San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The Mission burrito is one of S.F.’s most iconic foods, but is it still as good?
The giant burrito doesn’t always represent the best of the Bay Area’s Mexican food, but it’s evolving
The Mission-style burrito is San Francisco’s living contribution to Mexican food — a crystallization of the working-class barrio’s spirit and taste. And it deserves infinite props for becoming the most popular burrito style — not just in the Bay Area but nationwide. That said, I don’t think it always represents the best of what Mexican cuisine has to offer.
There’s been a recent explosion of regional taquerias, many of which make better flour tortillas, better guisados (stewed meats and veggies) and better salsas. Some even grill meat over charcoal. I’ve wondered if the Mission burrito, which swaddles the cuisine into a colossal package, is still relevant.
But after sampling a shocking amount of them, I’ve found the Mission burrito continues to evolve. The neighborhood where it was born is where it still blossoms. Many celebrated burrito institutions still find ways to impress, while newer players in the game have updated the flavors and techniques to reflect what’s currently exciting about Mexican food.
We have to start with the most debated question: What exactly is a Mission burrito?
In short, it is defined by its bewildering size and copious ingredients. Depending which legend you subscribe to, it was created in the 1960s to feed firemen, but now it belongs to everyone. It has left a lasting mark on taquerias throughout the Bay Area, as most serve it as a “super” burrito — which adds sour cream, cheese and guacamole or avocado, among other things. You may also recognize it as the Chipotle burrito; its founder, a former San Francisco chef, built an empire off the Mission style.
There’s much discourse about ingredients. Many state that rice is mandatory — leaving out the institution La Taqueria. I find most of the arguments to be petty when you consider that customizability is paramount to the experience. I also think that the ingredient obsession misses what’s special about the burrito.
To me, the key element of the Mission burrito is an indecipherable presence that resides in the neighborhood. I like to imagine it as a somewhat shy, squirrely deity that some taquerias pay tribute to daily.
Sometimes its presence is undeniable, enriching burritos with an otherworldly taste. I think I first witnessed it at El Farolito on 24th Street a few years ago.
I ordered a super with asada. When I asked the cook to cut it in half, he flashed a toothy smile and asked if I wanted it split vertically or horizontally. Upon first bite, it clicked. The spirit was alive and well that day. When I later tried a burrito from the Oakland location, it felt like a pale imitation — a copy of a copy.
Much has been said about who makes it best. Ten years ago, superfan Charles Hodgkins, who once ran a burritoranking blog called burritoeater.com, claimed that Papalote was the pinnacle. In 2016, James Beard award-winning writer John Birdsall wrote a sprawling account for Bon Appetit that claimed El Castillito was king — as suggested by Gustavo Arrellano, Los Angeles Times columnist and author of “Taco USA.”
Today, those burritos don’t twinkle as bright as they once did. But this highlights an all too common issue when discussing any food icon: Rankings age rapidly because of the landscape’s shifting tectonics.
When a Mission burrito is not in top form, its flaws are highlighted. Poor quality tomatoes for pico de gallo spread their lackluster essence in Papalote’s
and El Castillito’s burritos. To avoid this issue, Taqueria San Francisco marinates its pico in pickled jalapeño brine, but it runs into another problem: a flaky tortilla that falls apart. Too much sauce made El Faro’s version soupy, muddling the flavors. Burritos at Pancho Villa Taqueria and Taqueria La Cumbre had cold pockets of sour cream that threw off heat distribution, and the criminal inclusions of lettuce in both almost made me swear off burritos entirely.
I think some taquerias are overly confident that the formula will magically bring all the ingredients together, but it doesn’t. At its worst, the Mission burrito can feel like a customary
Stephen Lam/Special to The Chronicle
food, like a hot dog at a baseball game, that you don’t eat because it’s good, but rather it’s just what you do.
There are a few institutions that regularly pay tribute to the spirit, and it shows.
El Farolito still rolls the heftiest burritos but each element makes itself known. The asada has a slight smokiness, the avocado brings creaminess, and the rice and beans work as flavor sponges. La Palma Mexicatessen makes consistently stellar burritos — a shining example of asada, with tender, juicy strips. One block over, La Espiga De Oro breaks the mold with petite burritos, by Mission standards at least. Their small stature results in more careful
Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle construction, letting the resonant crackle of freshly fried chicharrones take the stage.
Similarly, relative newcomers like Chuy’s Fiestas and La Vaca Birria are bringing fresh blood and ideas to the genre.
Chuy’s has a reputation for mariscos like shrimp, which find their way into their intimidatingly large super burritos. The marisqueria also introduced another style called the flattop burrito that has a similar construction to La Taqueria’s, ditching the rice. It meets the size requirements indicative of the style, but a proper sear on the plancha ensures ideal temperature dispensation.
Taking things even further is La Vaca Birria. The halal taqueria focused primarily on birria until earlier this year, when it expanded its menu and added a charcoal grill. That means the asada is actually grilled, unlike at standard Mission taquerias, and imbued with the scintillating taste of mesquite. Other flame-grilled options include lengua, chicken, chorizo (made in-house) and even lamb chops.
Its rendition of the Mission burrito improves on the technical form and flavor. Known as the grilled cheese burrito, it starts with a homemade beef tallow tortilla that’s blanketed with a mozzarella cheese skirt — ensuring full meltage. The shop’s birria was especially striking in this expression, with a punchy adobo that brought intense spice to anything it touched.
It’s comforting to know that the spirit of the Mission lives on and will likely outlast us all. At La Vaca Birria, I got the same feeling that El Farolito gave me that fateful night.