Burritoville

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

Thursday, November 17, 2005

The bare minimum. I had a cafeteria burrito today for the first time in about two years. First thing I noticed is that the lady in the plastic gloves did not use the Approved Burrito Folding method -- and, in fact, the burrito was somewhat prone to unrolling itself. The second thing is, you know, a little crema is not a bad thing, especially if the rest of the burrito is not terribly distinguished. How do I say this nicely? How about: Enough sour cream could make a tissue box edible.

I was also thinking about fusion burritos the other night, and realized that one of my favorite Chinese dishes, Moo Shu Chicken, is essentially a burrito. Did the Aztecs visit Hunan Province?

Sunday, November 13, 2005

I went back to Alejandro's last week and had the carnitas burrito (which was quite tasty, by the way) but it made me realize that the super hot-sweet flavor of their barbecued pork burrito is all in the barbecue sauce, not in the pico de gallo. Nice going, guys!

Also went to Picante in Berkeley on Friday night. The family and I got stuck in traffic on I-80 westbound -- is there any time of day or night, any day of the week that freeway isn't clogged with cars? -- and my blood sugar started crashing, so we hopped off the freeway at Gilman. Picante, a kind of hybrid taqueria/restaurant, was almost as crowded as the freeway, but we were able to place our order at the counter, find a table and get served within about 20 minutes. I had vegetarian tamales, a little bit of a departure for me. Picante's are filled with winter squash and roasted hot peppers and served with a spicy avocado-based salsa. Sabroso!