It seems like birria, meat marinated in vinegar, dried chiles, garlic, and spices, is everywhere these days. Taco shops and Mexican restaurants, even national chains, are beginning to add it to their menus, despite the food not being part of their kitchens’ usual repertoire. Even if the landscape is beginning to seem a lot like “birria, birria, birria,” that doesn’t mean the distinctive dish is going to be equally good everywhere it can be found. With that in mind, it’s often best to seek birria at a place like AZ Taco King, a central Phoenix restaurant that specializes in it.
AZ Taco King is a standalone restaurant found on Camelback Road just two blocks west of 19th Avenue / Camelback station on the B Line. A patio in front of the bright yellow building is frustratingly unused, even during mild weather, and there is no bike rack in sight. Despite those shortcomings outside, the interior space is pleasant with brick, natural light, and clever neon signs saying “Put some hot sauce on my burrito, baby” and “Tacos with drip,” a reference to the broth, or consomme, which is used in cooking birria and often served on the side for dipping.
AZ Taco King operates as a full-service restaurant with servers taking orders and bringing food to the table. The staff are especially helpful when it comes to differentiating among the myriad of formats in which birria is served here. The birria at the restaurant is beef, rather than the goat or lamb sometimes encountered. One promising place to start is with the lunch specials. For customers who want to sample the birria on its own, the #3 combination is a worthwhile introduction with a generous portion of seasoned meat served with rice, beans, and tortillas.
Although birria on its own can be a treat, it’s often even better when combined with cheese. The #2 combination provides two quesabirria tacos, which function like a meaty Mexican grilled cheese with tender meat and melted inside crisped tortillas. For a larger format, the birriadilla is a much bigger amalgam of tortilla, cheese, and meat, all fused into essentially one substance that can be dipped into a cup of the consomme in which the beef was cooked. Onions, cabbage, cilantro, and lime are always on the side, and medium green and fiery red salsas are provided.
The most indulgent birria experience is found in a pizzadilla, the ultimate supersizing of the current birria trend. This 14-inch disc, designed to be shared family style, has three layers of quesadilla and two containers of consomme for dipping. If the pizzadilla is the peak birria experience in terms of quantity, the ramenbirria is the item designed for crossover appeal. In a bowl full of broth, meat, and cheese, with toppings of cabbage, onion, cilantro, and wedges of lime, the queso and birria melt together with coiled instant noodles almost an afterthought.
Of course, birria can be found in other more traditional formats here, including tacos, tortas, and burritos. For the last choice, the King Burro is the way to go with any meat filling. The tortilla is wrapped around a mixture of protein, rice, and sour cream before being dipped in consomme and finished on a griddle.The resulting burrito is crisp on the outside, moist on the inside, and infused with flavor from the broth. Beyond birria, the straightforward carne asada is a good candidate to go inside the tortilla, and the pollo asado is another strong and consistent choice.
Other meat filings include barbacoa, which is described as seasoned with chipotle but comes across as a more lightly spiced version of birria, and al pastor, always a popular choice for tacos. AZ Taco’s King’s approach to the last of those options is the least traditional and potentially the most polarizing since the pork is coated in a reddish sauce rather than marinated. Of course with a name that involves a proclamation of being a “taco king,” plain tacos are available, most readily in the #1 lunch combination of three street tacos, rice, and beans.
Taco bowls usually seem like an afterthought for customers who wish to avoid tortillas, but the version served at AZ Taco King stands on its own. A bed of shredded cabbage is topped with rice and refried beans. A chosen meat comes next with a top layer of salsa verde and crema. Tortas here involve meat, cheese, beans, and avocado within a bun, but the relatively soft bread doesn’t do much to contain the fillings, resulting in a sandwich that eats like a sloppy Joe. While fries are available as a side, they’re more prominently featured with toppings in the King Fries.
If any room remains after so much birria, AZ Taco King’s approach to dessert is found in some miniature cakes in a refrigerated case at the front of the restaurant. Flavors vary in their availability but might include strawberry tres leches, chocolate flan, carrot, or pineapple coconut. Equally sweet choices in liquid form include a rotating selection of aquas frescas, made in house with plenty of pulpy fruit to certify the drink’s abundance of genuine flavor. Choices on any given day might include strawberry or blueberry lemonade, melon, mango, or horchata.
As with its birria, this restaurant is always willing to take things to the next level with its drinks. Lechera, sweetened condensed milk, can be added, or a drink can be accentuated with chamoy syrup, a rim of Tajin, and a tamarind straw. There is no liquor license, so a beer or margarita is not an option. The birria trend seems just about everywhere by now, and some executions are better than others. AZ Taco King, despite its taco-centric name, seems to have embraced the birria concept with equal attention to fundamentals and tradition balanced with trendy excess.
2030 W. Camelback Rd., Phoenix AZ 85015
https://www.aztacoking.com
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