GoneTrending

Who doesn’t love birria? The popularity of the brothy Mexican stewed beef has reached new heights recently, thanks to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where videos of tacos, quesadillas and all sorts of other foods doused and dripping with mouthwatering birria consommé have seemingly become everyone’s favorite genre of food porn. Just look at this stuff:

If that doesn’t make you hungry, we probably can’t hang out.

In fact, birria love has gone so mainstream that it’s even become fast food. From now until June 1st, El Pollo Loco will be offering birria tacos, burritos, and quesadillas, complete with a cup of birria broth for dipping, at its locations nationwide.

What is birria?

If you don’t spend time a lot of time on foodTok or in Mexico or in the Southwestern part of United States, you may need a course in Birria 101. Let us break it down for you. The dish, most commonly associated with Jalisco, Mexico, is a braise seasoned with garlic, dried chiles, cumin, bay leaves, adobo, onion, and traditionally, goat meat. The resulting stewed meat and broth is red and earthy in color, with a flavor layered with smokey and spicy top notes hinted at in the tender meat and concentrated in the lucious broth — ideally combining in one perfect bite to make sweet comfort food love.

The version popular on TikTok is actually what is called quesabirria, and typically involves dipping a tortilla in birria consommé, frying it, and serving it loaded with melted cheese and birria-style beef, or birria de res. Trust me, it tastes as amazing as it looks. Goat-based birria is known as birria de chivo. Not surprisingly, El Pollo loco’s birria consists of the far more American-palate friendly birria de res, or beef-based birria (side note: Zacatecas is home to some of the finest birria de res).

As fans of birria, we’re psyched to get our hands on this stuff, but also… skeptical. A food word or genre hitting the mainstream is often the first step towards eventually being watered down or rendered meaningless. Good birria takes time and patience, and this is fast food we’re talking about. Are we really to believe El Pollo Loco is slow-braising beef in a chicken kitchen? Suffice it to say we have our doubts. Though we want to believe.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of El Pollo Loco’s Birria Menu

Remember that healthy skepticism? Turns out that wasn’t misplaced. This stuff, I’m sorry to say, is an embarrassment to good birria everywhere. But let’s start with the good. El Pollo Loco’s birria de res is tasty. It’s tender, juicy, and flavorful, just like the chain’s flame-grilled chicken.

It has an earthy flavor full of delicious spices like oregano, smokey paprika, and garlic. I like it a lot and it works well enough in the three forms presented here: as burrito, taco, and quesadilla fillings. If birria was just a taco or burrito filling, that might be enough. Real birria is more than that, even if you’d never know it from this watered down version.

The El Pollo Loco crunchy birria taco comes with two tacos per order and features shredded meat, onions, cilantro, and cheese, served alongside a cup of broth for dipping. Notably, the tortilla is not dipped in birria or fried on a stove-top like actual quesabirria, which seems to reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of how social media’s birria obsession began in the first place.

Those images — of juicy, red-stained tortillas with gooey strands of cheese connecting mouth to taco — are what had us all hooked. El Pollo Loco’s birria tacos, on the other hand, are just sad to look at. They’re not fried in the juice, the tacos are dry, and you’re meant to dip between bites. The birria broth itself is glossy and shimmery, not really adhering to the tacos you dip in it, and it both looks and tastes as if you’re dipping your tacos into seasoned oil, not a rich and spicy stew packed with flavor.

But perhaps the most frustrating thing about this taco is that, judged in a vacuum, it’s actually not bad. It’s pretty damn tasty, all things considered, and would definitely be in the running for one of the best fast food crunchy tacos around. It’s just that calling it “birria” creates an expectation it doesn’t come close to fulfilling. It only makes that gap between expectation and reality stand out even more starkly.

And of its three iterations, the taco is by far the strongest.

The birria burrito consists of birria de res, onions, cilantro, Spanish rice, cheese, and cabbage. The burrito on its own is already pretty damn delicious, combining earthy oregano flavors with paprika, garlic and onions, all intensified when doused in the birria juice. But there’s a structural problem here: it’s not very easy to dip a burrito without your food falling out after you’ve already bitten into it. And because this glossy broth doesn’t adhere to the outside well anyway, you’re better off just pouring the juice into the top. This is, as you might imagine, kind of a mess, and not really worth it for what you get in flavor.

This brings us to the worst menu item of the three: the birria quesadilla.

Now before I talk my trash let me just say: I love this quesadilla. Layers of tender juicy meat, melted cheese, cilantro, onion, and fresh avocado are all sandwiched together inside of a warm grilled tortilla. Every bite is bursting with rich savory flavors, and that avocado slice adds a real freshness to the whole thing.

Yet because of its shape, it’s totally un-dippable. And dipping is kind of the whole point here, isn’t it?

In order to make this work, you either have to cut pieces from your quesadilla with a knife and fork like you’re some kind of maniac, or pour the birria into a small, inch-wide slit between bites — which is guaranteed to cover your hand in oily birria juice by the end of your meal.

The Bottom Line:

El Pollo Loco had a really great idea here they just couldn’t stick the landing. Any of the three dishes are absolutely worth trying if you already love El Pollo Loco. They each taste great in their own right — they’re spicy, flavorful, and smoky. But if you’re here because you’re craving something resembling birria, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. El Pollo Loco claims they’re the first fast-casual restaurant to add birria to the menu, so maybe it falls to the research and development team at some other chain to work the kinks out before the next one.

Find you nearest El Pollo Loco here.

Since going off the grid following the success of Melodrama, Lorde has preferred to use email newsletters to communicate with fans. Technically, it’s how she announced her latest album, last year’s Solar Power, and she often sends out missives on days when she has news or updates on her music and tour. Today, she launched the video for “Secrets From A Girl (Who’s Seen It All),” and sent out a newsletter to promote that, as well as share what she’s been up to so far this year.

One thing she’s been up to? Fan girl-ing over Rosalía, as so many of us have been. Motomami is, no question, one of the most inventive and exciting albums of the year, and as Cardi B herself said, you don’t really even have to know Spanish to understand the intention behind this music.

For Lorde’s part, she thinks the project is a good reminder of why pop music itself exists. “I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out,” she wrote in the newsletter. “F*ck, it’s so good, I gagged when I heard that interpolation of “Archangel,” “Hentai” is genius, “Sakura”… projects like this remind me why I live for pop music — at its best, there’s nothing better.”

Couldn’t agree more! If you haven’t done so, feel free to sign up for Lorde’s newsletter right here.

Back in 2020, Justin Bieber was accused of sexual assault by two women for a pair of incidents that occurred nearly ten years ago. The women made their accusations on Twitter, and as a result, Bieber denied the claims, calling them “outlandish false fabrications,” and sued the pair for defamation. Well, that lawsuit has come to an end as Bieber requested for it to be dismissed. The dismissal was filed by his lawyers on March 18 according to court records that Rolling Stone obtained. A reason for the dismissal was not given, but it comes after it appeared like the case would be heading to trial as lawyers for Bieber and one of the accusers failed to reach a settlement.

Bieber was hit with both accusations of sexual assault in June 2020. They were originally made anonymously before the women’s names were revealed to be Khadidja Djibrine and a woman identified only as Danielle. Dijibrine was the lone woman in settlement talks with Bieber as Danielle was never officially located. In their accusations, Danielle accused Bieber of sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Austin in March 2014 following his performance at the SXSW Festival. In response, Bieber’s lawyer said that the singer did not stay at a hotel, but rather, he spent the night at a rental property with Selena Gomez, who was his girlfriend at the time. Bieber went as far as to share the receipt for the stay on Twitter.

Dijibrine shared her sexual accusation against Bieber the same day that Danielle did. In her case, she says that the incident occurred at a hotel in New York City in March 2015. Once again, Bieber’s lawyers noted that he did not stay at that specific hotel and they backed up their alibi with photos of Bieber at the Met Gala and at an after-party during the time of the alleged assault.

Rolling Stone notes that attorneys for Bieber and Dijibrine did not return their requests for comments.

Back in 2020, Justin Bieber was accused of sexual assault by two women for a pair of incidents that occurred nearly ten years ago. The women made their accusations on Twitter, and as a result, Bieber denied the claims, calling them “outlandish false fabrications,” and sued the pair for defamation. Well, that lawsuit has come to an end as Bieber requested for it to be dismissed. The dismissal was filed by his lawyers on March 18 according to court records that Rolling Stone obtained. A reason for the dismissal was not given, but it comes after it appeared like the case would be heading to trial as lawyers for Bieber and one of the accusers failed to reach a settlement.

Bieber was hit with both accusations of sexual assault in June 2020. They were originally made anonymously before the women’s names were revealed to be Khadidja Djibrine and a woman identified only as Danielle. Dijibrine was the lone woman in settlement talks with Bieber as Danielle was never officially located. In their accusations, Danielle accused Bieber of sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Austin in March 2014 following his performance at the SXSW Festival. In response, Bieber’s lawyer said that the singer did not stay at a hotel, but rather, he spent the night at a rental property with Selena Gomez, who was his girlfriend at the time. Bieber went as far as to share the receipt for the stay on Twitter.

Dijibrine shared her sexual accusation against Bieber the same day that Danielle did. In her case, she says that the incident occurred at a hotel in New York City in March 2015. Once again, Bieber’s lawyers noted that he did not stay at that specific hotel and they backed up their alibi with photos of Bieber at the Met Gala and at an after-party during the time of the alleged assault.

Rolling Stone notes that attorneys for Bieber and Dijibrine did not return their requests for comments.

A decade-and-a-half ago, John C. Reilly helped kill the musical biopic dead. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story mercilessly mocked movies like Walk the Line and Ray, skewering their tropes so devastatingly that no one dared make them for years and years. But they were bound to one day rise from the dead. And so they have. The last few years have seen movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, about Queen and Elton John, make a ton of money, all while reviving the clichés that once made the genre ripe for satire. So why hasn’t anyone done one yet about Dolly Parton? That’s what Dolly Parton wants to know.

According to CNN, the country music goddess, too occasional movie star, and theme park owner last month appeared on the radio show Mr. Nashville Speaks, where she discussed her first novel, Run, Rose, Run. She also revealed that she’s in talks to do a big screen Dolly movie.

“I do intend someday to be on Broadway, but I’m thinking now that I might do my life story as a feature,” Parton told host Larry Ferguson. “Maybe possibly even a musical feature, so we’re in talks about that.”

Parton said that a Broadway Dolly musical almost happened, but the pandemic delayed that so long that she changed her mind. Now she’s pursuing a Dolly movie.

But who on earth could ever hope to summon even a scintilla of the charisma of one of the great entertainers? Parton had some ideas.

“I love Kristin Chenoweth,” Parton said. “She’s just absolutely fantastic.” But perhaps Chenoweth, if she’s comfortable inhabiting the shoes of the woman who wrote both “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same frickin’ day, would only be one of multiple Dollys. “We’d probably have to have-as long as my career has been-like a little Dolly and a middle Dolly and then the older one.”

So there you have it, Hollywood. Go forth and make a Dolly Parton movie. In the meantime, go watch the too few movies she’s made over the years. Yes, even the one with Stallone.

You can watch Parton’s Mr. Nashville Speaks interview in the video below.

(Via CNN)

When Ted Cruz was busted throwing a hissy fit at an airport this weekend, it appears he had a very important destination: He had to rush back to D.C. to make a bigger show of himself than he usually does. This week finds Congress lording over the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, who may wind up replacing the departing Justice Stephen Breyer. The GOP made a whole show of swearing it wouldn’t turn into a circus. That promise didn’t last long.

At least Republicans spaced out their tomfoolery. Josh Hawley’s nonsensical attack on her was scheduled for Monday. Ted Cruz, meanwhile, was saved for Tuesday. He did not disappoint. Among the issues he grilled her on was Critical Race Theory, the academic discipline Republicans openly admit they don’t understand, despite making it one of their favorite culture war go-tos.

Cruz was dead-set on catching Jackson allowing books espousing CRT in Georgetown Day, a private school her kids attend and where she’s on the board of directors. Cruz then started pulling out books that are allegedly “either assigned or recommended” to young kids. One of them was called Antiracist Baby, a children’s book by How to Be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi.

“There are portions of this book that I find really quite remarkable. One portion of the book says babies are taught to be racist or anti-racist,” Cruz steamed while giant blow-ups of the book were placed behind him. Enraged that a children’s book may point out that racism can be taught by racist guardians, Cruz then asked a possible future Supreme Court justice with a prolific judicial record, “Do you agree with this book that is being taught with kids that babies are racist?”

Jackson took a long pause — and a bottomlessly weary sigh — before responding. “I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or though they are not valued or though they are less-than. That they are victims. That they are oppressors,” she told Cruz. “I don’t believe in any of that.” She also reminded him that critical race theory is “an academic theory is taught in law schools,” which is true.

Cruz was, of course, not satisfied. He went on to cite out-of-context passages from another Kendi tome, a kids edition of his 2016 book Stamped From the Beginning. Eventually Jackson had to point out that none of these books “come up in my work as a judge, which I’m, respectfully, here to address.”

If Jackson can calmly respond to Ted Cruz, then maybe she deserves any gig, not the least a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Bad Vegan‘s a limited series with only four parts, but it’s apparently already doing huge numbers for Netflix. The show began streaming less than a week ago, and in five days, the latest scammer story — and perhaps the most what-the-hell-is-happening option in recent months — is telling the tale, alright. The show details how celebrity restauranteur Sarma Melngailis fell from grace and ended up (about five years ago) as a fugitive of the law (and then served time on Rikers Island). And people are gobbling it up, according to Netflix’s Top 10 Global chart.

That chart aims for transparency (after years of Netflix not being entirely clear about what “views” meant), and as of now, the show has reportedly accrued 26.96 million hours of streaming time over five days. That’s enough to bump it into the #5 spot on the global TV chart, and that could very well continue, considering how much conversation the show has generated already.

This controversy has (obviously) landed largely upon the show’s subject, Sarma, who declared that she felt “sick” over how Netflix was marketing the series, by “mocking” how she had fallen for the dog-immortality claim made by Anthony Strangis (who she initially knew as “Shane Fox”). Sarma claims that Strangis lured her into coercive control while progressively coaxing her to withdraw sums (from her restaurants) and take out loans from investors. She subsequently insisted that all her Netflix dollars went towards paying employees back.

Sarma has also expressed concern that the ending of the series “is disturbingly misleading” because it (arguably) creates the appearance that she’s still in contact with Strangis. Series director Chris Smith and executive producer Ryann Frase have defended their decision to end the show that way, claiming that the ending makes their subject appear “to be confident and strong.”

Bad Vegan is currently streaming on Netflix.

This Friday, two years after the release of her debut album, Latto will release its follow-up, 777, which she’s spent the last few months hyping with singles like “Big Energy,” “Soufside,” and “Wheelie” featuring 21 Savage. With just a few days to go, the Atlanta rising star shared the tracklist for 777, which defies industry conventions by clocking in at a relatively trim 13 tracks. Features on the album include Childish Gambino(!), Kodak Black, Lil Durk, Lil Wayne, Nardo Wick, and a mystery feature on the remix of “Big Energy,” Latto’s most commercially successful single to date.

Now that the tracklist is out, though, fans can’t help but speculate which of Latto’s male guests was the one she called out during a recent interview for withholding clearance over a direct message. “It’s a feature on my album… it was difficult to clear,” she told LA radio personality Big Boy. “They tryna drop they nuts on me because I won’t respond to a DM.”

Due to his previous misogynistic behavior and comments, many fans are sure it was Kodak Black who stalled the process, with responses ranging from outrage on her behalf to shading her for featuring him after those comments were made in the first place. For his part, though, Kodak denied the accusations from fans on his own Twitter, leaving just a handful of names to choose from… and perhaps that mystery guest.

In any case, 777 is due 3/25 on RCA.

Xbox is no stranger to crossover promotions. This is one of the few consoles where someone could theoretically own a Spongebob, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and Garfield-themed box that plays current generation games. So when Xbox announced that it was doing a promotion with the upcoming movie, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it didn’t come as a surprise.

What was surprising was the exact giveaway that Xbox is presenting this time. Previous sweepstakes involved a themed console, but this one is going to be focused on the controller. Players can get a Sonic or Knuckles themed controller for their Xbox, which on its face sounds like a completely normal thing. Until you look closer and realize the controllers are fuzzy.

A logical assumption would have been that this is just the artist having some fun with the design and the controllers themselves will be the same smooth design that every controller has, but no they are just as fuzzy as they look. A blog post on Xbox Wire explained a little more about what makes these custom controllers so special.

The customized black Xbox Series S console features a golden portal ring shining on its surface alongside an embossed Sonic the Hedgehog 2 logo. With textured coatings reminiscent of the “bristly” texture of hedgehogs in the wild, the new Xbox Wireless Controllers come in Sonic Blue and Knuckles Red.

Well, they are certainly unique but we’re not sure these are going to be the most practical controllers ever made. If you enter and win these maybe plan on leaving them as a display on the shelf.

The origin story of sleeping together = LOVE.

Troxel shares in an essay for the TED blog that until the sexual revolution, the term “sleeping together” had a much more literal meaning. And that shift in cultural attitudes still influences us to equate separate beds with a lack of passion.

But considering we spend more time sleeping than making love, perhaps it’s time to shift priorities and release ourselves from this society-prescribed torture. In my experience, love doesn’t thrive in obligation.

The science suggests that our relationships might be better after sleeping separately.

Troxel’s research indicates that being well rested helps improve communication and makes us happier, more empathetic, even more attractive and funnier—all skills that help contribute to a strong and lasting relationship.

Inversely, we all know how monstrous we can become after a sleepless night. I remember during one particularly rough morning I refused to kiss my boyfriend goodbye because I resented him and his snoring. It wasn’t my best moment.

Plus, finding a good sleep solution can be a majorly helpful exercise in problem-solving together, which is yet another cornerstone of relationship success.

Lots of couples (more than you may realize) are sleeping separately anyway.

According to a 2021 poll, around one-third of couples prefer solo sleep. This might have been a privilege previously only known to the wealthy few (not everyone could bed like kings and queens, after all) but it’s easier now more than ever to afford and fit in a second sleeping space.

I mean, my boyfriend and I live in L.A.—meaning a tiny apartment with a less-than-generous floor plan. But we purchased a cushy daybed for our living room, placed some plants around it and now call it the “Zen corner” when guests visit. So far, so good.

Plus, there are so many other ways to invite closeness other than sleeping together.

Working out, morning coffee cuddles, tucking each other in … the list goes on. And who knows? Maybe those new rituals will feel even better than sleeping together. Especially if you’re both in better moods.

And it’s not like there has to be 100% commitment to either strategy. My boyfriend and I still share the bed every once in a while. And now it feels extra special, rather than an obligation.

Of course, the caveat to this is why you’re choosing to sleep in different spots in the first place. But if the intention is to take care of the relationship—rather than avoid it—then taking care of yourself, as we are learning more and more, is one of the first steps.

Bottom line: Rest is a necessity, not a luxury.

A healthy relationship is composed of two healthy people. And sleep absolutely affects our health. If it means doing so separately, who cares? What’s most important is that both partners are fulfilled, nourished and energized by more than caffeine.

Sleeping habits, like life, can be more of a choose-your-own-adventure, rather than a set of rules. Choose what feels best, and you often can’t go wrong.