Latest / Best of: Features / I ate 12 burritos in San Francisco, LA and San Diego. There's one I still think about.

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I ate 12 burritos in San Francisco, LA and San Diego. There's one I still think about. · Best of: Features

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I ate twelve burrito in San Francisco, LA, and San Diego. There's
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one I still think about. Written by Farley Elliot This article is
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being read by an automated voice generated by Everlett. Recently I found
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myself with a burrito craving, but like any good food obsessive, this
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wasn't just lowercase a craving, it was a craving, capitalized to give
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a better sense of how completely The
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thought took over my brain. Basically I wanted to find the best,
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greatest, purest, most perfect burrito in all of California, and then I
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wanted to eat that burrito with a big, messy smile on my
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face. The first thing I did was book an airplane ticket. Because
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of my job as the Southern California Bureau Chief for SF Gate,
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I'm often kind of in three different places at once. I live
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in and cover Los Angeles, a city I'm obsessed with, but I'm
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up in San Francisco often for meetings with my amazing Bay Area
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colleagues, and, as my suspiciously lofty title indicates, I'm also a frequent
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traveler to Orange County in San Diego. Suffice it to say, it's
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ideal work for a burrito obsessive. And so, as part of a
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recent work trip up north, I concocted a plan. I would eat
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four of San Francisco's most famous mission style burritos. In one day.
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Then I'd fly back right back down to Southern California and try
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four of San Diego's finest burritos, and the day after that I'd
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make sure to end up back home in Los Angeles, where I
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would, you guessed it, devour for of the best burritos in town.
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Twelve burritos, three cities, seventy two hours, five hundred miles. That's how
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you beat a craving. San Francisco's burrito love cannot be beat. To
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put it here plainly, there is no city in America that cares
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as much about burritos as San Francisco, I can't comment on its
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global ranking, that's for another flight. Burritos are a lunchtime staple for
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many locals and a tourist draw for millions. They're a point of
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civic pride and a source of endless fascination from outsiders, myself included,
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who love to drop in for a big bite at La Taceria
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and the write about it all with breathless fascination. In San Francisco,
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burritos are both cuisine and culture. And so it just made sense
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that the first of my twelve in a row burritos would indeed
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be at La Taqueria, the endlessly busy mission district shop, that is
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synonymous with the neighborhood's namesake burrito style. In past visits to the
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restaurant I've found the burritos to be as advertised plump and rich,
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the meaty, beanie, rice free innards, somehow sticking together just enough to
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not spill out everywhere. The preferred Dorado presentation, which gives the tortilla
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a nice crisp on the plancha for the cost of a quarter,
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usually helps to cut through all that tenderness with a bit of
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firmness, too. But on this Friday trip, alongside SF Gate food editor
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Jessica Yadeguerin, we both found ourselves quietly wondering whether La Takeria had
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lost a step, or at least a few ounces. The burritos seemed
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slimmer than their reputation, no less delicious, but pared down to a
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narrower form, and certainly more hastily prepared. Rather than a sturdy two
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hander, I found my burrito to be somewhat shrinkflated and wobbly, its
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usually crispy exterior all wavy and loose, dented like a bruised reputation.
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Yadigarin agreed. That's to take. Almost. Nothing away from La Tackeria. It's
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still the gold standard burrito for all of San Francisco, and rightly
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deserves its vaunted place among the fog and gods. I guess we
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just caught them on a less than consistent Friday. Frustrated and less
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than satisfied, we ventured quickly over to every man competitor El Farolito,
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which has legions of fans city wide and ten percent of Latox
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line. Here I swerved to the shrimp and meat burrito with carne
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asada, rice beans, and the guacamole slash cheese slash sour cream.
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Trio that any self respecting San Francisco Mexican spot upsells with the
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word super. It's a beast of a price at around twenty dollars,
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all in, but it's also a beast of a burrito. Here the
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tortilla is warmed but not griddled, and its stretchiness helps to constrict
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the buffet of ingredients inside. The shrimp in particular made this burrito
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shine, offering just enough bite to help out the rest of the
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mix. Otherwise, the carne asada, finely chopped, is easy to lose besides
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scoops of rice and waves of sour cream. Ask me a sheepish
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Los Angeles visitor which of the two heavy hitter S F. Burrito,
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I preferred that day, and I'd tell you without hesitation that it
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was El Farolito. Still I craved that perfect balance of sturdiness, smokiness
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from the grilled meat, and sublime gloopiness from the super additions. So
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on we went to the gorgeous La Corneta’s where afternoon sunlight was
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just beginning to bounce off the golden walls. A comparatively massive space.
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The twenty six year old restaurant on Mission Street, between twenty third
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and twenty fourth welcomes customers, with a tantalizingly open kitchen up front
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and a long bar toward the back. My kind of place, frankly.
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In search of equitable data I opted for the dollar fifteen ish
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super burrito, which comes not only with the expected fillings, meat, beans,
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rice, guacamole, sour cream, cheese, but also for some reason lettuce. Side
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note Nobody likes hot, soft lettuce. Even a BLT has common sense
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enough to stay cool between warm toast and bacon. La Corneda's burrito
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definitely touched on elements of my desire, like a large, toasted, rather
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blistery flour tortilla, and decent quality meat offered in strong proportions, but
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still I found myself missing the kind of flavor punch that can
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really knock a craving on its ass. Perhaps the rice slash sour
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cream slash lettuce wing of the large burrito was too blandly powerful
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for the salty carne asada, or the whole thing simply needed a
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deaf salsa touch. But I left La Corne no better off than
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I had started, three burritos in. After bidding farewell to my kind
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and very full co worker, I walked off the burrito trio by
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heading quickly over to Elmetate on Bryant Street. It was a charming
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stroll to a neighborhood spot, but, at least on the burrito front,
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the side quest offered nothing more than that. Narrow and uncared for,
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Elmet's burrito was not for me. On the car ride to the
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airport, I had time to figuratively and literally digest the afternoon, and
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I kept returning to a single truism. Even if your fourth burrito
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of the day is a disappointment, there's no denying that this city,
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thank God, cares a hell of a lot about its Mexican food.
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But so does San Diego. We'll fly for fries. Saturday road trips
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sure do build up an appetite. After landing late in Orange County
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on Friday, I hopped into my car early Saturday morning and beelined
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straight to Southern California stop number one, Armando's Taco Shop, a twenty
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four hour Palm Avenue strip mall spot near Imperial Beach. It’s the
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kind of place you might drive by a zillion times, without ever
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bothering to check the Yelp reviews, and that's in part what makes
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San Diego great. While San Francisco point their allegiances to particular burritos,
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San Diego guns take a predictably laid back approach. Every community in
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and around San Diego has half a dozen spots like Armando's that
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not only make exceptional burritos but also offer great loaded fries and
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breakfast burritos and rolled tacos, and many of them are open around
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the clock. Burritos are important here, to be sure, but they're not
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San Diego's exclusive clarion call. They're just woven into the easy fabric
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of every lay neighborhood menu. What makes this city special is not
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its excellence at one menu item, it's the overall quality of everyday
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Mexican food on offer everywhere. For casual neighborhood Mexican food, there is
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no place better in California than San Diego. Almost without exception, every
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place is phenomenal. Sorry, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Stockton, and
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Bakersfield, and Santa Cruz. At Armando's, the scuffs on the wall and
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the skateboard stickers on the glass front door are part of the
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charm. So too are the charred little patches on the place's giant
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handmade tortillas. They're all signs of a good time. San Diego's signature
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California burrito which focuses on meat, cheese, fries, and sour cream and
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was likely created at Lolita's taco shop in nearby Chula Vista, gets
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its due at the no nonsense Armando's. Locals love its size and
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dollar eleven ish price point, and I love its almost translucent tortilla,
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imbued with enough rendered fat that it practically shines. Even as an
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all hours joint, it's clear that Armando's does enough volume to not
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let its carne asada, cut into slightly longer strips, sit around and
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die in a steam table. The meat is bouncy and smoky, and
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the formidable wall of fries inside offers a starchy heft. Non believers
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are, fond of saying that California burritos suffer from their constructed with
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they fries losing crispness long before the whole thing can be eaten.
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Those people are fools. When properly prepared and eaten without delay, a
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perfect California burrito is a modern engineering marvel on par with the
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Golden Gate Bridge, imposing and marvelous. Of course, no San Diego Burrito
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tour would be complete without a stop at one Berto's or another.
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The region's uniquely Mexican American cuisine is most formally on display at
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the patchwork of restaurants that carry a Berto's suffix, many of which
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stem from the famous Roberto's taco shop out of National City. Also,
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open twenty four hours, hell yeah. The Adalbertos on Market Street always
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seems to have a car or two in the drive thru line,
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with families pulling off moments later loaded with breakfast burritos, tacos, fries,
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and more. The California burritos here are, admittedly, not the best in
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town, too dry and poorly constructed, but they are literally as big
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as my forearm and do fulfill the promise of the premise. In
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San Diego, even the local chain spots you don't bother with are,
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for most mortal eaters, plenty good. Farther up the coast in Ocean
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Beach, Mike's Taco Club feels like a mix of San Diego sunshine
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and San Francisco ingenuity. The place keeps a similar pace to La
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Tacaria, working through growing lines quickly and calling out order numbers fast.
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And, like La Corneta, the tortilla here is left to dance on
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the griddle until it tightens up just slightly, leaving behind brown patches
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and a toasty flavor. As with El Farolito, I opted for a
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steak And shrimp burrito at the fourteen year old Mike's, which sits
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below a tattoo stop, less than a block from the ocean. What
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arrived was a thing of beauty, as puffy and round as a
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pool noodle, and absolutely loaded with fries, steak and shrimp. The sour
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cream, thinned out slightly, ran amongst the jack cheese and guacamole with
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slippery ease, cooling every bite. Like that famous Latak burrito, it's impossible
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to know how all The components hold together inside. Despite being on
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burrito number seven in about twenty four hours, I had a hard
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time putting this thing down. Finally I could feel the crushing burrito
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craving subsiding, if slowly, into a lowercase C. And then I tried
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La Perla number three. The smallish Point Loma shop, just blocks from
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San Diego Bay, shares its parking lot with a shipping store and
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a dry cleaner. All day long busy workers send out wheelbarrows of
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its signature Oaxaca California burrito seemingly every minute, each one as chunky
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as a phone book, and yet for all that speed the crowds
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inside never seem to let up. During my lunchtime pit stop, I
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braved the sweltering heat inside for a full thirty five minutes before
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my burrito arrived. It was worth it. Thick enough to snap the
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plate it served on, each Waka California burrito comes with carne asada,
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cheese fries, guacamole, and pico de gallo. But what makes it special
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is the wrapping, a quesadilla filled with stringy, melty Oaxacan cheese. This
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is not hyperbole. The restaurant takes two giant tortillas, puts cheese in
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the middle that warms until melted, and then uses that, as if
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it were a single tortilla, to wrap the burrito's ingredients. Now, understandably,
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detractors say that it's too stunty, a brick of a burrito with
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no grace or balance, and normally I'd be inclined to agree. But
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look closer and you'll find well executed ingredients throughout the behemoth, none
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more vital than the perfectly seasoned and hefty chunks of marinated steak
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inside. Far from being chopped to death or skimped on, the carne
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asada at La Perla is juicy and robust, and made all the
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better with a splash of stinging red salsa. There's a lot of
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noise to cut through with something this rich, but the effective balance
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of acid, salt, and heat does just that. Could I eat this
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burrito every week? Probably not. But I'll say this of all the
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twelve burritos I had on my quest, it's the one I still
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think about the most. Every bite was an adventure, and it was
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certainly hard to put down. Not just because it weighed a ton,
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either. It's no wonder La Perla is consistently ranked among the best
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burrito places in all of San Diego. And hey, if you don't
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like the opulence of the Oahawkin rapper, just head straight for the
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regular California burrito, you won't be disappointed. Hometown favorites. After
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a delirious drive up the coast, I spent my Sunday tracking down
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the last four burritos on my crawl, and this time thankfully I'd
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be playing a home game. I've been writing about Los Angeles area
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Mexican food for years, and the truth is that LA is neither
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as burrito obsessive as San Francisco, nor as blissfully burrito casual as
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San Diego. This city excels in many other formats like street tacos
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and moriscos and modern Mexican cuisine and mashups like Kogi Barbecue's kimchi
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quesadilla, but it's not culturally a hub for Carne Asada burrito excellence.
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Instead Angelanos, by and large, lean on breakfast at burritos, of which
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there are countless here, and unassuming do it all Mexican restaurants to
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fill any local craving. Thankfully, there are a handful of true burrito
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zealots in the LA streets, like Cilantro Mexican Grill in North Hollywood,
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burrito number nine on Journey, which sits inside of a gas station.
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Cilantro takes a decidedly San Francisco lean with its creations, proffering plenty
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of rice and a ladle of beans alongside their meaty stars. It's
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a fine enough sibling to The mission style, particularly on days when
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one finds oneself far from the Bay Area, but it's no true
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substitute. Plenty of Angelanos would point instead to East LA's La Azteca
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Tortiaria, stop number 10, as a worthy contender that isn't trying to
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play by anyone else's rules. Famous for its made in house tortillas,
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La Azteca's carne asada burrito is an LA masterclass in simplicity, with
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buff chunks of beef, beans, a loose smattering of tomato and onion,
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and nothing else. It's meaty perfection in its way, if a touch
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one note. The real move is to add a soft, cheesy chile
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rhino inside. There is really no other burrito like that anywhere else
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in town. Pound for pound, though, LA's best burrito is found at
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Santoratown, the northern Mexico style mini chain, with three locations. Owners Teodoro
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Diaz Rodriguez Jr. And Jennifer Feltham are obsessive about their ingredients, reverse
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engineering their hard to source Sonoran flour, and working tirelessly to offer
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the same precise beef cuts that can be found in the shops
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of Teo's hometown, San Luis, Rio, Colorado, just over the Arizona border
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in Mexico. The restaurant acknowledges such tinkering right on its menu. The
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current burrito on offer is proudly titled the burrito two point zero.
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Served with mesquite filled carne asada, monterey jack cheese, guacamole, still plump
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pinto beans, and a grill seared tortilla, it's a compact masterpiece. If
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San Diego's La Perla number three wows by weight, Sonovertown pleases with
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precision. Still, after eleven mostly, amazing burritos enjoyed across five hundred air
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and road miles, I have a secret to admit. The burrito’s that
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finally beat my craving was the one served closest to my house.
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Splayed out under multiple red tents on a sidewalk in front of
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a target, Angel's Tijuana Tacos is the kind of enterprising street food
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stand that Angelanos love by The thousands. Literally, there are something like
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ten thousand street food vendors, by some estimates, across LA County. Not
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every stand is up to snuff, of course, but Angels is known
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for its showmanship and craft, and its deft ability to turn out
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handmade tortillas on the quick. Even on a Sunday night, the spinning
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Alpastor Trampo, the meal show piece, was quickly being shaved to a
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nub one taco at a time. Steps away, a corner to corner
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spread of marinated beef on a wide Santa Maria style grill perfumed
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the evening air. Because this is LA, and because LA loves its
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Alpaster, I opted to break with my fact finding consistency. Burrito number
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twelve would be filled not with beef but citrusy tangy pork. After
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a quick that with the Takero and a run through the burrito
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bar's offerings, what emerged from those red tents was a standard LA
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Lonchera burrito, larger that a cell phone but nowhere near as prodigious
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as Ad Alberto's in San Diego. The tortilla, warmed but not crusted
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or broken, was thin enough to spot rainbows of color inside, and
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the burrito's rice and intact beans offered a satisfying softness against the
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crispy edged alpaster. Each bite begged for a splash of salsa, not
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that for lack of flavor, but simply because it completes the meal.
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To Krib from LA's slovenly cinematic anti work hero Jeff the Dude
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Lebowski, salsa like this really ties the room together. Maybe it's the
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Angelano in me, maybe it's the contrarian, or the blinders that come
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with loving a city like LA and its food so much. But
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after a steady three day diet exclusively centered on burritos from across
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California, I found myself hovering over the hood of my car, devouring
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my meal at Angel's Tijuana Tacos. Loose bits of pork dislodged and
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stained my pant legs, salsa splashed into the gutter, and as the
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name on the sign suggests I had found heaven. Is Angel's Tijuana
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Tacos the best burrito in all of California? It can't be. The
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state is too large, too complex, and ever changing to ever single
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out one spot for eternal glory. Not even the San Francisco standard
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bearer La Tacaria deserves that crown. But between the detailed obsessions of
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San Francisco, the casual greatness of San Diego, and the affirming comforts
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of Los Angeles, it's safe to say that there is a perfect
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burrito for you out there somewhere, waiting. All you've got to do
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is be willing to get in the car.