Burritoville

The Netscape-friendly hunt for the perfect urban food log.

Thursday, February 14, 2002

I know you've been asking yourself: "Have burritos ever been mentioned in Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

¡Burritos! Hot on the Trail of the Little Burro may truly be, as it claims, "the premier source for online burrito fun." Designed as an adjunct for the book of the same name, the site offers recipes, lists of top taquerias (No. 1 in the SF Bay Area: Cancun on Mission Street in SF) and the Burrito Game, in which you fire tortillas at advancing ranks of fierce-looking chili peppers. If you've got Shockwave, you can also listen to mariachi music while you browse the site. Disfrutense!

Monday, February 11, 2002

OK, here's the thing about toppings: When I was younger, I used to load my burritos up. The goal was to get as much food as possible for the money, and the per-calorie cost of guacamole and crema is fairly low. Now that I eat burritos for enjoyment, rather than out of economic necessity, I find I prefer them plain. If the filling is really tasty, why bury the flavor? I guess it's similar to judging ice creams by how well they do vanilla -- sure, it's easy to hide a mediocre filling under a load of toppings, but what does that really tell you about the taqueria?

My favorite fillings are, in order: chile verde, chicken in red sauce, carnitas and birria (lamb). Barbecued chicken is also OK, if it's not dried out into chicken jerky. Some places also put American-style barbecue sauce on their grilled chicken, and I think that is SO WRONG. A third acceptable chicken is pollo en mole verde, but I've only ever seen that at Cactus Taqueria.