Nate Silver Picks the Best Burrito in the Country

Several years ago, noted blogger, statistician, and election predictor, Nate Silver, created a "burrito bracket" to judge the best burrito in the city of Chicago (or at least within walking distance of his Wicker Park apartment). 

Now, the founder of fivethirtyeight.com has taken it a step further; he's creating a NATIONAL burrito bracket. A serious undertaking to say the least. If he needs any assistance, he knows where to turn (although we are surprised he did not choose to hold his contest in May since, well, that's burrito appreciation month and everything).

Good luck and godspeed, Nate! We will be following your bracket closely.

Cheers,

Burritophile

My Burrito Was Not Grand(e)

Welcome to Burrito Appreciation Month 2014!

I think you all know the drill. We eat burritos and then talk about them. Sometimes we include funny anecdotes or videos like this one:

Other times, we simply present the finest burrito news you can find. Like this:

Flamin' Hot Cheetos Burrito Coming to Taco John's

But for the most part, we eat burritos and then if we feel like it we write a few words on the experience. I'd appreciate it if you spread the word about the blog because I need money to pay off my gambling debt. On to the burrito...

Santiago's

Today I feasted on a  burrito from Santiago's in LaGrange, IL. I thought Santiago was a city in Chile so maybe this was a Chilean burrito? This burrito sort of sucked. First off, it was listed as a "Grande Burrito." Those of you that speak Chilean can confirm, but I thought "grande" meant "sort of big". Apparently in Chilean it means "not as big as you thought it was based on the picture in the restaurant window." This burrito was wee. It was small. It was diminutive (I just bought a thesaurus). And all it had inside was ground beef. The silly Chileans put the cheese on the outside! All in all it was a very disappointing experience. I will probably go back simply because it makes me feel worldly to eat Chilean food but I won't enjoy it. 

Until next time...

Burritophile

Diner Attacked After Refusing Man's Demand for Bite of His Burrito

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/burrito-assault-576432

If anyone tries to take a bite of MY burrito they go back with a stump. Kudos to this brave individual for standing up to this aggression.

Today is NOT National Margarita Day!

Some fools made up a holiday! What a bunch of ignorant jackwagons! Hahahahahahaha!

Everyone knows that National Margarita Day is actually on May 17th (which is also the day my dog Mayor McPug was born. RIP buddy! I'll never forgive myself for taking you off the leash while changing my tire on the interstate.)

Don't believe me? Here's the imposter website:

National Margarita Day FAKERS

And here's the REAL one:

National Margarita Day FOR REALSIES

It's obvious to anyone with a brain that the real site is much more entertaining and informative.  Do not be fooled by imposters!

Also, do not give this kid money. I will eat burritos for free....you can sit and watch me do it.

Until next time...
Burritophile

Polar Vortex Burrito #2

I was up late trying to link the association between the recent Polar Vortex and the appreciation of burritos.   I had to ask myself “Do polar bears eat burritos?...No (sadly for them); Can I purchase a polar bear burrito?...No;  Were burritos discovered at the north pole?...No; Did the early Viking or Eskimo cultures embrace the burrito…No (once again sad for them)”.  After not being able to link the two entities by any type of word association, I decided I would have to use my engineering background and knowledge of science and statistics to find the link.

The key to finding the relationship would be a Venn Diagram.  For those of you who don’t know, A Venn diagram or set diagram is a diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of sets. Venn diagrams were conceived around 1880 by John Venn. They are used to teach  elementary  set theory, as well as illustrate simple set relationships in   probability,  logic,  statistics,  linguistics and computer science. 

In one circle I put “Polar Vortex” and in a second circle I put “Burrito Appreciation”.  Look at where the circles overlap and wallah, we determine what they have in common.

NOTHING?!?1?!?  Wow - I did not figure this would be the answer.  This is ironic, though, because you know what you will not enjoy about a burrito at La Cuchara - NOTHING, that's right, there is nothing that you will not enjoy!

La Chuchara is located at 1521 W. Madison Street and there is nothing that isn't great about this burrito.  Honestly, order the Arrachera Burrito with grilled skirt steak.  There is nothing not to love.  There is no way to not enjoy the Chihuahua Cheese.  It is not possible not to savor the sour cream.  I could not dream of not loving the scrumptious refried beans.  It is service with a smile and is is not not possible to not like nothing about this experience, and this isn't not the truth.  If you don't believe me, see the Venn Diagram below, they don't lie:

This is the point where I have to apologize to the reader.   I didn't actually go to La Chuchara for a burrito, I only looked it up online.  I would love to go there, but in light of the recent Polar Vortex, it was just way to frickin' cold to walk over.  The pictures looked delicious, menu description wonderful and I am sure that I will get there soon and prove everything that I hypothesized true.  Until then, please be sure to tune into future installments regarding the Polar Vortex Burrito.

Polar Vortex Burrito

Marketing is not an exact science; but here is a scientific fact:  If you put “Get Some Burritos” on your store front, at least 100 times out of 100 I will stop in for a burrito.  Seriously, there have been studies performed, and I have never once ended up without a burrito.  This is why I found myself inside this lovely establishment after wandering the cold winter streets of Madison Wisconsin on Tuesday at lunch time.

Get Some Burritos was started 4 months ago next to the Plaza Bar on Henry Street at the site of the old 4-Star Video.  With the inception of Netflix and On-Demand Programming, the family video store is a dying institute that has become almost completely obsolete.   I have a short-term dream that every out-of-business video store across America will be transformed into a burrito joint.  Wouldn’t that be a wonderful America?  Every town would have at least one burrito joint, and many new burrito joints would be available near some of the hippest areas of town.

This of course will only be trumped by my long term vision that there will be a Netflix equivalent for the burrito.  Can you imagine, for the small fee of about $8/month, we could stream burritos out of our TVs and onto our dinner plates.   Of course, with burritos so easily available, this would force all of these new, afore mentioned burrito joints back out of business, but let’s not get too caught up on this unintended side effect.   The technology to stream burritos to our living rooms is at least months if not weeks away!

Now, back to the burrito, I ordered a Badger Burrito.  This is  their full Carne Asada Burrito that is then over-stuffed full with steak fries.  The burrito was wonderful, and very Wisconsin in its essence.  By “Wisconsin in its essence” I mean that it takes a food that is already wonderful and glutinous, and pushes it over the cliff.   This follows the model of a Cheese Curd, where some Wisconsinite looked at a huge ball of cheese and did not think it was delicious or unhealthy enough, so they decided to deep fry it for that extra push over the cliff.  I believe this, much like the Badger Burrito, is a stroke of genius.  If you find yourself on Henry Street in Madison, do not pass this by, go inside and get yourself a Badger Burrito.

Back to the article title, why was this named Polar Vortex Burrito?  Honestly, I am not sure.  If you have any thoughts let me know.  Maybe I can include your thoughts when I write my upcoming piece “Polar Vortex Burrito #2”.

A Burrito Wedding Cake???

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/08/burrito-cake-photo-video_n_4554481.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

The cold blast this January has me looking forward to May, and more specifically, for all you folks in LA, there is an automatic burrito vending machine!  Post haste, go, go, go!!!

http://tastetheburritobox.com/