At first I was put off by this in certain places but I’ve come to enjoy lettuce in a burrito, shredded cabbage too (common with fried fish and fried shrimp down these ways). Obviously not great for a burrito that you save for later or eat the next day due to sogginess. I’m also with you guys on the surf n turf burrito from time to time. That’s special!
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In college at UCSB, there was a place called Serranito’s in Isla Vista that had amazing flautas that had lettuce in them. Never forgotten them.
Also my favorite burritos from long ago (Yucas and Burrito King in Los Angeles) never had rice in them. When did that become a thing?
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I think rice is a San Francisco thing.
Thread drift alert: Today we stopped at the newish incarnation of an old Castro district favorite, now El Capitan. We ordered our favorite lunch, super vegetarian tacos, two corn tortillas topped with whole pintos, rice, shredded lettuce, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, cheese, cilantro and onions. Generous, fresh ingredients. Extraordinarily filling. But the salsas were just “off” to our tastes which are classic Pancho Villa and his offshoots, like Zapata. As I wrote above, when it comes to the cut, it is the salsas that define this food.
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Rice in Mission burritos have been a thing since the 70s. There exceptions like La Taqueria but rice is a thing…like a whole plate, rice, beans, meat, salsa shoved in a tortilla.
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Personally I’ve drifted away from the mission style and prefer a good tortilla and filing and it doesn’t have to be big. But I’ve also drifted south to LA. I’ll have PV hold the rice and get extra steak and sorta bastardize my mission style experience nowadays. But isn’t customizing what really defines the mission burrito experience anyways? Less rice, more room for cannolis?
Completely agree with the experts here that praise the salsas and value that highly across the board. I’m also totally down with good flautas like you. Vampiros, tostadas, tacos, nachos good stuff in many formats.
Some of the good burritos down here in SoCal are small and as you note no rice.
Burritos La Palma
Sonoratown
I trend more to tacos which my experience says are more popular than burritos in SoCal and the opposite in NoCal. But what do I know. I agree less rice down these parts on a burrito, bigger chains excluded. The Ortega burger at yucas is awesome I love that btw.
https://www.lataco.com/ Is a pretty cool website. Burritos too. No mustache ratings lol but some good recon and lots of styles represented.
Love a good mission burrito and appreciate the style and authenticity of those. San Francisco you’ve created a monster with chipotle and la salsa and so many shitty big burritos coast to coast haha. But it’s better than Elon Musk. Kidding aside, it’s something I enjoy in SF and the mission has that style on lockdown. When I was young and broke and living on Guerrero St no way I would have passed on the rice and the all in one huge meal that burrito represented. Great to see so many venerable spots still slinging it like PV and La Cumbre. And I’m learning some new spots to try here too if I can ever resist the gravitational pull of Senor Villa! Please for the love of god tell me that the red and green tortillas I saw last time there are just for laughs !
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Trying to figure out the HO photo system, but here’s the mother ship. I grew up nearby. Best carne asada burrito ever.
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When there’s that much asada and salsa who needs rice
Rice, no rice…personal preferences, regional difference…still a burrito and still Mexican food. And you get to pick what you like.
I think burritos are more Anerican-Mexican food. They were known in some northern parts of Mexico but seem to be more “developed” north of the border.
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Sonoran.
From the wheat grown instead of corn.
We never had flour tortillas when I was young in KC.
Our Mexican/Hispanic population was mostly from Texas and New Mexico and from the state of Jalisco.
That was true up til the 70’s.
Burritos were a revelation to me when I first came to the far west.
Still are
Yes, there’s suggestions burritos were also farm workers food…shove a whole combo plate into a tortilla. As for Mexican or Mexican American…I’m not going to haggle. Still talking about Mexican food and international borders are political but not necessarily cultural. So personal preference and regional differences. If it tastes good and you like it…that’s all that matters.
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In KC’s instance, it isn’t political.
They literally followed the Santa Fe trail and Santa Fe RR in both directions for work and trade.
A classic article on the origins of the Mission burrito:
For the next hundred years, however, this brave new food languished in the wilderness where it was considered strictly a Chicano convenience item, handy for rough on-the-go field workers but hardly fit for citified menus. To the stoop laborers in the lettuce fields of the Salinas Valley the burrito made the day, recalls restaurant consultant Peter Garin, who worked with the farm crews as a kid in the 1960’s:
“Freezing cold five AM mornings, the best time to pick lettuce, owners needed a very good cook to attract the best fast crews,” he recalls. “We’d get huevos rancheros at five, sweet strong hot coffee with a shot of brandy at seven, then full spicy killer burritos at around 10:30, keep you going till afternoon. I remember the texture of the shredded beef, the heat of the green peppers, and the proper proportion of rice and beans. They were so spicy you didn’t need salsa—but you needed that protein and fiber, couldn’t survive without it.”
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I had a very good super pork chile verde burrito from La Palma Mexicatessen on 24th Street today - the star was the flour tortilla, which I believe is made in-house.
Difficult to photo burritos but for this one I made a cross-section.
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La Palma has always been the real deal.
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good lookin burrito and salsa!
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I admit that I’m beating a dead horse, but even allowing for differences in beans, rice or no, meats, taqueria food really comes down to the salsas. Make or break.
In the last 3 weeks, we’ve had 4 burrito, taco and tamale experiences that were less than stellar ONLY because of the salsas. All else was more than acceptable or expected. But the salsas skewed each dish in a slightly wrong flavor direction,
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Tortillas too if you ask me for burritos and tacos.
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