Tacos Oscar Oakland

A pop-up that found a courtyard

Oscar Michel and Jake Weiss took Tacos Oscar from East Bay pop-ups to a permanent 40th Street home in late 2018. The restaurant occupies an alley courtyard framed by modified shipping containers. The scale remains compact, and the website welcomes children and leashed dogs while asking groups to be considerate of limited space.

The current dinner menu gives vegetables the same attention as braised meats. Charred broccoli comes with peanut-and-árbol salsa, pickled onion and cilantro. Mushrooms carry cabbage-mint slaw and chile-verde cashew crema. Both are labeled vegan, but the first contains peanuts and the second cashews. That is useful information for choosing a taco, rather than assuming a vegetable filling answers every dietary need.

Barbacoa uses beef shoulder braised with chile and banana leaf, then roasted tomatillo salsa. Pork chile verde takes tomatillo-braised shoulder, guacasalsa and chicharrón powder. Chicken tinga is made from chile-braised thigh. The short menu allows each preparation its own identity, alongside chips with morita salsa and fermented habanero hot sauce.

Brunch changes the tortilla and the meal

Weekend brunch has its own menu. The fried-egg taco adds salsa macha, cheddar and pickled onion; a bean-and-cheese taco uses Mayocoba beans. Brunch tacos are currently specified on La Palma flour tortillas, with corn available by request. The vegan breakfast burrito contains potatoes, peppers, onion, beans and morita mayonnaise; the menu flags soy. Those details differ from a general description of the restaurant's handmade corn-tortilla tradition.

The address is 420 40th Street. The listed restaurant phone is 510-735-9620. Dinner runs Sunday, Monday and Thursday 5–9 p.m.; Friday–Saturday 5–9:30 p.m. Brunch is Saturday–Sunday 11 a.m.–2 p.m.; Tuesday–Wednesday are closed. The business links direct online ordering, but a reliable current direct-delivery service was not established. The final link is for the restaurant's ordering system, not a promise of delivery coverage.

Open the Oakland ordering menu.