What: Birria tamale with egg
Where: Outside the Masa, 43905 Clinton St., No. 5, Indio
How much: $9 with egg, as shown
Contact: 760-578-6247; outsidethemasa.com
Why: The birria.
Three years ago, the Independent interviewed Outside the Masa co-founder Juan Carlos. Outside the Masa debuted at the Indio International Tamale Festival in 2017, and later began regularly winning trophies at the event.
“We started from a pop-up and then a food truck, and now we’re looking into getting a brick-and-mortar,” Carlos said at the time.
In September, that brick-and-mortar location finally opened its doors—and to nobody’s surprise, Outside the Masa took home another first-place award at the Tamale Fest in December. I loooove tamales, yet I’d not yet tried Outside the Masa’s food, so the hubby and I headed to the restaurant for a recent Saturday lunch.
Birria is the undisputed star at Outside the Masa. Other than two cheese-forward kids’ entrées, the regular menu offers tamales, chilaquiles, tacos, quesadillas, fries and nachos, all with birria. That’s it. The hubby ordered the chilaquiles with green sauce ($15), while I—of course—ordered the tamal, with an egg ($9). We also ordered the nachos ($14) to share.
I quickly learned there’s a reason the birria is the star at Outside the Masa: It’s fantastic. 10/10, no notes. Our only complaint was that with each of the three dishes we ordered, the birria was added on top of the rest of the food, not mixed in. This was not a problem with the chilaquiles or the tamal, but it made it difficult to get a proper, all-inclusive bite of the nachos.
The hubby enjoyed his chilaquiles, while the tamal was heavenly. It’s an “open-style” tamal, topped with the birria, a touch of consommé, onion, cilantro and the optional egg. This was a filling lunch for just $9—and where else can you get a filling lunch for single digits these days?
To repeat: 10/10, no notes.