I’m the biggest hater of any food that even remotely looks like it was designed to be posted on Instagram instead of actually tasting good. There is a term for this kind of food that is quite possibly the fastest way to turn me off from ever trying it: “stunt food.”
It’s a loaded subject that has also quietly become a key selling point in many restaurants' business plans: to engineer a social media spark. This is why I didn’t even think twice about the press release I received a month ago about Paradise Dynasty's birria soup dumpling done in collaboration with Burritos La Palma.
But after hearing Gab Chabrán, LAist’s food editor and proud L.A. TACO alumnus, gush about it on the radio last week, I was surprised to feel excitement. Approximately 24 hours after the interview, I found myself driving to Costa Mesa, since the closest location participating in the collaboration to me is at South Coast Plaza.
I’ll preface by saying I’m not a fan of the general birrification of the world. I never cared for birria pizza, birria egg rolls, or frozen birria found at Trader Joe’s, but something about birria xia long baos drew me in. I think it’s because I grew up eating both Zacatecas-style birria—known to be more brothy and tomato-forward like its neighboring Aguascaliente variation—and soup dumplings up and down the San Gabriel Valley, where I was raised. But of course, never these two cultishly beloved foods at the same time.
Also, when you throw in the birria lore and respect from Burritos La Palma, which consistently ranks high in our best tacos and burrito lists, it’s our tacogod-given duty to take these dumplings for a whirl.
When the steamed dumplings arrived, served in a bamboo basket, in their viral two-toned wrappers naturally colored with red rice flour, I was more enthralled to see the same refreshingly thin tomato salsa that Burritos La Palma are served with. Could salsa roja also work on dumplings?
The anticipation was killing me, tongue-scolding be damned, so I went in. For the first time in my life, I used chopsticks to eat birria. I dunked the juicy little purse filled with consomé, instead of the usual pork broth, and dipped the whole thing in the chilled salsa. I crowned it with a thinly sliced ring of fresh serrano, and went in.
Surprisingly, it did not burn my tongue, and my eyes rolled back in pleasure. Within the first second of the adobo-enriched hot broth hitting my palate, it became immediately known that these two staple foods were weirdly made for each other. It tasted as if hyper-shredded beef chuck, cooked for seven hours, belonged in here the whole damn time.
“I was also incredibly skeptical,” says Alberto Bañuelos, founder and keeper of La Palma’s 50-year-old secret birria recipe–passed down from his father–when Paradise Dynasty hit him up for the collaboration. But after having the final version of his modified birria recipe to be enveloped by a dumpling wrapper instead of a flour tortilla, he also agreed that, strangely, birria belongs in a dumpling just as much as it does in a burrito.
The acidity in the salsa also replaces the black vinegar usually used to contrast the richness of the dumpling. As is the serrano slice instead of the shredded ginger.
Bañuelos says that the birria recipe took a few months to develop to be perfect for the steamed, delicate nature of a dumpling. Without giving away too much, he had to up the intensity of the otherwise brothy, tomato-intensive birria that is common in Aguascalientes and Zacatecas. Specifically, he had to use more guajillo and pasilla chiles; the latter adds a sweeter, dried fruit-like sazón to it.
“My kids, they love it. And I think that has more to do with their culture—being more Americanized, they’re more open to that,” he tells us.
But he says he does expect some backlash from his “paisanos” who are more old-school. Because he is now integrating into a whole different presentation. But if you think about the naturally Chinese-Mexican fusion of a border city like Mexicali, that actually has more Chinese restaurants than Mexican restaurants, the fusion feels like destiny.
“They’re going to have to taste it to really enjoy it and give it a chance,” he says. Just like any other purist or skeptic who can interpret this as a gimmick.
Just remember, when birria soup dumplings hit the frozen food aisle at Trader Joe’s, you heard it at L.A. TACO first.
Burritos La Palma’s birria soup dumplings (in collaboration with Paradise Dynasty) are available only until the end of July at both the South Coast Plaza and Americana locations.
South Coast Plaza ~ 1170 Baker St. Suite G1, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
The Americana at Brand ~ 1100 Glendale Ave. Glendale, CA 91205
