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.