A Challenger

At 1446 University Ave, the Berk,

serves up legendary carnitas burritos. I had been there before for carne asada, but I was probably too much of a neophyte then to recognize the hallmarks of greatness. There's a bit of foreshadowing in the chips and salsa. Once I got them (the girl behind the counter absent-mindedly handed me empty salsa cups but no chips,) the chips were delightfully warped and greasy. The only salsa in the salsa bar labelled "hot" or "spicy" was actually hot and flavorful. The salsa borracho was also quality, though there wasn't enough beverage in it for me to determine what got it drunk.

Then the burrito arrived at my table, wrapped around the middle in paper. I thought about it for a minute and decided to cut it in the usual fashion.

Unwise. The diagonal slice is for aesthetic purposes only and I do not endorse its use in recreational burrito ingestion. As far as a Monte Cristo burrito goes, it's just asking for trouble. Paper and tortilla are not up to the task of keeping the halves together after the slice. After scooping up the mess with a fork, however, there were no further complications. The pork was delicious. The title of this entry is an announcement that La Casa Latina is no longer the undisputed champion. Monte Cristo's carnitas straddle the spectrum from juicy and tender to excitingly crispified. The tortilla, as you can see, is lightly grill-browned, adding to the texture. Finally, the salsa fresca really distinguishes this burrito. I'm not a huge tomato fan, but I could tell that whatever went into this salsa was grown for flavor, not mass.

Inside the door, I noticed a poster dealie for Montero's. I don't know if they share an owner or if they're so far apart that they don't regard themselves as competitors. Monte Cristo's is fancy and nice inside :

but the burritos were very different. I turned to Google to settle the score.

Results 1 - 10 of about 10,600 for "monte cristo" montero's. (0.05 seconds)

Now I feel like a dumbass.

Frausto's

lacks carnitas.

El Taco Loco con Taiyo

I've wanted to eat at

ever since I spotted this

on the side of their 3274 24th St, the Fran location. I felt bad about the metal bar in my picture of their sign until I realized that a place advertising their "acos" probably doesn't care too much about the sign. As for the second, why's the taco the "loco" one? Who's the one with the crazy grin brandishing a piece? Then again, maybe the pepper's a known tough guy and the taco was insane to confront him unarmed. Anyway, a bar (the drinky kind) obscures the rest of the picture. I'd like to get on the roof to get a closer look. I have a feeling that this was originally a picture of a pepper and a taco and the anthropomorphization, authorized or not, was added later.

Inside, there's a surprising amount of room. The walls all feature something in the rough neighborhood of "art." They're not shy about pumping oom-pah-pah mexican music over the sound system. Baja Fresh this ain't.

The chips were stale. The salsa, featuring avocados but too thin to be called guac, pretty good. There was also a salsa fresca, but too similar to all the others to count. My burrito

was pretty good. The meat was from a fatty cut, in the good sense, and was pretty juicy (one half dripped on my hand). But we have to think about the location of this place : a stone's through from El Farolito and Taqueria San Jose. "Pretty good" doesn't count for much. Taiyo's opinion was even less generous, he

described his veggie burrito as "below average," due to insufficient rice and beans. I'd recommend going once, even if just to see the baffling back wall :

Before you go to babelfish, ask yourself : are there any words or phrases that it could return that would explain this?

Where's the Corner of Lenny and Leonard?

On a commenter's advice, I decided to check out PortoMex. My walk there took me through the best intersection ever :





When I got to PortoMex, I was dismayed to discover that they had no carnitas. I could have said "fuck it" and had a carne asada burrito, but there were so many places around that I knew I could get carnitas on the way back on the same side of the street. PortoMex is located at 721 23rd St, Richmond. I found carnitas at 325 23rd St. Here's the place :



Which estrella are they talking about? The horizontally-partitioned one or the estrella con cabeza verde y piernas rojas?



This burrito was a chore to eat. The meat was really tough and not too flavorful. I finished it in case there was something redeeming at the bottom. There wasn't. There are times I give a lukewarm review because I know not everyone has the time to make a pilgramage to La Casa Latina during lunch, but in this case, I'll just come right out and say "don't eat this burrito." If you're on 23rd, you've got lots of options. It's a shame about the burrito, because the salsa roja was chunky and superb, and I really enjoyed the cantaloupe agua fresca, both pictured below.

ailimaF al aireuqaT

On my way to pay some bills yesterday, I stopped at
,
2971 Shattuck, the Berk. It's very close to my last apartment, so I used to eat here a lot. I'd usually get the fajita burrito because I love peppers. Yesterday, of course, I went with the carnitas, which looked like something between this:

and this:
.
I was fiddling with my camera, a Nikon coolpix L3. I really like how the second picture turned out, but I feel that it's more fictional than the first. It wasn't a bright, sunshiney day, as the first would have you believe, but the "close-up" setting made the second look like I took it at midnight. Better contrast with the table, though.

Taqueria la Familia makes an excellent carnitas burrito, which will cost you $4.98. These were bottom-of-the-pan carnitas, soft and crustless, but still flavorful. I liked the salsa verde! (!!!) The most distinctive thing about this burrito was the lettuce. It's really out of fashion now, but iceberg lettuce has a crunch I have yet to find in any of its snobbier cousins. The texture adds a welcome contrast to all the soft stuff in the burrito. There's also a good bit of burrito juice here. One half leaked, but at this point, I think I have enough burritos under my belt to say I prefer leaky over dry.

I leave you with Taqueria la Familia's wall-art, painted by Ariel Shepard.

Eat at Juan's Before You're Dead

I met up with my crew, pictured later, at
,
located at 941 Carleton St, the Berk. Juan's maintains a good atmosphere for medium to large-sized crews. That doesn't just mean booze; it means a restaurant full of people who aren't just Out for a Bite to Eat, they're Going to Juan's. You might think that's the case only because Juan's isn't near any other eating destinations. You'd be wrong. The truth is, people go to Juan's to fulfill a two-burrito appetite. One of the menu items is, in fact, two burritos. I'll have to go back and split that with somebody to do the real review. This time, I couldn't resist peer pressure and went with the Super Burrito with Grilled Pork :

That's not a small plate. As you can see, this burrito is doubly-disqualified and hits the trifecta once you open it up. Unlike some places, Juan goes for flavor as well as size, and does a damn good job of it. For my sane readers, I suggest slicing the thing down the middle from the beginning and taking home one of the halves. For my real readers, this is a solo eating competition : you versus the burrito.

I won. For the record, so did everyone in my crew who took the challenge. Later, we went to play charades at La Casa de Joe, below, right,

and his roommate , second from right, joined us. Is it just a coincidence that the only person in the photo who didn't eat at Juan's is also the only one with ring face?

Burritos in the News

Rubio's, reviewed earlier, is in hot water over lobster (sorry). I hadn't noticed the lobster burrito on the menu, but I'm willing to do a round of lobster burrito reviews after the carnitas reviews are over. For those of you who have noticed a slowdown in recent weeks, I'm nearly done. Here's an incomplete list of burreateries sin carnitas in the East Bay :

• La Burrita
• Pollo
• Baja (afaik, they'd be the only other entry in the lobster burrito competition)
• Razan
• 360
• Mario's
• Taco Bell (Gracias a Dios)

Here are the ones I feel I should cover :

• Juan's (the upcoming entry where I let them cheat doesn't count)
  
• Gordo's,
  
• Cactus
  
• Cancun
• Christopher's Nothing Fancy
• That other place on San Pablo that happened to be out of carnitas that time I ended up at Montero's
• maybe the other Chipotle just for fun
• The new Chipotle on Telegraph as soon as it opens
• The truck occasionally parked on Broadway's auto row
  
• the truck on International Boulevard and the place in Richmond recommended in the comments.
  

If this list grows, I might pick up the pace again. I know I left out a number of fruitvale places, at the very least.