The 25 best tacos in the D.C. area

Whenever people complain about the price of tacos, I direct them to El Papi for an object lesson in the many hours that go into the extraordinary Tijuana-style birria at this strip-center taqueria. Chef-owner Rudy Zamora-Herrera starts by simmering brisket for hours in a stock pot. He removes the beef but reserves the fat to add to a second pot in which the chef has already started his consommé, the birria stew that doubles as dipping sauce. Bubbling inside that cauldron is a heady, 17-plus-ingredient stew that includes chiles, ground annatto seeds, cinnamon and banana leaves briefly fried in brisket fat.

Zamora-Herrera then ages — ages! — the consommé for five days before putting it to use. He slathers his tortillas with the birria but also gives you a side of the sharp, concentrated consommé whenever you order Patricia’s red tacos (named for the chef’s wife), a trio of tortillas stuffed with stewy, shredded brisket, raw onions, cilantro and a three-cheese blend. You may call these tacos expensive. I call them a bargain.

$15.99 for three quesabirria tacos and a side of consommé. 5904 Allentown Way, Camp Springs, Md., 240-838-3830.

Birria de res quesotacos on the grill at El Papi.

When you’re throwing french fries into a corn tortilla, says Taco Bamba founder Victor Albisu, “all sense has gone out the window,” which is part of the reason I love this unorthodox, carb-on-carb taco that the chef has dubbed La Poutina. A take on Canadian poutine, the taco would seem a nod to vegetarians, but in fact, as Albisu says, “We take the jus from the barbacoa and we ruin that.” The kitchen also adds spicy mayo, bacon bits, cotija cheese and pickled red onions for one of the most surprising, and surprisingly satisfying, tacos around. If you’re familiar with the Taco Bamba model, Albisu and culinary director Tom Hall workshop all items that make the cut for the “tacos nuestros” section of the menu. They’ve developed eccentric and fantastical combinations, tacos that riff on Chick-fil-A, patty melts and trendy international dishes. Each location has its own custom list of tacos nuestros. “Before you do anything super-special, you got to be prepared to look foolish,” Albisu tells me. “It’s easy with me and Tom because we are able to just communicate and create and build from that place of non-judgment.”

The La Poutina at Taco Bamba.

I’ve enjoyed many of their free-form, freethinking combos, but two at the Falls Church location stand out. One is La Poutina. The other is the Pork Chopolopolous, in which the chefs rejigger an al pastor taco until it resembles something closer to a Greek gyro, but wrapped in a corn tortilla. How good are these tacos? So good that I don’t care that Taco Bamba still relies on outsourced tortillas.

$4.50 per taco. Multiple locations, but these tacos are available only at 2190 Pimmit Dr., Falls Church, Va., 703-639-0505; tacobamba.com.

The Pork Chopolopolous at Taco Bamba.

When chef Elio Gomez was developing his recipe for a fish taco, he wasn’t thinking about Baja California or even San Diego. He was thinking about Canada, where he spent a couple of cold, teeth-rattling years at a Greek restaurant in Saskatoon. It served calamari with tzatziki, and Gomez remembered how much he liked the interplay between fried seafood and the yogurt-based sauce. He approached his taco with the same combination of flavors in mind: In a flour tortilla, the chef pairs fried cod with what he calls a jalapeno-cucumber dressing — actually a yogurt-and-cream-cheese sauce in which epazote replaces the dill of traditional tzatziki.

He garnishes this combo with a kale and tomato salad, fresh slices of avocado and ringlets of raw jalapeño. Maybe it is Gomez’s fine-dining chops. Maybe he’s just a natural rule breaker. Whatever it is, he has created a fish taco that borrows from Mexico and Greece but, in its cross-cultural brilliance, is uniquely American.

$4.50. 1472 N. Beauregard St., Alexandria, Va.; 571-970-0881; taqueriapicoso.com.

Taqueria Picoso chef Elio Gomez.

When folks think of Mexican chorizo, I suspect they think of the pork sausage that drips brick-red grease, staining everything within a three-foot radius. But in Toluca, capital of the state of Mexico, they make a chorizo verde whose hue can be traced to its delicious mess of herbs and greens. Over at Las Gemelas, the multinational culinary team has put its own spin on Toluca green chorizo with crumbled pork spiked with, among other ingredients, pickled jalapeños and tomatillos, which amp up the acidity of the sausage. I could eat the chorizo straight from a pan, but the kitchen packages it into an ensemble so tight, the taco is basically a composed plate: The spiced pork is layered into a blue-corn tortilla, made in house from fresh masa, and topped with something that Las Gemelas calls a “crispy potato” but looks more like one of those hash brown rafts that you order from the breakfast menu at McDonald’s. Garnished with salsa verde, the taco has everything, including my heart.

$3.50. 1280 Fourth St. NE, 202-866-0550; lasgemelasdc.com.

Nathan Anda’s palate has matured since he was a teenager in Omaha, when he and his buddies would wolf down hard-shell tacos, six at a time, anytime they made a “run for the border.” Like many who grew up with Taco Bell, Anda has a fondness for the chain’s Tex-Mex namesake snack, in which a tortilla is fried into a U-shape and packed with the kind of ingredients that appeal to almost everyone, even (especially?) suburban boys in the Midwest: seasoned ground beef, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese. For Taco Night in America, Anda’s take on the crispy classic, the chef amps up the flavors. He replaces the tomatoes with pico de gallo, the shredded cheddar with a housemade cheese sauce and the sour cream with smoked crema. Better yet, he’s infused the ground beef with just enough ancho chile and cayenne to raise the heat, but without alienating the next generation of hardcore hard-shell obsessives.

$6.75 for two. 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, inside the Roost food hall, 202-661-0142; theroostsedc.com.

The salmon tacos that Jessica Solis used to enjoy in Mexico City were minimalist affairs compared with the one she has created for El Sol. In the CDMX of Solis’s youth, salmon tacos were little more than a section of fillet lounging in a tortilla, garnished simply with salsa. But Americans being Americans, we always want more. We want bloody Marys garnished with cheeseburgers and fried chicken. We want shakes topped with chocolate doughnuts and toasted marshmallows.

Solis, the chef who co-owns El Sol with her brother Alfredo, understands the American psyche, which is why her superb taco features a generous length of grilled salmon rubbed with olive oil, garlic, salt and black pepper. The fish is then slipped into a housemade tortilla and topped with chipotle mayo, pico de gallo, guacamole and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro. It’s a colorful bite custom-made for the D.C. market. The taco, Solis says through her son, Jesus Garcia-Solis, is more “for the American audience, but still keeping in touch with the Mexican side” of her culinary persona.

$4.50. 1227 11th St. NW, 202-815-4789; el-soldc.com.

You can’t walk into a taqueria these days without finding birria on the menu. For taco shop owners, the dish became an essential tool to survive the pandemic, as we rode out the crisis at home, watching Instagram stories and realizing quesabirria tacos might be just the thing to brighten our gray days. Most taquerias, however, favor Tijuana-style birria, with its emphasis on shredded beef. La Tingeria chef-owner David Andres Peña offers beef birria but also specializes in goat, the meat said to have inspired the Jalisco-style stew in the first place. He has developed a consommé just for his goat birria, one simmered overnight with water, bones, guajillo peppers, annatto seeds, cinnamon, paprika and more. When you order a quesabirria taco, you get a tortilla dipped in chile oil, stuffed with mozzarella and the stewy goat, then crisped up on a griddle. For a little extra, you can get a side of consommé that combines both beef and goat broths. I highly recommend it. Dipping that taco takes it to a whole other level.

$4 for the quesabirria taco, $2.50 for the consommé. 626 S. Washington St., Falls Church, Va. No phone or website, but you can order online.

The fillings for a breakfast taco aren’t complicated, which is why Republic Cantina owner Chris Svetlik says the most important element is the flour tortilla, that wondrous flatbread, simultaneously flaky and elastic. Republic prepares its dough off-site daily with vegetable shortening. Each dough ball is then pressed and par-cooked, ready to slap on the griddle with every order. Freshness is paramount at every step, Svetlik says. Whether dough ball or par-cooked tortilla, each begins to degrade immediately after preparation.

“You’re always fighting against time and air,” he says. I’d say Republic Cantina is winning the battle. Its migas breakfast taco, a silken combination of cheese, scrambled egg and avocado counterbalanced with strips of fried corn tortilla, is enveloped in a wrapper that adds a righteous amount of chew. Like the tortilla, the taco is best eaten fresh from the kitchen — and fast.

$5. 43 N St. NW, 202-997-4340; republic-cantina.com.

Lauren Munday and Blas Alvarado enjoy breakfast tacos at Republic Cantina.

Talk to anyone familiar with tacos in Mexico and they’ll tell you that some of the most popular ones feature off-cuts. Tongue. Tripe. Head. Cheeks. Ears and lips. All of these, and more, are available at this taqueria that has been faithfully serving the Hyattsville-Edmonston-Riverdale Park communities for years. Newer, chef-driven taquerias may have blue-corn tortillas, made in house with ingredients imported from Oaxaca, but they don’t have what Javier Martinez’s place does: rich, gelatinous cueritos tacos.

Cueritos is pork skin, and it’s nothing like the puffy fried snacks that you eat straight from a bag. This skin is typically air-dried for a couple of days before it’s sliced and cooked in lard, carnitas-style, until the cut is almost translucent. The kitchen spoons gooey slivers of skin into a pair of tortillas and promptly buries them under chopped raw onion and cilantro. The taco has a taste and texture all its own. Like pork jelly — that you eat with really hot salsa.

$4. 5020 Edmonston Rd., Hyattsville, Md., 301-277-4477.

Vanessa Torta, foreground, fries chicken while Coral Marino Carino garnishes dishes at Taqueria La Placita.

The secret to the carnitas at Al Lado is the fat. Like many cooks in Michoacán, the home of carnitas, chef-owner Rolando Frias confits his pork in lard. Unlike many, he doesn’t add spices or aromatics to the fat. Frias prefers to brine his cuts of pork — shoulder, leg and rib meat — in a solution that includes salt, sugar, vinegar, orange juice, cloves and cinnamon. After a 24-hour brine, the pork luxuriates in a pot of lard. Just lard. The key is the kitchen will reuse the same mother lard for a month, maybe longer, to build up flavors over each successive cook.

The technique makes for rich, viscous, mouthwatering carnitas, equal to the finest that I’ve sampled in Mexico, Los Angeles, anywhere. The pork is layered into a white-corn tortilla formed from fresh, housemade masa. Don’t get Frias started on his tortillas compared with those dragged from a bag. “It’s day and night,” he says. “It’s not like it’s a little bit different. No, no. It’s a totally different product.”

$4. 1792 Columbia Rd. NW, 202-481-0048; taqueriaallado.com.

Sous chef Juan Martinez puts handmade tortillas on the grill at Taqueria Al Lado.

I’ve enjoyed cochinita pibil several times in the Yucatán, but don’t worry. I’m not about to declare myself an expert. Yet when I sampled chef David Perez’s version at Cielo Rojo, I experienced something of a flashback: to open-air taquerias on the peninsula, with a plate of cochinita pibil tacos within reach, the rush of citrus, sweet spices and smoke mingling with the saltwater breezes. Chefs often have to create shortcuts to mimic the flavors of this dish, which is traditionally cooked in an earthen pit, and Perez is no different.

The Mexico City native marinates pork overnight with the usual suspects (annatto seeds, cumin, allspice, garlic) and some proxies (orange, grapefruit and lime juices for the traditional bitter orange), then wraps the meat in charred banana leaves for a multi-hour cook in the oven. Despite the alternative cooking method, despite the substitutions and despite the fact Perez has never visited the Yucatán, his version of cochinita pibil hits all the right notes for me. It’s like he has a sixth sense for a dish that he’s never tried on its home turf.

$18 for a make-your-own-taco platter. 7056 Carroll Ave., Takoma Park, Md., 301-755-0833; cielo-rojo.com

Chef David Perez cooks tortillas at Cielo Rojo.

Leticia Soriano is the mother in question at Tacos a la Madre. Unless you’ve pledged a sorority at the University of Maryland, you’ve probably never heard of her. Until she and her family launched the business two years ago, Soriano was best known as a cook for hire at sorority houses. “If you ask around on sorority row, if you ask for Leticia, they’re going to know who she is. They love her,” says son Pedro Soriano, a partner in the taqueria located within walking distance of campus.

They probably love Leticia because she doesn’t pull any punches. Her tacos de tinga, also known as spicy chicken tacos, drip with an adobo that electrifies the shredded breast meat packed into the tortilla. The burn is courtesy of chipotle peppers and another chile that Pedro prefers to keep secret. The conflagration is also abetted by a corn tortilla (made off-site for the taqueria) dipped in chorizo oil before hitting the griddle. This taco demands respect. It has mine.

$3.25. 5010 Berwyn Rd., College Park, Md., 240-297-9546; tacosalamadre.com.

As hard as it is to imagine for many Americans, whose protein choices lean toward livestock animals and not insects, the grasshopper is a delicacy in Oaxaca, and the producers who specialize in chapulines have their own methods for curing and seasoning them. “You know how every grandmother has her own recipe for apple pie? Every family down there has their recipe for seasoning the grasshoppers,” says executive chef Christian Irabién.

The chef imports chapulines from a small handful of Oaxacan producers, then flambés the insects in a pan with mezcal before tucking them into a house-pressed tortilla with avocado, sauteed onions, garlic and whatever seasonal vegetables he may have on hand. The dehydrated chapulines add both texture and spice to the taco. They’re also superb with birria, Irabién tells me. “It’s mind-blowing,” he says. “People come in and ask for the quesabirria, and they just ask us to drop some grasshoppers in there.”

$7. 5029 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-244-5000; muchasgraciasdc.com.

Grasshopper taco filling on the grill at ¡Muchas Gracias!

About six years ago, Mirna Montero-Alvarado and Dio Montero took their first family vacation since they planted their flag on 14th Street NW in 2014 with the original Taqueria Habanero. The couple went to the Riviera Maya along the Yucatán Peninsula, where seafood is abundant. There, they encountered a dish that was, essentially, a quesadilla in taco form: curls of fresh shrimp smothered in melted cheese and wrapped in a tortilla. When it came time to open their second Habanero in College Park, the pair decided to create their own version of the snack, which they dubbed tacos Yucatecos.

It features grilled shrimp that are briefly tossed in a pan with tequila and Chihuahua cheese until the ingredients combine into a gooey mass of deliciousness. The cheesy shrimp are then slipped into a housemade tortilla and garnished with roasted poblanos, cilantro and pico de gallo. The best part of this taco? The tantalizing aroma of garlic that informs every bite.

$14 for three tacos. 8145 Baltimore Ave., College Park, Md., 240-241-4486; taqueriahabanero.com.

The dining room at Taqueria Habanero.

Beef tenderloin, I think it’s safe to say, is not the go-to cut for carne asada. Most cooks prefer arrachera, or skirt steak. Teresa Padilla is not most cooks. The chef and co-owner of Taqueria Xochi spent years working for José Andrés and his ThinkFoodGroup, and they seem to have had an influence. Her carne asada recipe is a hand-me-down from her paternal grandmother, with whom Padilla lived as a girl. But the chef has made two significant changes, one by choice and another by necessity.

She opted for the pricey cut of beef because she likes its tenderness, but she has to cook the tenderloin on a griddle because her carryout doesn’t have room for a grill, the typical cooking method for a dish that translates into “grilled meat” in English. (Take heart: Padilla says her next location, possibly in Crystal City, will include a grill.) In Mexico, you might eat carne asada with onions and nopales on the side. Here, you get them stuffed in housemade tortillas, which makes this less a taco than a magnificent entree in handheld form.

$15 for three tacos. 924 U St. NW, 202-292-2859; taqueriaxochi.com.

Taqueria Xochi chef and co-owner Teresa Padilla.

The original Taqueria Yazmin was located outside Mexico City. It was run for decades by Alberto Martinez-Arrieta’s father, a man whom everyone knew as Don Beto. The elder died about five years ago, but Martinez-Arrieta is carrying on his tradition with Taqueria Yazmin #2, a counter-service operation inside the Fresh World supermarket in Manassas. Don Beto’s specialty was al pastor tacos, and he passed the recipe on to his son, who’s now tasked with the painstaking process of marinating the sliced pork overnight in orange juice, achiote paste and other spices before building the meat tower every morning by hand.

He swears he can construct one in 15 minutes flat, which is almost as impressive as the taco itself. The pork, all charred and glistening, is paired with a fat slice of pineapple and smothered with fresh cilantro and chopped onions, the whole glorious jumble swaddled in a warm tortilla. It’s a taco with memory — of another country and another generation — and it’s being kept alive all because of a son’s love for his father.

$3. 9540 Liberia Ave., Manassas, Va., 703-392-4918.

Chef Alberto Martinez-Arrieta shaves the trompo for the al pastor taco at Taqueria Yazmin #2.

A few years ago, before the pandemic threw our lives into chaos, Josefina Darui was dining at a fusion restaurant in Los Angeles, where she was served a small square of smashed and fried avocado, sort of like tempura shrimp but with one of the defining fruits of Mexico. Little did Darui realize it then, but that petite bite would become an inspiration as she created the menu for her debut restaurant, which features a line of vegetarian tacos, including one with a length of deep-fried avocado.

In the hierarchy of taco ingredients, the avocado is usually a bit player, relegated to garnish duties. But Darui’s recipe is like a veggie riff on the Baja fish taco, in which the fruit assumes the starring role. It pairs fried avocado — crispy on the outside, lush on the inside — with a slaw dressed in a creamy chipotle sauce. It arrives on a gorgeous blue-corn tortilla, made in house, the colors so vibrant you’ll want to admire it for a few seconds before you demolish it.

$4. 3903-3905 14th St. NW, 202-481-0511; dccorazon.com.

Server Will Tellez takes a food order at DC Corazon.

In the late 1990s, when he was a loan officer at a New York bank, Alex Lee noticed a trend. “I saw there was going to be an explosion of Latin food,” he says. That was all the inspiration he needed to drop his financial career and enter the food business in the Mid-Atlantic. For years, Lee specialized in tortillas, baked goods and other products under the Casa Blanca brand. So when he got into the restaurant industry, it was natural for him to combine his Korean heritage with Mexican ingredients.

His gal-bee tacos are fusion at its finest. Lee altered the marinade for his short rib meat so its flavors would better align with the housemade corn tortillas, a stand-in for the traditional Korean lettuce wraps. He also opted to give the tacos some color: His garnishes include ringlets of red finger pepper and chopped purple cabbage, but there’s not a lick of sauce on the bite, which is intentional. It allows the tender, sweet-and-savory beef to take center stage.

$3.65. 4347 John Marr Dr., Annandale, Va., and 6013 Leesburg Pike, Baileys Crossroads, Va., 703-347-6969; tacossam.com.

Claudia Reyes mixes ingredients into the tortilla recipe at Taco Ssam.

Early in the development process for his tacos de canasta, or basket tacos, chef and co-owner Alfredo Solis tried to replicate the low-tech method that gives the popular street snack its name and identity. In Mexico, vendors layer their premade tacos in baskets lined with plastic, sometimes splashing hot oil over the top before sealing the containers tight. They will strap the baskets onto bikes and pedal to their preferred vending locations, the tacos steaming on themselves the entire time, infusing the tortillas with flavor. At Mezcalero, sister restaurant to El Sol, also owned by siblings Alfredo and Jessica Solis, the chef attempted to duplicate the process with a commercial steamer. It left diners with something closer to taco casserole, so Alfredo made quick adjustments. He now dips housemade tortillas in guajillo sauce, fries them on a griddle and holds them in a steamer. When you place an order, he takes three tortillas and stuffs each with a separate filling — refried black beans, chorizo and potatoes, and chicharrón — before folding them in half and serving them, of course, in a basket. Soft, crispy and colorful, these basket tacos are unlike any other.

$10.50 for three. 3714 14th St. NW, 202-803-2114, mezcalerodc.com.

Suresh Sundas laughs as he offers a confession: He had never made a taco before he created one for Daru, the Indian restaurant and cocktail bar that he opened last year with Dante Datta. The way Sundas explains it, he basically created the chicken tikka taco with spare parts lying around the kitchen, to build out the bar snacks menu. But when you break down the dish with the chef, you realize it’s more complicated than that.

He’s developed a dough just for the taco, a kind of riff on whole-wheat roti. He’s also created a special sauce — built with caramelized red onions, Kashmiri chile paste and Mexican adobo — in which he cooks the tandoori chicken a second time. He’s even fashioned a Sichuan peppercorn and tomato chutney to drizzle atop the twice-cooked chicken. The chef calls it a “Nepalese tomato chutney,” a reference to his mother country. This taco occupies a universe all its own. You’ll want to be part of it.

$12 for two. 1451 Maryland Ave. NE. 202-388-1848. darudc.com.

Chef Suresh Sundas prepares chicken tikka tacos at Daru.

The campechano taco is driven less by a recipe and more by philosophy, which I’ll attempt to boil down to two words: anything goes. Born in the port city of Campeche, in the Mexican state of the same name, campechano tacos are the hedonists of the street food universe, tacos that proudly declare more is more. Francisco Ferrufino, executive chef and co-owner of the growing Taco City chain, has created an exceptional version.

He starts by pairing grilled fajita meat with a crumbly chorizo whose flavor he supplements with extra garlic, onions, cumin, coriander and chile de arbol. This combination alone would satisfy lesser chefs, but Ferrufino piles more ingredients into his housemade tortillas: He adds caramelized onions for sweetness and chicharrón for crunch. His grace note? A salsa morita in which Ferrufino chars tomatoes and onions to match the smokiness of the pepper at the heart of the condiment. The salsa takes his campechano taco all the way over the top, in the best way possible.

$4.50. 1102 Eighth St. SE; 3740 12th St. NE; 2604 Connecticut Ave. NW., 202-506-7232; tacocitydc.com.

Co-owners Francisco Ferrufino and Erika Sanchez at Taco City.

Chef Renu Prakash, an ethnic Punjabi born in India, has made a career out of serving enchiladas, fajitas and burritos in the greater D.C. area, though she will be the first to admit that she’s an inveterate tinkerer. She’s always adding her own touches to Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes. With Mama Tigre!, Prakash finally, and fully, integrated her two loves: Mexican and Indian cuisines. Her chicken chorizo taco may be the crowning achievement.

A cross between Mexican chorizo and chicken seekh kebabs, a popular street food in India, the taco features ground breast and thigh meat seasoned with fennel, cumin, black pepper, garlic, cinnamon and crushed red pepper, more fragrant than fiery. The mixture is served on naan, as light as a cloud, and paired with a habanero-mint-cucumber crema, crispy cheese, chopped onions, cilantro and ringlets of raw jalapeño. The dish may stretch the geographical boundaries — and definition — of a taco. But your life will be the richer for it.

$14 for two. 10443 White Granite Dr., Oakton, Va., 703-261-6210; mamatigre.com.

Sous chef Roberto Meza tosses fajitas as chef Renu Prakash prepares a quesadilla at Mama Tigre!

Graham Bartlett calls it a deconstructed chile relleno, but his taco is more an abstract take on the Puebla dish, kind of like the final drawing in Picasso’s bull series, in which the beast has only a passing resemblance to the real thing. A former corporate chef for Richard Sandoval Hospitality, Bartlett has made countless trips to Mexico. On a more recent visit, he learned about chicharrones de queso, which is basically a crispy latticework of shredded cheese, produced hot and fast on a griddle.

The chef-owner has incorporated the technique into this taco: On a flat-top, he drapes a poblano pepper, sliced in half and flash-fried, over the melting cheeses, then drops a pair of corn tortillas over the combo. Within seconds, Bartlett flips and toasts the other side of the tortillas before the cheese has a chance to burn. This melded cheese-chile-tortilla base is then topped with a thick tomato salsa, infused with chipotle and morita peppers, and sprinkled with squiggles of fried tempura batter. It’s a brilliantly conceived taco, which would mean nothing, of course, if it weren’t also delicious.

$4. 4041 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va., 703-567-4747; tacoandpina.com.

Chef and owner Graham Bartlett at Taco and Piña.

In a crowded taco market, it can be tough to stand out. Avelino Romualdo Valdez and Jaime Romualdo Valdez, the brothers behind La Michoacana, have just the thing: Their signature dish is a quesabirria taco, but it’s not beef or goat. It’s salmon. Yeah, I was skeptical, too. Until I tried the taco. (By the way, the guys call it a mini-quesadilla, which is technically accurate, but it’s the same construction that everyone else calls a quesabirria taco.) Chef Ismael Montero has created a delicate birria consommé (which is not the contradiction in terms that it sounds like) just for the salmon.

It’s fish stock infused with tomatoes, guajillo peppers, chiles de arbol, garlic, onions and herbs. The salmon is not cooked in the consommé, as beef or goat is, but grilled separately with a little birria, then draped into a housemade tortilla with Chihuahua cheese, onions and cilantro. When dipped into the light, almost bright consommé, the dish brings to mind a word almost never uttered around quesabirria tacos: elegant.

$5.50. 3809 Rhode Island Ave., inside MiXt Food Hall, Brentwood, Md., 202-320-5994​; lmtacos.com.

Catalina Valdez brushes corn with mayo at La Michoacana.