Tacos come in more varieties than most people realize. Every region of Mexico developed its own style, its own cuts of meat, and its own way of building that perfect bite. Some tacos take hours of slow braising to prepare. Others need nothing more than a hot grill and a good marinade.
This guide covers every major type of taco you should know. You will learn what makes each one different, how cooks prepare it, and what toppings bring it together. By the end, you will walk into any taco restaurant with total confidence.
If you are in Tampa, Florida, skip the search entirely. Head straight to Suy’s Mexican Restaurant on MLK Blvd. We make every taco fresh, every single day.
An authentic taco starts with the tortilla. Traditional Mexican cooks press small corn tortillas by hand and cook them on a hot comal. Some northern Mexican regions prefer flour tortillas, and both are correct depending on the style.
The filling is where the real craft lives. Authentic tacos use seasoned, slow-cooked, or grilled meats that carry bold flavor on their own. Toppings stay simple: raw onion, fresh cilantro, lime, and house salsa. That restraint lets the meat shine.
You will not find shredded iceberg lettuce or hard shells in a traditional taco. Those are Tex-Mex adaptations. A real Mexican taco is smaller, cleaner, and far more satisfying.
At Suy’s Mexican Restaurant in Tampa, every taco starts with fresh tortillas, house-seasoned meats, and made-from-scratch salsas. We cut no corners. That is the foundation of everything we serve.
Birria tacos took over social media a few years ago and never slowed down. This dish comes from Jalisco, a state in western Mexico. Cooks there originally made it with goat meat, braised low and slow in a rich chile broth. Today, most versions use beef. The result is tender, deeply flavored meat inside a crispy, cheese-coated tortilla.
The process sets birria apart from every other taco style. Cooks braise beef shank or short rib for several hours in dried chiles, garlic, cumin, cloves, and spices. This produces two things: fall-apart tender meat and a rich broth called consomme.
To build the taco, a corn tortilla gets dipped in the fat from the consomme. The cook places it on a hot griddle, adds cheese first, then piles in the shredded beef. The taco folds shut and presses against the griddle until the outside turns crispy and the cheese melts into the meat.
The consomme arrives on the side as a dipping broth. Every bite delivers a different texture: crispy shell, soft cheese, tender beef, and warm broth. Nothing else tastes quite like it.
At Suy’s, birria tacos rank as our most ordered item. Customers drive from across Tampa to get them. Our Taco Tuesday deal, buy two and get the third free, makes Tuesdays our busiest day. Order birria tacos directly here.
Quesabirria follows the same method as regular birria but with extra cheese packed throughout. The inside comes out almost like a quesadilla. The outside stays perfectly crispy. It is rich and satisfying, and most people order two.
Carne asada means grilled beef. This taco style comes from Sonora, a northern Mexican state where cattle ranching shapes the local culture. Cooks marinate skirt steak or flank steak in citrus, garlic, and spices. They cook it over high heat until the outside chars and the inside stays juicy.
The smokiness of the meat balances with bright toppings: raw onion, cilantro, lime juice, and salsa. Each element earns its place. Nothing extra goes on this taco.
A great carne asada taco demands quality beef and high heat. Low-quality meat or a weak marinade kills the dish. At Suy’s, we grill carne asada fresh and serve it the traditional way: simple, bold, and honest. See our full taco menu here.
Al pastor has one of the most interesting origin stories in Mexican food. Lebanese immigrants brought the spit-roasting technique to Mexico in the early twentieth century. The method came from shawarma. Mexican cooks adopted it and swapped lamb for pork. They added their own chile-based marinades and pineapple, and al pastor was born.
The pork marinates in dried chiles, achiote paste, garlic, and pineapple juice. This gives it a complex sweet-and-savory flavor with a bright red-orange color. The rotisserie caramelizes the outside while the inside stays tender.
Al pastor tacos come on small corn tortillas with diced pineapple, raw onion, and cilantro. The pineapple cuts through the richness of the pork with precision. It works perfectly.
Want to learn how shawarma became al pastor? Serious Eats covers the full history in detail.
Carnitas means little meats in Spanish. Cooks make it by slow-cooking pork in its own fat until the meat turns completely tender. They then shred it and crisp it briefly in a pan. The result mixes soft, juicy pieces with slightly crunchy edges.
This taco style comes from Michoacan in central Mexico. The traditional method uses an entire pig cooked in a large copper pot. The fat keeps the meat moist during the long cook. The final crisping step adds the texture contrast that makes carnitas so satisfying.
A well-built carnitas taco needs very little: corn tortilla, pork, onion, cilantro, and salsa verde. The meat carries the whole taco on its own.
Chicken tacos deserve more credit than they usually get. A great chicken taco holds its own against any beef option. The key is preparation: grill the chicken over charcoal for smoke, braise it in chile sauce for tenderness, or marinate and cook it on a flat-top for a clean sear.
Thigh meat works better than breast meat here. The higher fat content keeps the chicken juicy through the cooking process. Dry chicken ruins a taco. Properly cooked thighs never go dry.
At Suy’s, chicken tacos sell fast every lunch service. Try them as part of our Tampa lunch specials. Three tacos, rice, and beans for an outstanding price.
Shrimp tacos come from Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts, where fresh seafood drives the local diet. Cooks grill the shrimp, saute it in garlic and butter, or fry it in a light batter. Each method produces a different texture.
Our garlic shrimp tacos at Suy’s rank among the most popular items on the menu. We cook the shrimp with plenty of garlic and serve it in a fresh tortilla with traditional toppings. The combination of sweet shrimp and savory garlic works extremely well.
Shrimp tacos qualify for the Taco Tuesday deal every week. Buy two, get the third free. Order shrimp tacos online here, or come in any Tuesday.
Barbacoa is one of the oldest cooking techniques in Mexican cuisine. The English word barbecue actually traces back to this method. Traditional Mexican barbacoa wraps seasoned meat in maguey leaves and slow-cooks it in an underground pit for hours.
Modern kitchens use a slow cooker or braising vessel, but the principle stays the same: low heat, long time, rich seasoning. Cooks prefer beef cheeks for barbacoa. The connective tissue breaks down into gelatin during the long braise. The meat comes out almost silky.
Barbacoa tacos appear at Mexican weekend breakfasts, usually paired with salsa verde. The acidity of the salsa cuts through the richness of the meat cleanly. If you have never tried barbacoa, it belongs near the top of your list.
For background on this cooking method, the Wikipedia entry on barbacoa covers its history well.
Fish tacos come from Baja California on Mexico’s Pacific peninsula. The original version uses white fish like cod or mahi-mahi, dipped in a light beer batter and fried until crispy. It goes on a corn tortilla with shredded cabbage, a creamy white sauce, pico de gallo, and lime.
The contrast makes this taco work. Crispy fish meets raw crunchy cabbage. Creamy sauce meets bright lime and pico. Everything balances in one small tortilla.
Fresh fish changes everything. A taco made with recently caught fish holds together better and tastes cleaner than one made with a frozen fillet. When the fish is fresh, the batter clings differently and the texture improves throughout.
Breakfast tacos have roots in Mexican border cuisine, though Texas claims them loudly today. A breakfast taco uses flour tortillas and fills them with scrambled eggs plus one or more additions: chorizo, potatoes, cheese, bacon, or all of them together.
At Suy’s, our morning menu features several egg dishes that pair with our fresh tortillas. We prepare huevos con chorizo, huevos rancheros, and huevos a la Mexicana fresh every morning. Browse the full list on our menu page.
Breakfast tacos fill you up and keep you satisfied well past noon. Eggs absorb seasoning from the protein beside them. A good salsa on top pulls the whole thing together.
Vegetarian tacos earn respect when cooks treat the vegetables with the same care they give to meat. Proper technique matters here. High-heat grilling or careful roasting develops the natural sugars in the vegetables and adds real complexity.
Roasted mushrooms, grilled nopales (cactus paddles), rajas con queso (roasted poblano strips with cream and cheese), and black beans all make legitimate taco fillings. Each one carries bold flavor when prepared correctly.
Have questions about current vegetarian options at Suy’s? Our team answers quickly. Contact us here or call 813-280-1910.
Tacos dorados means golden tacos. Cooks fill a corn tortilla with seasoned meat or potatoes, roll it tight, and fry it until the outside turns completely crispy. Flautas follow the same method with slight regional differences. Both produce a crunchy golden shell around a hot, savory filling.
The texture combination here is hard to beat. The crispy shell gives way to tender filling, and cool sour cream and fresh salsa on top add contrast. These tacos are crowd favorites for a reason.
Our flauta plate at Suy’s consistently turns heads when it lands on nearby tables. Crispy rolled tortillas, seasoned meat, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. The presentation sells itself.
The tortilla debate comes up in every serious taco conversation. Corn tortillas carry a deeper, earthier flavor. Their texture holds up well under juicy fillings without going soggy. They are also naturally gluten-free. Most Mexican culinary tradition and food historians favor corn tortillas for the majority of taco styles.
Flour tortillas dominate in northern Mexico, particularly in Sonora, Chihuahua, and Nuevo Leon. They are softer and more pliable. Grilled meats pair beautifully with them. Breakfast tacos almost always use flour tortillas because the soft texture works better with scrambled eggs.
At Suy’s, we use corn tortillas for birria by tradition. Other items work with either style. Ask your server or specify your preference when ordering online.
A complete Mexican meal often includes a bowl of soup alongside the tacos. At Suy’s, we make both of our signature soups from scratch using traditional recipes. Neither one comes from a can or a powder.
Our beef soup builds on tender pieces of beef in a rich, long-simmered broth. We serve it with diced raw onion, fresh cilantro, Mexican rice, and warm tortillas. You customize it at the table: add onion and cilantro to the bowl, squeeze in lime, and use the tortillas to scoop and wrap as you eat.
This soup is a staple of Mexican home cooking. Families make it for Sunday gatherings and for anyone under the weather. It tastes better the longer it simmers. Our version honors that tradition.
Menudo is a traditional Mexican weekend soup with a devoted following. We make ours with cow’s stomach (tripe), slow-cooked in a red chile broth until the tripe turns completely tender. It arrives with onion, cilantro, rice, and warm tortillas on the side.
Menudo has a bold, distinct flavor that not everyone tries on the first visit. Those who do tend to order it every time after that. The chile broth develops its depth through hours of slow cooking. The tripe absorbs that flavor throughout. The result is a bowl unlike anything else on the menu.
Both soups appear on our regular menu. View everything currently available on our full menu page.
Tampa has a strong and growing taco scene. What makes Suy’s stand out is not a gimmick. It is the quality of the cooking and the consistency of the ingredients, day after day.
We are a family-owned Mexican and Latin American restaurant at 1910 W. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd, Tampa, FL 33607. We opened in 2024 with one goal: bring bold, authentic Mexican flavors to Tampa using real ingredients prepared fresh every day.
Our Google rating sits at 4.9 stars with over 150 verified reviews. Tampa Magazine named us among the city’s best for birria tacos. Our Taco Tuesday deal draws a crowd every week without fail. These results come from daily consistency in the kitchen, nothing else.
Maria G., a Google reviewer, called our birria tacos absolutely incredible and said the consomme for dipping hits a different level. James R. on Yelp wrote that our lunch special is the best deal in Tampa, hands down. Sofia L. noted that our aguas frescas taste different from anywhere else because we make them fresh in house.
We hear this kind of feedback every week. People come in expecting a good meal and leave as regulars. That pattern repeats itself because the food earns it.
We open every day at 11 AM and close at 9 PM. Dine in, order takeout, or place your order online. Call us at 813-280-1910 or visit our contact page anytime.
Read more on the Suy’s Mexican Restaurant blog for deeper looks at Mexican food culture, our menu items, and what separates authentic cooking from American adaptations.
Learn the story behind Suy’s on our about us page. Get answers to common questions before your first visit on our FAQ page.
You now know the difference between birria and barbacoa. You understand why al pastor has Lebanese roots and what makes a great carne asada. The next step is tasting the real thing.
Visit Suy’s Mexican Restaurant at 1910 W. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd, Tampa, FL 33607. Open daily from 11 AM to 9 PM. Call 813-280-1910 or order online at suysmexicanrestaurant1.com.
Every taco on our menu is fresh, family-made, and built on authentic Mexican tradition. Come hungry. Leave happy.
There is no single dish called “a taco.” There is al pastor, slow-rotisserie pork with pineapple and dried
