I ate at La Chilangita's food truck a couple weeks ago, but I couldn't tell if they had burritos on the menu, and they advertise themselves as serving Mexico City style Mexican food (hence their name), so I ordered a chavindeca to try something new. This was a delicious two-corn tortilla quesadilla with a lot of meat and cheese inside. Not a burrito though, so I went to the restaurant of the same corporation to eat one today.
The place is on the corner of East Lake and Holohan in a small strip that seems to see a lot of cars pass by and very few stop. It was nearly empty when I arrived and empty by the time I ate. The woman behind the counter was very friendly and was the first person in 8 tries so far to engage with my question of a meat recommendation. Asada is most popular followed by carnitas and then suadero. Suadero is brisket, which is the meat of my people, so the choice was clear. I asked if poco carne was possible and she went back to check with the kitchen, which spoke directly to the operation's attention to detail. She offered chips and then gathered three (3!) separate table salsa bottles from the fridge, in addition to a cup of chip salsa which was bright red and a little smoky.
The burrito was stand out. The distribution was close to perfect and the level of moisture was perfect and consistent throughout. Mouthfeel is more than half of the point of eating a burrito, and La Chilangita has mouthfeel dialed in, or at least whoever was cooking today does. The brisket was juicy and its umami permeated most, but not all of the bites. The rice was quite honestly ethereal, and somehow everywhere there was rice, there was a touch of cheese. I think the only other strong opinion I've had about rice in burritos is that I wish there were less of it. I tasted two of the table salsas and found them a little off, but the third, a dark red, was almost exactly like Tacos Moreno's famous table salsa and I used it heavily. The tortilla was grilled and crispy, and my only complaint, and I never would have though of this if the burrito hadn't been so freaking good, was that the whole thing was a little too big.
That last thought may be a little controversial, but most of the burritos I've counted so far have been just the right size. That size being the size at which you can finish the burrito, including the delicious butt, and feel a little more full than normal, with a pleasant, glowing joy from being enchilado and super-sated. The Watsonville super burritos are definitely in conversation with the San Francisco style behemoths, but they easily beat them out by being the right big size, rather than too big. I'm sure there's plenty of men in their twenties or who work as bike messengers who would disagree, but I'd rather get back on the bike and feel slow and good than slow and bad.
Next time I would order a suadero super burrito and I might actually ask if they could make it a little smaller. Or I might not.
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