Two of L.A.'s most exciting pop-ups unite Mexican and Indian flavors at this under-the-radar taqueria
Juan Garcia, creator of the Goat Mafia pop-up, found his calling as a birriero over a dozen years ago.
He grew up in Compton, and his family has origins in Jalisco, Mexico, the birthplace of birria, where making the deeply spiced, long-simmered dish with goat is the rule. He has been able to trace the household birria recipe back to his great-great-grandfather, who shared his secrets so his daughter’s new husband could earn extra money making it on weekends. Garcia’s father had inherited the knowledge but didn’t pass it along to the next generation before he died.
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With the help of his mother, Garcia began re-creating the steps: steaming the meat first by placing the cuts over a grate in a pot, using chiles for adobo that ripened deeply before being dried (and in some cases smoked), balancing the nuances of ginger, chocolate, cinnamon, garlic, black pepper and juice from the oranges of one of his uncle’s trees. The first effort was terrible. By the third attempt he had something that matched their memories.
Garcia began making birria for parties and family gatherings, and he knew by the joyful reactions that he was on to something. He had worked previously as a telemarketer and a plumber, and had an early, souring experience in the kitchen of a national pizza chain, but making birria propelled him to culinary school, where he met Ivan Flores, who became his business partner. Over the last decade, the two of them have sustained Goat Mafia by making headway into the food events circuit, catering, running a short-lived lonchera, hosting driveway pop-ups in the pandemic’s worst depths and landing a regular slot at Smorgasburg DTLA.
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Even in this glowing era of quesa birria — when cheese-laced tacos are stained crimson from the broth of birria simmered with beef, a variation popularized in Tijuana — Garcia holds fast to his Jalisco heritage. In a town rife with birria, Goat Mafia’s hard-won masterwork stands out as extraordinary. In the modulating textures and tight harmonies in the spicing, the senses might pick up something different in every bite, though it’s all uniformly satisfying.
And it’s more available than ever to Angelenos, thanks to an unexpected turn in Goat Mafia’s trajectory.
Late last year, Garcia was approached by Rhea Patel Michel and Marcel Michel. The couple also are Smorgasburg regulars with their pop-up called Saucy Chick Rotisserie, which features roast chicken and sides that express flavors honoring Marcel’s Mexican roots and Rhea’s Gujarati lineage.
Would Garcia be willing to join forces, combining their specialties and menus at a space on West 3rd Street recently vacated by a local chain taqueria?
A restaurant with the egalitarian if lengthy name of Saucy Chick Rotisserie/the Goat Mafia came to life. For an example of how their collaborative union at its most successful, start with an intuitive L.A. choice: a mix-and-match plate of tacos.
The first choice among fillings should be, of course, Garcia’s profound goat birria, its chopped mix of ropy-slick textures glinting with spice and bonded to a corn tortilla via melted Monterey Jack.
Then look to Saucy Chick’s jeera chicken, the bird infused with a marinade that includes ginger, garlic and pureed caramelized onions. Lime-pickled onion slivers, subtly crisp and the color of fruit punch, shroud the meat along with crema, a garlicky green sauce, torn mint leaves and a sprinkling of sev (squiggly chickpea noodles). I prefer this one on a speckled flour tortilla, and I tend to round out the taco trio with a vegetarian option built around roasted, turmeric-stained cauliflower dusted with chile flakes and ground pistachios.
Add a comforting side of frijoles puercos — pintos blasted with chorizo, cheese and olives and whipped to the consistency of porridge — to complete a spread that covers the fundamental flavors put forth by the restaurant’s partners.
The common aromatics, herbs and spices, particularly cumin, shared between Mexican and Indian cooking traditions make the contributions of the respective culinary teams compatible as a whole without blurring their distinctions, even when their creations are folded into tortillas and share a plate. No one is dusting off the word “fusion” here. It’s simply a happy marriage.
Their space sits in the center of one of those Beverly Grove blocks of unending storefronts, where a wine bar, barber shop, nail salon, smoothie stop, pajama specialist and other restaurants and retailers stand separated only by bearing walls and custom awnings. A small patio painted in welcoming aquamarine and canary-yellow helps Saucy Chick/Goat Mafia grab attention streetside.
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Marcel is often the one taking orders at the counter. He and Rhea were furloughed from their corporate Disney jobs in 2020. Like so many pandemic-era newcomers to the food industry, Rhea and Marcel initially operated out of a ghost kitchen in North Hollywood.
Now at a table in their first restaurant, I favor a straightforward approach to diving into their cuisine: ordering a quarter or half bird plate with sides of coconut-flecked cucumber salad; the amazing frijoles, a recipe from Marcel’s mother; a variation on esquites sharpened with fenugreek, which cuts the corn’s sweetness; and splashes of the garlicky green sauce and thick tamarind chutney with a nice tartness. There are two chicken options: the jeera (the word means “cumin” in Hindi) and one inspired by Marcel’s love of Yucatecan cochinita pibil, ruddy with achiote, orange, garlic and oregano. I'm pulled by the complex warmth of the jeera variation but would happily split both with others.
There are requisite rice bowl variations, and a mashup of chaat and nachos that appeals as a starter. Burritos filled with either birria or chicken come filled with rice, Mission-style, of which I have eaten more than my professional share. These days I’m a devotee of the snug, compact burrito, in the manner of Al & Bea’s or Sonoratown. I’ll stick with Saucy Chick tacos.
If it’s your first time trying Garcia’s birria, I might also nudge you toward a basic birria plate so you can concentrate on the pure experience. In the last year, he became involved in raising goats, feeding them spent grains from friends in the beer-making community, including Brewjería Company (which the restaurant serves). Part of his family’s time-honored birria method involved laying cuts of pork atop the stew to absorb the goat’s gaminess, but Garcia finds the goats he’s raising have such a mild flavor he’s eliminated the step.
That said, the cheese in the taco and the even-richer mulita seem to amplify the birria’s smokier, brighter tones, so by all means indulge.
As they settle into cohabitation, both Goat Mafia and Saucy Chick also continue their regular weekend appearances at Smorgasburg. While Flores watches the birria, Garcia often grills cabrito over mesquite, tumbling the cleaved, crackly meat into tortillas. The Michels serve a handsomely proportioned torta de pollo that isn’t listed on the Beverly Grove menu.
It makes sense that each duo would continue to assert its autonomy. Still, I'm sending a friend to Saucy Chick's stall for chaat nachos while I grab the birria mulitas. The merge clicks in any setting.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
