CH y LA Birria

🇲🇽 JALISCO, MÉXICO / Modern birria de res and traditional Guadalajara culture collide at this almost two-year-old Compton restaurant.

🇲🇽 MÉXICO (Jalisco)
📍 909 S. Central Avenue,
Compton, South Los Angeles
🅿️ Ample parking in plaza
🥤 Micheladas on weekends

📸 All photos by Jared Cohee
for Eat the World Los Angeles

If you are the type of person that spends way too much time zooming in and out of online maps, you may come across this Compton restaurant and immediately start to wonder about the name. The longhorn cow on the menu with “CH” first might lead you to believe this is some type of elusive beef birria of Chihuahua, but a focus on quesabirria and the existence of carne en su jugo cancels that idea pretty quickly once you open the menu.

That last dish is the actual key to figuring out the place, whose owner is from Guadalajara and has “CH” at the beginning of her family’s name. She also does most of the cooking and is very friendly if you start asking questions. She seems genuinely thrilled to be able to cook her foods for Compton and greater Los Angeles.

With the popularity of birria over the past decade in Southern California, naturally an entire market of sub-par versions of the dish have popped up everywhere. It is refreshing to see a new place take the dish as seriously as it should be, offering the trendy quesabirria tacos but also serving the dish as a plato with rice and beans or as a filling caldo.

Tapatío purists might wonder why the shift from traditional goat birria in Guadalajara to beef here in Los Angeles, but this is probably a decision to make the restaurant more accessible to potential clientele. As the carne en su jugo proves, the chef knows what she is doing, and the birria with beef is worth trying even for the skeptic.

As mentioned, the plato de birria ($16.54, above) is served with rice and beans, and comes on traditional ceramic plates that the chef has brought back to Los Angeles from home. While these are popular all around México these days, they will transport you straight back to Guadalajara, Tlaquepaque, and Tonalá if you have spent time there in the past.

This plate comes with a stack of warm tortillas, so grab one and fold in some of the steaming birria, add a squeeze of lime, and drizzle on some of their delicious salsa if you please. It is a deeply comforting meal, and probably one that will leave you with leftovers to enjoy later.

That aforementioned carne en su jugo ($16, above) has “amazing must try” next to it on the menu, a statement that is hard to argue with. The dish is served with two simple quesadillas and some potent salsa macha which can be added or dipped. All of it comes in another beautiful plate hand-made in Jalisco.

This unique dish of roasted and chopped up beef is in a stew that has beans and bacon, and is covered with onions and cilantro. Besides these ingredients, it has the flavors of garlic and a touch of roasted serrano.

In something of an appeasement to the Los Angeles birria craze, CH y LA Birria also offers fun items like birria pizza and birria grilled cheese sandwiches. The latter was hard to resist on multiple visits to the Compton restaurant, and will eventually be enjoyed. Stay tuned! In the meantime...