first birrieria. For reference, a birrieria is simply a food stall, cart, or restaurant that specializes in this Mexican staple.

What’s especially interesting about ‘birria’ is that the word itself first originated from an old Spanish term for the ‘leftovers’ or ‘poor quality meat’ that Cortes and his conquistadors weren’t overly fond of. Simply put, Cortes and his men brought over a lot of goats which led to an overpopulation and inadvertent generosity (with goats that is). I’m no arbiter of history so that generosity or lack thereof you think he bestowed on the Aztecs isn’t for me to decide. Please write me a persuasive essay on it in the comments if you feel strongly about it. 

Birria, the actual dish, came into existence in the Mexican state of Jalisco sometime after (and seems somewhat disputed and/or uncertain of exactly when) and quickly became a food that was eaten at baptisms, weddings, and funerals. As it skyrocketed in popularity, each Mexican state followed suit, developing its own signature regional take.

Pale Ale Travel Tip: If you’ve read my article breaking down why Florence Trippa’s lampredotto sandwich (aka the pulled pork sandwich of the tripe world), then you already know that the “forgotten” meats make for some of the most flavorful, warming, and nutrient-dense. Birria is no exception – and is frequently cited as being a fantastic source of protein, high in potassium and iron, and an anti-inflammatory. At 33, I’m just chronically inflamed, something which I mostly attribute to not eating birria more frequently (and overconsumption of nama beerus).  

A Little Background on Birria Y Birria

See this picture. Imagine every food I’ve talked about below being dunked into this.

I’m not sure there was a more awaited physical opening in Hong Kong than Birria Y Birria. Or, at least for me. This is one that I had tracked closely and had even set daily alarms to remind me of its impending birria brick-and-mortar baptism. 

You might have already known Andy from the popular smash burger restaurant ‘Electric Ave’, which faithfully served patrons from locations on First Street in Sai Ying Pun and Graham Street in SoHo. Or, you may have also ordered from Birria Y Birria’s pop-up that sat on Hillier Street in Sheung Wan for some time while they finalized the opening of their physical Sai Ying Pun location. 

Electric Ave was a heavyweight in Hong Kong’s burger scene and one of the best to do a proper smash burger before it was cool. And the great news is that these juicy, onion-suffused smashed patties were carried over to Birria Y Birria. But I’ll dig into more about that below. 

I’ll be honest, my birria constitution (of what I know and have tried) is relatively weak as I’m from the Northeast in the U.S. and have been living in Asia on and off for the past twelve years. Asia isn’t exactly known as the epicenter of quality Mexican fare. So, I can’t comment authoritatively on the regional birria that Birria Y Birria promulgates. However, it’s worth noting that Tijuana is credited as the first Mexican birria iteration that involves dunking them in this savory, spiced soup, along with ‘quesatacos’ (sometimes referred to as ‘quesabirria’), birria and cheese stuffed tacos served with this delicious consomme.  

So, if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the overarching regional inspiration for Birria Y Birria is the Mexican State of Baja California. 

Pale Ale Travel Tip: Before we dive into the food at Hong Kong’s first birrieria, I have one pro tip that you’ll thank me for. You’re going to need a lot of consomme. Sure, you might think that one cup of your own dipping stew is going to be enough. That’s completely false. I’m tempted to make you take a lap around Sun Yat Sen right now just for thinking that. Make sure you order an extra birria soup so that your various tacos, burgers, and other flavor-packed dishes have a warm, welcoming home to be dipped into. 

A Birria Bonanza Fit For a Big Body 

To ensure authenticity and quality, Andy and Co. use authentic Mexican ingredients, even down to the chilies (which are grown on Mexican soil). The tortillas are also handmade by true-blooded descendants of The Royal Eagle (Mexico). 

Everything at the shop is made to order, so you can bet your bottom birria dollar that it is going to be fresh. Here’s what this Big Body went to town on.

P.S. I recommend throwing on the plastic gloves that Andy and Co. provide you. I went in with my naked hands and felt like there was a lingering trepidation and nervousness with each attempted dunk into the consomme.  

Birria Poutine With Dipping Consomme

I was ravenous after a long day of typing away like that one internet meme of the keyboard cat and only remembered to take a picture as I was nearing the end of the poutine.

Birria Y Birria’s poutine is not your adorable yet oddly xenophobic little Quebecois grandma’s poutine. That’s not to say it isn’t absolutely fantastic in its own right but I would call it less of a poutine and more of a “loaded fry” (which I love equally). The reason I think it’s closer to a loaded fry than poutine is the cheese used. 

Unlike the traditional Canadian cheddar cheese curds, which are generally mild, slightly milky, and kissed with a tincture of salt, Birria Y Birria coats their signature shoestring french fries (my preferred style of fry) with cotija cheese. Cotija reminds me much more of a “light feta” thanks to its underlying salty and milky essence and crumbly texture. Further, cheddar cheese curds are exponentially meltier, as cotija crumbles rather than infuses.

The dish is also topped with their signature birria beef, coriander (cilantro), and salsa. The fries, thin and crispy on the outside with a fluffy give on the exterior which allows for maximum “forkage” of the tender, smoky, shredded beef in tandem. The cilantro, always a welcomed refreshing addition to cut through the richness of the beef and saltiness of the cotija. 

And of course, instead of having a thick brown gravy coating the top of it all, you have a trusty half pint of smoky, sweet, and layered consomme to tie all of the contrasting flavors together.

Pale Ale Travel Note: Since this birria excursion with one of my top dawgz, Birria Y Birria has rolled out more than a handful of new sides, including chipotle black beans with cotija cheese, avocado oil, and coriander lime rice, and refried beans with jalapeno cheese sauce. I’m finding it difficult not to sprint out of my apartment right now just to go try these.

Soft Beef Birria Tacos

I can’t remember the last time I ate an authentic Mexican tortilla. Warm and soft yet sturdy, slightly earthy with a distinct corn flavor and a hint of sweetness. Well, actually now I remember. At Birria Y Birria. The soft beef birria tacos are hands down the best tacos I’ve eaten in Hong Kong. Even if there was formidable competition in the taco arena, I would bet it all that Birria Y Birria’s tacos still reign supreme. 

These are some gordo (chunky) tacos. Overflowing with tender, shredded beef (you may already be seeing a common theme here), cotija cheese, yuzu onion, and coriander, Birria Y Birria’s beef tacos are delicate goliaths of Tijuana taste. 

The crumbly, tangy cotija and citrusy onions sneakily permeate the cracks of the shredded beef, yielding a salty, smoky, acidic, spiced mouthful of gustatorial dissipation that affirms what you already knew deep down. 

The best bites in Hong Kong aren’t at the bourgeois Michelin star laboratories of Landmark Building – where seafoam, gold-encrusted proteins, and other “food art” are disorientingly thrust in front of you. They’re right at street level and best eaten in sweatpants and that one gym shirt of yours with holes under the armpits (or is that just me?).

Fried Beef Quesatacos 

An interesting note is that quesatacos are a newer Frankenstein’s monster and creation, having really only popped up and gained traction in the last 15 to 20 years. Birria was much more of a one-stop stew before North American popularity grew. 

Take some of the juiciest tacos you’ve ever had in your life. Ok great, now amplify that by 10, thanks to the snug crisp blanket of cheese coating it (which locks in the juices of the marinated meat even more). Perfect, we’re almost there. Now, turn that dial up to 1000 after stuffing it with a gooey Oaxacan cheese. Great but you’re forgetting one final thing, the dunk into the spicy and savory consomme. This is Taco Nirvana, folks – without all the Courtney Love conspiracy theories. 

And don’t forget to squeeze a lime or two on top of it for some needed acidity because 

While we were eating, my dawg asked me if I preferred the soft beef tacos or fried quesatacos more. Honestly, there’s no real comparison. They are different entities that exist in their own worlds and shouldn’t be pitted against one another like Godzilla vs. Kong. They are evenly matched gastronomic heavyweights that could have you rooting for one on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday.  

Pale Ale Travel Note: This is terrible to think of but I can’t help but imagine a giant platter of juicy birria tacos with dipping soup being served at a funeral (which, as mentioned above, was where birria was popularly served). Just me, in a black suit and tie, with red streaks of soup dripping down my chin while I pound Mexican lagers by the case. If you’re reading this and make it to my much-anticipated funeral (by several people I know for sure), make sure the ‘Jump’ by Van Halen is blasting as they bring my casket out and that there is a free-flow birria taco bar. Sorry, that was a tad macabre.

A Bone Marrow Burger That is Like Tyson in His Prime

Tyson in his prime. Unstoppable. Mr. Rogers in his time. Lovable. Birria Y Birria in this rhyme. Crushable. 

If you’ve read any other articles on my blog then you know that I’m on the hunt for the best burger in Hong Kong. I’ve declared ‘The Diplomat’ and ‘Eggslut’ to be two of the top dawgz. Well, I have a third for you. Birria Y Birria. It should be no surprise considering Andy was the proprietor of the venerable, ambrosial smash burger joint Electric Ave. Birria Y Birria is also a shop twin with ‘Smashed’, so expect Epicurean multitudes.

When deciding what to order, I already knew that a burger was going to be metaphorically and physically on the table. I just didn’t know exactly which of the three. But then I saw it, the ‘Umami Burger’. Surprisingly, it didn’t irk me. ‘Umami’ has always just been one of those overused words that every Instagram influencer loves loosely throwing around to convey that something is ‘high-end’ or that they shouldn’t be sent back to sophomore English class. They should. Go write me a 1500-word essay on Hamlet, Becky. 

I realize that without the bone marrow mayo, the burger is just Birria Y Birria’s standard cheeseburger (or maybe I’m wrong about that) and I fully concede that this alteration means I didn’t eat it in its intended form. So next time you see me, I fully accept you putting one of those Elizabethan collars you see on dogs and cats after the vet to prevent them from scratching or biting their wounds. Except, you can write ‘Shame’ in black Sharpie on it. 

However, I’m a relative purist with my burgers and the fact that having omitted one of the signature ingredients this still turned out to be one of the best burgers I’ve eaten in Hong Kong is a testament to the quality, construction, and prowess behind it. 

Birria Y Birria’s burger uses ‘British Beef,’ which I think just means that the cow spoke with a funny accent, watched Bridgerton, and loved a good scone or two before he or she hit the butcher (slaughterhouse?). Actually, the UK is said to have some of the best beef in the world due to national grass grazing systems, which typically results in a “meatier” (some say even ‘gamier’) taste. 

For a burger that is literally ‘smashed’ into a thin patty, with a considerably higher surface area to volume ratio compared to thick patties, it’s crucial to ensure that no flavor is lost. Also, as grass-fed beef is generally leaner than grain-fed, the patties cook and crisp up far quicker (which is definitely more of the ‘smash burger cooking M.O.). You want a patty with a slightly crispy crust thanks to a quick stint on the scalding griddle. Grass-fed beef assures this.

There is something so satisfying about a smashed burger (or smashed burger with double patties) due to the fact that it is so deeply infused with flavor the moment it hits the flat top or grill. Caramelized onions are my go-to topping for any burger, so the fact that they are pressed into the patties from the beginning makes this near perfection for Big Body. The sweetness runs deep and is offset nicely by a somewhat sharp cheddar that’s melted across the top. It’s sweet, it’s savory, it’s crispy, it’s soft and pillowy. 

Stack it all on a semi-sweet brioche (or it might be potato?) bun like a beefy Jenga set, and you have a burger that lets the meat speak for itself. As I’ve mentioned before, one of my biggest gripes with burgers in Hong Kong is ending up lost in the bread trying to figure out where the meat is. I don’t want to have to deconstruct my burger just to taste the actual…burger. Birria Y Birria emphatically resists this burger faux pas and tees you up for the perfect bite.  

By the end of this seductive, libidinous, smashed burger, I wasn’t just saying ‘umami’, I was screaming ‘Ooh Daddy’. But because I do try to be an upstanding and conscious member in the furtherance of a civilized society, I screamed this internally – which my dawg to the opposite side definitely picked up on and thought I was having some sort of stroke. So, don’t literally scream ‘Ooh Daddy’ out in the middle of the restaurant no matter how much it gets your blood pumping like “12-year-old Big Body” in Blockbuster.

Pale Ale Travel Tip: The only thing that Birria Y Birria doesn’t do is pizza (but with what Andy has described to me as his vision for the restaurant, maybe they will at some point). However, I’ve got you covered. Here are nine of my top pizza restaurants in Hong Kong so that you can make the power moves and get the mozzarella (Big L style). 

The Cervezas & Libations

The first night I went to Birria Y Birria, I wasn’t planning on drinking. However, seeing the small but dynamic list of beers they had on tap, any sort of free will was tossed right out the window. Modelo, Budvar, and Speckled Hen. It was a Murderers’ Row of some of the most drinkable beers in existence. The Legion of Boom of Brewhahas. The Sultans of Suds. The Caliphs of Carbonation. 

Unfortunately, they were tapped out of the sweet-forward Mexican ‘Modelo’, so I settled for a beer that actually may be a top five for best draught pilsners on the market – Budva (the O.G. Czech Lager). I especially love a crisp, foamy Budvar draft as it reminds me of the time I split an estimated 30 of them with a small Croatian man named Johnny at a beer garden in Vienna back in 2019. 

They also had a house IPA (Birria Y Birria IPA) on draft as well as O’Hara’s Irish Nitro Stout. As a former self-anointed IPA drinking champion, even more decorated than Brooklyn Brian who rides a unicycle and can juggle, sews his punk band’s patches into his jean vest, and is a vociferous Instagram advocate for Neo-Marxist thought (of which he has a very tenuous grasp of), I will be back for the house IPA. 

To cap off the night, it was only fitting that we all threw back some spine-shattering lime-infused tequila shots, courtesy of Andy. Gracias my Inglés muchacho. Somehow, after more than a handful of Budvas and a soul-warming shot of Mexico’s finest, I opted for slumber rather than further hedonistic indulgence. 

It Doesn’t Just Stop at Tacos

I am thankful to Andy and Co. over at Birria Y Birria. This isn’t only one of my new (brick-and-mortar-wise) favorite restaurants in Hong Kong but it’s also one of the most deliberate in how they operate and what they want their impact to be. There’s a love and care that emanates from this shop and its food, one that is definitely a rarity in a city with an ever-changing, sometimes predatory, and often overpriced F&B landscape. 

Further, in just several short months, the shop has expanded its birria offerings, and is going somewhat ‘birria crazy’ (in the best way possible) – like Hailie Jade sang about her father Marshall Mathers on The Eminem Show…except with birria. 

My only regret at Birria Y Birria was that I didn’t order an extra side of birria consomme just to drink itself. Also, I’m not sure how I missed it but they also serve up chicharrons, aka fried pork rinds and/or pork belly. Chicharrons elicit a lot of nostalgia for me, as my 4th grade Spanish teacher who was a random white guy from Kentucky who taught himself Spanish and dressed in all leather cowboy attire would crush bags of fried pork rinds on the regular and tell us to get ready to ‘Habla some Español’. Unfortunately, I never properly learned to ‘habla’ it. 

There’s no doubt that this will be a regular haunt for me going forward. Oh, and it’s open late-night, so you can get your fix at all hours. I’m slightly thankful I live just out of walking distance, otherwise after one too many beers and a shisha, I could easily see myself here multiple times per week – wondering once more if this was going to be the year that I have to sign up for The Biggest Loser to face the wrath of Bob. 

If you’ve eaten at Birria Y Birria, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. How do you think their tacos hold up vs. ones you’ve eaten elsewhere in Hong Kong (or the world) and are they a contender for one of your top burgers in the city? 

Eat and drink well everyone,

Big Body