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If you’ve recently driven east along Parramatta Road, just past Ashfield Bunnings and before the Marco Polo Motor Inn, you may have noticed plumes of smoke coming from the car park at Metro Petroleum. You may have clocked a queue leading to a mobile food trailer, and festoon lighting above white-plastic garden chairs. If you had your window down two weeks ago, you may have also copped a whiff of carne asada, the ancient aroma of steak grilled over searing heat – a cow sacrificed to the gods of all that is delicious.

It was certainly enough to make me pull over and see what the heck was going on at the Haberfield service station. “Oh, this is Papi’s!” I thought. “There’s been a lot of hoo-haa about these tacos on Instagram.” I found a park and got in line.

Twenty-four-year-old Lawrence Diaz opened Papi’s in August. It specialises in birria, which can mean many things in Mexico, including a type of goat stew, but its most common form globally is slow-cooked, spice-throbbing beef folded into tacos. A cup of consomé made from the meat’s cooking juices and marinade is served on the side for sipping and taco-dunking.

Like “girl dinner” and beer-tanning (don’t bother Googling it), birria became wildly popular on TikTok a few years ago. Your guess is as good as mine as to why, but the theatrical, messy process of eating the tacos probably has something to do with it. Diaz is a bit late to the viral party, but his dedication to the craft means Papi’s is cuts above Sydney’s birria imposters who capitalised on the trend with cheat-code recipes during COVID times.

Birria consomé (one “m”) has as much in common with France’s clear, clarified consommé as Master of Puppets does with Tubular Bells. Diaz uses about 30 ingredients for Papi’s consomé, including dried ancho and guajillo chillies, white pepper, caraway, tomato and onion. A blend of ossobuco, rib and chuck is cooked in the shimmering broth for 16 hours; plus-sized tortillas kiss the copper-red liquid before hitting the grill, where they blister and crisp and become ladles for the tender meat. There is mozzarella, cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese; there is diced onion and coriander.

Each taco is almost a meal unto itself, and you’ll want a liberal squeeze of lime to puncture the richness. The primal consomé, with its secret shreds of flesh, can also be jerry-rigged with instant ramen (very much a dish made to be eaten at the source). Sitting at one of the folding tables at sunset, you might feel like you’re at a car park in downtown Los Angeles, or Austin, Texas. An Esky is on hand for help-yourself Mexican soft drinks.

Other highlights include a hunky birria cheese-melt on brioche, chicken quesadillas of requisite crunch, and a soft, resilient burrito that’s one of the thickest I’ve ever seen that’s not in Guy Fieri’s hands. That carne asada taco featured juicy scotch fillet marinated in ancho chilli, salt and pepper. It was a weekend special, but Diaz expects it will return after he tries his hand at al pastor (pork) and tacos de tripas (calf intestines).

Papi’s is open until 11pm on Saturdays, and this late at night, on the way home from the pub, I’ve found the consomé to be at its thickest and most hypnotic. (There’s also a lot to be said for ordering the nachos to go, and eating them on the couch with a midnight screening of Drive to Survive.) In February, Diaz launched a taco truck in Carlton to service Sydney’s south, and he’s considering licensed, brick-and-mortar sites in Five Dock and Marrickville. I’m all for utilising unloved servo car parks, but margaritas and birria sounds ace, too.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine