San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The Chronicle interviewed 15 Bay Area experts. Here are the results
Every ingredient in a burrito needs to play its part for the betterment of the whole: The tortilla must be taut. The beans and rice must be tender but not overcooked. The salsa must assert itself. Even distribution is critical. Lettuce is an absolute no-go.
But one crucial element is left up to the diners: the meat. Which one produces the perfect burrito?
It seems like a simple question that the world should already know the answer to — and yet, a Google search brings up a series of recipes that indicate the 100% incorrect answer of ground beef.
In pursuit of the answer to what is now clearly one of the most vital and life-affirming questions in Bay Area food culture, The Chronicle interviewed 15 burrito experts, dissecting every possible angle to the most common burrito meats: carne asada (steak), pollo (chicken), carnitas (fried pork) and al pastor (marinated pork).
These experts — a mix of burrito makers and avid eaters — also discussed unconventional picks, like lengua (beef tongue) and cueritos (pig skin). Some advocated for blending multiple meats, a surefire attempt at stirring controversy.
Yet a clear favorite quickly emerged, with nine experts essentially saying it was no contest.
“Carne asada, hands down,” said Dominic Prado, the chef behind Oakland food truck Tacos El Último Baile. “It’s the meat that goes best with beans.”
Carne asada advocates said the meat tends to be prepared simply, sometimes seasoned with nothing but salt before hitting the flattop or grill. Its subtle smokiness doesn’t compete with the burrito’s other elements. There’s also nostalgia attached to beef for people who grew up in Mexican American households, Prado said.
It happens to be the most popular meat for burritos by far, according to other business owners. Martha Barajas, owner of old-school Oakland truck Taco Panzon, said the big advantage with carne asada is it’s the easiest to wrap. It’s dry compared to some other meats, which means there’s no annoying leakage.
Also a clear reason for its superiority: It’s the standard-bearer, the meat upon which the burrito maker should be judged. Fans who eat a lot of burritos said that of all the meat options, it tends to be the most consistent from restaurant to restaurant; in other words, the techniques for grilled steak don’t vary much.
Santa Rosa native Jahsiah Ault said he’s never been disappointed by a carne asada burrito in his lifetime, eating at least five burritos a week once he became a teenager. (Of all the burrito experts, nobody ate as many, or as regularly, as Ault.) He found that carne asada is a consistently strong contender when it comes to dispersal within the burrito, also helping the mass hold together without too much fat or any large chunks getting in the way.
“If I’m trying a new place, I always go with carne asada because it’s the easiest to get right,” said Ozi Magaña, a San Francisco native raised by a single mom and largely on burritos. Juggling multiple jobs, Magaña’s mom wouldn’t have time to make him lunches for school, so she’d drop by with burritos from Mission District taquerias.
Now an artist in Oakland who sells cheeky burrito T-shirts, Magaña started ranking burritos on Instagram about four years ago to help him keep track of how many burritos he ate in a year. He’s averaging 120. Because of carne asada’s simplicity, he said, there aren’t as many ways to mess it up compared to other meats. Slightly bland or forgettable steak won’t ruin a burrito if the rest of the ingredients are done well.
San Francisco’s original burrito ranker, Charles Hodgkins of burritoeater.com, also used carne asada as a key measuring tool when he reviewed 1,000 burritos between 2003 and 2013. Back when the website began, the internet wasn’t full of user-generated restaurant reviews. There wasn’t even Yelp.
Looking back now, Hodgkins wonders if he was attracted to carne asada because it’s always listed first on taqueria menus, or maybe it was his youthful mind being manipulated by the idea of getting steak (steak!) for the same price as chicken.
To see carne asada’s fully realized potential in a burrito, Hodgkins points
Al pastor on the trompe at the Al Pastor Papi truck in S.F., from top; preparing meat at La Taqueria in S.F.; carne asada super burrito at El Farolito in S.F.
to the version at Papalote in San Francisco. The steak is grilled, slightly charred on the edges, and cut into chunks that are large enough to appreciate as steak but small enough to eat on a practical level.
But carne asada isn’t always perfect. Some restaurants cut the beef into such tiny bits that they seem to disappear. The meat can be dry, making the whole burrito thirsty. The worst offense is the presence of tough, inedible cartilage, which Hodgkins agrees can be “pretty demoralizing” and quickly turn into “a train wreck of gristle.”
Instead, a smaller but defiant contingent of four experts said the actual correct answer in this meat debate is carnitas. (This is also, it must be said, the preferred option for The Chronicle’s food and wine team.)
“Pork with rice and beans in any form — what’s more satisfying than that if you’re a meat eater?” said Casey Rebecca Nunes, a local chef and managing director at Wrecking Ball Coffee who has a tattoo of a mermaid eating a burrito. “It’s so homey and comforting.”
Carne asada proponents counter that carnitas isn’t consistent from place to place: At some taquerias, the pork is braised until it’s melty and fatty. At others, it’s also fried until the edges crisp up, providing more of a textural contrast. But this is the rare situation where inconsistency doesn’t matter, according to Nunes and other carnitas fans.
“There are so many places that have legitimately not good carne asada, whereas carnitas is a little more forgiving. Even bad carnitas is still pretty good,” said Luke Tsai, KQED food editor and former critic for the East Bay Express. “You can fry the hell out of it and it’s not going to taste bad.”
Meanwhile, if the comparison is the best version of carne asada compared to the best version of carnitas, the choice is abundantly clear to San Francisco chef Mike Ocampo of Mr. Digby’s, who used to eat three burritos a week when he lived a short walk from El Farolito in the Mission.
“Really good carnitas are almost like rilletes: the pork fat is mixed back in, the seasoning is good, there’s good saltiness.
You can taste orange, some bay leaf,” he said. “One of the best textures is something that’s been crisped and re-sogged a bit. Think of a really good panzanella.”
In Ocampo’s view, carnitas also wins when it comes to two other important factors: the structural integrity of the burrito and, along with that, the ease of eating. You should be able to eat a burrito with one hand, without fear of stray bits of crumbly meat — carne asada, — falling out. With that in mind, he argued that anything in the shredded family of meats is going to be a winner: chicken tinga, barbacoa, chicharron prensado.
Carnitas critics say the fried pork is too fatty, too rich, too likely to make you pass out by 2 p.m. But others, like Charlie Kruse, a San Mateo resident who averages a burrito a week, say that argument is simple silliness. Who wants a light burrito?
“You’re not getting tacos,” Kruse said. “You’re getting something that sticks to your gut.” Plus, there’s an easy way to balance the confit-like fattiness of carnitas. Kruse pours a tiny bit of salsa onto every bite of burrito, giving it a bright pop.
But Kruse acknowledges that the eater’s background and consumption method both play a part. Just as Prado feels nostalgic about beef, Kruse, who is Chinese American, feels a gravitational pull to pork.
Of course, then there’s the possible dark horse of burrito meat filling: al pastor, a hotly debated option.
Its fans argue that in a cylinder that already has so many components, something loud and assertive like al pastor is necessary to cut through the noise. Others say it’s designed for tacos and can be too greasy for a flour tortilla, with reddish oil seeping out. It’s not always obvious whether the taquero slices al pastor off a vertical spit, resulting in crisptender bits similar to carne asada, or if the pork is instead stewed.
“They’re predictably unpredictable,” said Peter-Astrid Kane, the former SF Weekly food critic and advocate for al pastor in all forms. “It’s like a sonnet: It’s very structured but with total freedom within.”
Shaved off a spit is best, Kane said, but the stew is tasty, too. Ultimately, it’s about the flavor: The chiles and pineapple deliver a spicy, tangy punch unlike any other burrito meat option.
Amid this fierce debate, experts tended to agree on a few points: There is such a thing as too moist, and wetter options like chile verde and chile colorado just become “a drippy nightmare,” as Hodgkins put it.
When not accompanied by potatoes and eggs in a breakfast burrito, chorizo tends to be too greasy. And chicken, while not bad, is not particularly good either. To the people who order chicken burritos, Kane said, “You are depriving yourself of some of the greatest flavor experiences known for humanity.”
Tension also clearly exists around what meats belong in burritos versus tacos. No one, for example, advocated for the delicious beef cheeks known as cabeza in a burrito format because of its heaviness. Others brought up the idea of a burrito filled with tripas, the crunchychewy intestines of a cow, but immediately questioned if they could finish a whole one. While a taco de tripas is one of life’s greatest thrills, a burrito version sounds exhausting.
Despite all the strong opinions, some burrito eaters noted that it’s still worth experimenting with less typical burrito meats. Though firmly on the side of team carnitas when it comes to basic choices, Tsai’s favorite burrito is actually a mix of suadero, a cut of beef with crispy edges and a chewy heft, and cueritos, slippery pig skin that acts like a soothing moisturizer. South San Francisco resident Chris Lam, one of the founders of Taiwanese pop-up Yilan Foods and a consumer of about two burritos per week, goes for a doublescoop ice cream effect with one-half al pastor, one-half lengua. Why choose when you can have more?
Ultimately, the best meat is the one that makes you happy, coupled with the realization that some places are just better at certain meats than others. You should order carne asada at Papalote and El Farolito. You should order carnitas at Taqueria El Castillito, and al pastor at Al Pastor Papi. Rumor has it the meatless veggie burritos at Taqueria Cancun aren’t a waste of time. You should try them all.
As San Francisco burrito lover Alex Lubinski, who eats at least one per week, said, “Even if you have a burrito that’s not perfect, you’re still having a good day because you’re having a burrito.”
Q: So tell me about the night. How did this happen?
A: In my mind, it always happened on Halloween because he was in a costume, but it wasn’t. It was in late August, early September. I got to this house party, and there were a few people I didn’t know, him being one of them. He was in a burrito costume; no one else was dressed up in anything. He was very cute. We started chatting. Turned out, he had just moved to town. He had worked a taco- and burrito-themed event, which is how he got this costume. You know how you’re making small talk around drinks but then you actually start talking? It was one of those things. My friends are a bunch of trolls, and I could tell they were eyeing me, and they were just loving it. I was like, “You’re so rude, leave me alone.”
We went home together that night. Truly, nothing happened. But yeah, then I spent the next three years of my life with him.
This guy was very well-adjusted, very well-put together. He had a side job working at the Gap. Very preppy, always in a really nice short-sleeved button down. That’s very not me. It just made it even funnier that he was dressed as a burrito when we met.
Q: What kind of burrito costume was it?
A: It was like a Halloween-store costume. There was definitely the shell that was yellow. There was a big production of the lettuce and the tomato and little flecks of cheese coming out of it. It was that fantasy. It was very cartoony and very cute and funny. It was very animated in that way.
Q: Did the burrito costume play any role in your interest in talking to him?
A: Kind of in a sick way, yeah. Well, OK, it was one of those things where I’m like, this guy, either he really gets it or I need to stay far away from him. Like I said, no one else was in costume. This could go one of two ways, and I’m not quite sure which one.
But when we started talking, I was like oh, OK, he’s cool, this is fine. I didn’t know he would have such a profound effect on me. It could have very easily gone the way of super obnoxious, attention seeking, blah blah blah — which is also fine! People are allowed to like validation. He left it on because he saw the humor in it.
Q: You said nothing really happened. But did he end up taking the burrito costume off ? Did you guys make out? Were you making out with him while he was in the costume?
A: Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. All of that transpired. Yes. It wasn’t the burrito suit and undies. He had a tee and shorts under it. I don’t think the burrito came off at the party, just because it was the look. I think when he got back to my place — not because we started going at it immediately — but he said, “I’m going to take this thing off.” The mood had changed. By the time anything physical started transpiring, he was already out of it. Again, that first night was so long ago. It’s so not a part of the way that I think about things. He was definitely in it when he got to my place, that is for sure.
Q: In one of your messages to me, you said it was one of the most formative relationships of your life. That’s really big.
A: Yeah. I would only say that to a stranger with no context, but it’s true. I would never admit that to any of my friends.
Q: Why was it so formative for you? A: Well, nothing to do with the burrito. At the time I was 27. It was my return of Saturn [Ed. note: In astrology, this means a time of upheaval in your life]. Things were changing for the best. I was finally feeling successful in what I was doing. A year prior to that, I got out of something really gnarly, relationship-wise. I wasn’t looking for anything, certainly not him.
When you meet someone, and they’re just really good to you — I wasn’t used to that by any means. The way that he showed up for me, or loved me, was really formative. I was like, “Oh this is possible. I do deserve this. This is crazy.” It just started off really nicely, and it kept being really nice for as long as it happened. It was this weird three-year fairy tale.
I don’t feel like I was at that time a stone-cold relationship guy. But we moved in together in my dream apartment. He wanted a dog, so we got a dog, and I never wanted a dog but the dog