San Francisco Part 1: Mission Burritos

This is my first blog for the month of August, and my apologies go out to anyone who noticed and/or cared. You see, the lamp on my computer died, leaving me with a stubborn black screen. So I just delightedly bought a new computer, not realizing I would have to wait 10 days for it to come in the mail. So that explains my internet hiatus. Well, that, and I just got back from San Francisco! Why San Francisco? Well, I figure while I'm living out west I should try to hit up some travel destinations on the western side of things, and I also happen to have a good university friend who lives in San Fran. So the question really is: Why not San Francisco?

San Francisco is a really cool place. When I travel I always do some research on what regional specialties, novelties, and must-eats exist in a certain area. The most obvious food entity for San Fransisco is the Mission Burrito. The Mission district of San Francisco basically invented the Mexican-American burrito as we know it. I recommend strolling around Mission and eating a burrito, if you are ever touring through. These burritos are HUGE and the flour tortillas are steamed, allowing them to stretch around a ton of ingredients without bursting and making a mess. They are typically stuffed with beans, rice, salsa and meat, but you can sup it up with sour cream, cheese, and avocado.

El Farolito 

"We don't eat at the BART station in San Francisco" - random lady walking by

My first burrito was from El Farolito. We were on our way to Oakland for the A's vs. Jays game, so we had to get these to-go and ended up eating them in the BART station while waiting for a train. The burritos were so skillfully rolled and wrapped in the tinfoil that they made no mess at all (despite the concerns of our good sumaritan passing by). My burrito had a roasted poblano chile inside which was addictively delicious with the avocado, rice and beans. We munched on pickled jalapeno peppers while we waited, which seemed like a good idea at first ... but our mouths were burning pretty badly by the time we got our food and we had to pour some cups of complimentary water to take with us. We also packed up some salsa to go which we dumped on top of each biting portion. I really enjoyed the mild but tasty green salsa. This was so excellent, despite the glamourousness of fiercly mowing down take-out at the BART station with pesky do-gooders flying about...

Taqueira Cancun

Taqueria Cancun has an award winning burrito, according to the internet and the restaurants' walls. My friend told me her brother insists on the place, although burrito debate in San Francisco can be a touchy subject! I didn't like this burrito as much as the one from El Farolito. Perhaps it's not a safe comparison because there were no roasted poblanos available at this place, despite having an award winning vegetarian burrito. But mainly, I think I prefer refried beans in my burrito, rather than intact black or pinto beans, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't given that option. This is a personal bias, of course. I LOVE bean paste. Any kind of mashy mushy bean substance, really, with frijoles refritos (a.k.a. refried beans) being the shining star. Since I stuck to vegetarian burritos, it's hard for me to comment on the meat. However, I will say this: the carne asada I saw being sliced up on the table at El Farolito looked decadent. To be even more unfairly biased, I will admit that I did order a taco at Taqueria Cancun. And desiring to try something generally unavailable in the north, I asked the clerk what was better, the beef head or the beef tongue (I made no mention of the brains, not being a zombie)... and he confidently suggested the tongue. So... here is my beef tongue taco:

This isn't Old El Paso, kids!

While I am a big fan of corn tortillas and a real good salsa (which Taqueria Cancun certainly has) it turns out I am not a big fan of beef tongue. You'd think that would be a safe guess, but just the other day I learned I am a big fan of deep fried bean curd stuffed with shrimp paste. So you never know. Maybe the beef head would have been the better option after all. Tongue is just too... well, you can imagine the texture. Nuff said. So basically my evaluation of the meat based items from these two restaurants is not worthy of your attention.

Oh, but in Taqueria Cancun's favour, I should mention that chips were included with the meal, whereas El Farolito has started charging. Salsa is complimentary at both locations.

El Farolito

2779 Mission St. San Francisco, CA

Taqueria Cancun 
2288 Mission St. San Francisco, CA