A halal kitchen on Newport Ave

El Bandido Express opened in 2017 with a simple idea: Mexican food this good shouldn't be off-limits to anyone who eats halal. So we built the whole kitchen around it. Every cut of meat we bring in is Zabiha halal: asada, chicken, birria, pastor, chorizo, carnitas, cabeza, suadero, cecina. There's no second menu and nothing to ask about.

The tortillas are pressed by hand. The birria is prepared in-house every morning until it pulls apart, and the consomé that comes with it is the same pot it cooked in. That's the part people come back for, and it's why there's usually a line at lunch.

We're a small operation in a suite on 13812 Newport Ave, feeding Tustin, Santa Ana, Irvine and Orange. Some days that's a construction crew ordering thirty tacos, some days it's a family after Friday prayer, some days it's a wedding we're catering across town. All of it gets cooked the same way.