Where Can I Find Quesabirria Tacos in Marin County, a Quesabirria Desert?

Welcome to Ask Eater, a column from Eater SF where the site’s editors answer difficult dining questions from readers and friends. Have a question for us? Submit it via this form.

Dear Eater SF,

Are there any taco trucks or taco joints where I can find quesabirria in Marin County?

Sincerely,

Taco FOMO

Dear TF,

This is a tough one. There are many lovely reasons to make your home in Marin County, I imagine, but easy access to the latest Bay Area trends in Mexican street food ranks pretty low on the list. It wouldn’t quite be fair to call Marin a taco desert, as that’s disrespectful to the handful of family-run Mexican restaurants that have been holding it down for years — including several spots where you can still snag a solid old-school combo plate.

But a quesabirria desert? Sure. At a certain point, there’s no getting around that the county is one of the least diverse areas in the Bay — a fact that can’t help but be reflected in the range of available cuisines.

What’s a taco lover to do, then, after you’ve read article upon article about the cheesy, consommé-drenched beef birria tacos that have swept across the Bay Area — when you’ve worked up a wicked craving with no local outlet for release?

Luke Tsai

In short: Head over the Richmond Bridge. Given that Richmond is at the very center of Northern California’s burgeoning quesabirria scene, this is by far your best and easiest option — maybe a 20-minute drive depending on traffic conditions and where exactly you live in Marin County. If you time it right — say, on a weekend afternoon — you can even map out a little quesabirria crawl: El Garage, Estilo Chilanga, and La Santa Torta (at East Brother Beer Company) would be my picks — all located just a few minutes’ drive off the freeway.

I don’t mean to dodge the question, though. In Marin County proper, the taco options, generally, are a lot less robust, and after an hour’s worth of determined Googling, I was ready to declare this quesabirria quest a lost cause. But then I found one restaurant, in downtown San Rafael, that appeared to have served birria, in some form, at one point in time. A quick call over to Taqueria Bahia, at 1013 B Street, and a staffer confirmed that the restaurant serves birria on the weekends — sometimes beef, and sometimes goat or lamb. And they’ll serve that birria in whatever form you’d like: as a soup, on regular tacos, and, yes, in quesabirria form. Pay dirt!

UPDATE, Thursday, October 15, 4:36 p.m.: Thanks to our brilliant readers, Eater SF has gotten wind of at least two more quesabirria hotspots in Marin County. El Burrito, also in San Rafael, confirmed by phone that it now has quesabirria on the menu every day. Meanwhile, Parranga Taqueria & Cervezeria, tucked inside the Strawberry Village Shopping Center in Mill Valley, has been offering a version as a special — though the proprietors tell us it should be available all the time.

Are there other Marin County quesabirria outposts that I missed? Please let us know in the comments, or by emailing sf@eater.com.