Spare the Air

Friday was a Spare the Air day and the budget had not yet been depleted, so public transportation was free. That was pretty awesome, so I'm hoping next year's budget will cover all Spare the Air days. Of the friends I contacted, one was sleeping, one was working, and two had plans that involved biking back from San Leandro after a number of beers. So I headed across the bay. I got out at Balboa Park and hopped on a bus, which was free. Eventually, I found myself at 30thish and Mission. I wanted to see how high the numbers went on Mission, so I started walking. After a few blocks, I realized the numbers were decreasing, so I started walking the other way. I had never been to the Sunset during the day before. I like it. After half an hour, I realized that I had no idea how far Mission went, so I changed my goal-- I was going to take it out of the city. I finally made it to Daly City and turned back immediately. Nothing against Daly City; I just had a growling stomach and a new goal : I would eat the southernmost carnitas burrito on Mission in the city.




























Here's where I found it-- 5300 Mission St, the Fran. My brother refuses to eat at any place that shows pictures of the food in the window, so I can only imagine what he'd think of a place that puts pictures of the food on the sign.

They give you the chips




























and salsa




















right away. A thoughtful gesture, but you have to fold the burrito reasonably fast when you do that. You don't want your average customer running out of chips and you really don't want your burritoblogger reducing the cup of salsa to a puddle before he takes his camera out to take pictures of everything. I'm perhaps overly concerned with getting the same burrito everyone else gets, so I try not to let on that I'm documenting anything until I get the burrito, you see. Another reason the salsa disappeared so quickly was that it was the hottest I've had without some sort of warning. The salsas with warnings, from Berkeley Cancun's "Salsa Infierno" to Cascada's Salsa Rojo (they use the o, there's nothing I can do) with the 3 red peppers on the sign to HTB's Nuclear Salsa are all significantly hotter, I just didn't expect much heat at all from this stuff. Now tell me, is this or is this not high-quality foodporn, worth billing to your credit card so long as it shows under a discreet name on your statement:




























They give you an option of salsas to put in the burrito, but the "spicy" salsa didn't meet the expectations raised by what they gave me with the chips. The meat, as you can see, was nice and crusty. Fans of the edge of the roast will feel right at home here. It wasn't out of boredom with the burrito but my rather reckless nature that I found myself experimenting with the bottled salsas. Not squeeze bottles this time, gracias a Dios, but this crew instead :























I first tried the one on the left. I got one drop out of it and it refused to yield any more. When I looked closely to see if there was an obstruction, I noticed that it was for seafood. I couldn't taste the drop on my burrito.

I have a bottle of the one on the right in my fridge. It's good stuff, but then again, it's in my fridge.

I'd recognize the second from the left anywhere. It's for housewives and little girls. Also? That's a white guy with a fake moustache on the front. Nothing against white people. I'm just saying.

That leaves Kutbil-ik. I realize that, despite my awesome photogramaphy, you might not be able to read the "Original Mayan Recipe." I found this a little creepy, eating an extremely hot salsa associated to people associated with predicting the end of the world in 2012. Only just now did I discover that the Mayans didn't predict that at all; they just have a rollover date in 2012, like when your car hits a million miles.

Anyway, back to the salsa. It wasn't fiery. It didn't produce any searing, lasting pain. It was actually pretty smooth. But at the same time, I had no doubt that it was, in fact, extremely hot. I investigated this enigma until a few bites into the second half of the burrito, when my tongue said "that's all I can stands and I can't stands no more!" Oddly enough, I felt fine immediately after stopping. I meant to buy a bottle, but never got a






















Some of the condiments are probably feeling pretty left-out now, so I present them to you in all their extremely-out-of-place glory :























KETCHUP???

The place is pretty sweet. They had the same mirrors as La Bamba, a big honkin' flatscreen TV and sixpacks for sale (although you can't drink there). I wanted to capture two pieces of art, this



























and a couple rather creative Jesus paintings. I don't mean like Jesus as a rabbit with an atomic bomb for a head on a turquoise-and-pink checkerboard background, just a little artsier than the Jesus from the side of the candle. Somebody was obstructing my shot, so you'll just have to check those out for yourself.