It's back to May

 September burritos suck. May burritos are much better 

Due to Covid-19, Burrito Appreciation Month is postponed until September

That's it. That's the post. See you in September.

Torta - The Burrito's First Cousin

One thing our site has been horrible about is torta appreciation awareness.  That is about to change...

The torta is a close relative of the burrito.  In fact, in spanish, torta means burrito sandwich.  While I haven't done my full research, I believe the torta, unlike the burrito which rich in Latin history, was invented somewhere in the Midwest in the late 90s.  Obviously it was targeted at overweight gringos, as it has a full burrito pile, but instead of placing on a low calorie flout tortilla, it is on toasted buttered bread which resembles Texas toast.  All I know is that 3 words come to mind when I think about a torta: De, lisch, and ous

For today's particular torta, I went to Las Asadas for the Carne asada torta.  I'd tell you about it but the pictures below really say everything I would want to say.

If only totra appreciation month had the same ring to it as burrito appreciation month....

Burrito in a Cup

Yum.

Man Seeking Chorizo Burrito Lover

As we all know the ultimate test of compatibility is whether or not you and your partner can agree on a burrito order. One online dating company finally implemented this as part of their matching criteria. Single and ready to mingle? Head on over to Zoosk's Burrit-OH! site and find your one true love.

This App Will Help You Find the Nearest Burrito

In case of emergency, break glass....or launch My Burrito Finder the app which will tell you where the nearest burrito purveyor is located. Late night in Waupaca, WI? Head to Jonny Salsa on Fulton St. Craving Carne Asada in Schenectady, NY? Check out Bombers Burrito Bar on State. The app even works internationally so if you're an expat in Paris you can check out Fajitas on Rue Dauphine.

It's Good to Be [Taco Burrito] King [@ 405 S. Wells]

The Taco Burrito King @ 405 S. Wells is a Delicious Burrito Joint located in the south loop.  If you have a hunger for a lunchtime burrito on a weekday in Chicago, I'd recommend that you go there.

What many people don't know is that Tom Petty wrote a song about it in the 90's.  While his hit 'It's Good to Be King' does not specifically mention the Taco Burrito King @ 405 S. Wells, it is clear from the context that this song is subliminally about this restaurant.   Like many of the best songs of the 20th and early 21st century, there are underlying drug and burrito references, but the best song writers make these references subtle and subliminal, so the listener has to use their imagination, and the censors are none the wiser.

For those of you who are unable to interpret the true meaning of this wonderful song, I have put the hidden words in brackets [] mixed with the lyrics that are heard by the untrained ear:

It's good to be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells], if just for a while

To be there in velvet, yeah, to give 'em a smile

It's good to get high, and never come down

It's good to be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells] of your own little town

Yeah, the world would swing if I were [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells]

Can I help it if I still dream time to time [about Taco Burrito King @405 S. Wells]

It's good to be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells] and have your own way

Get a feeling of peace at the end of the day

And when your bulldog barks and your canary sings

You're out there with winners, yeah, it's good to be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells]

Yeah I'll be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells] when dogs get wings

Can I help it if I still dream time to time

It's good to be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells] and have your own world

It helps to make friends, it's good to meet girls

A sweet little queen who can't run away

It's good to be [Taco Burrito] King [@405 S. Wells], whatever it pays

Excuse me if I have some place in my mind

Where I go time to time [Taco Burrito King @405 S. Wells]

Taqueria Moran

Hello all and Welcome Back!  Not sure where you've been, but I've been on a special mission from the Burrito gods...covert and underground since my last posts during the polar burrito vortex of 2014.

Only a few things have happened since that infamous burrito vortex that I can talk about (a) I got married (b) I had a son (c) I taught my son that Flash Taco is evil, Chipotle is only a little better, and the good fight needs to be fought every May (side note when we took our son to Chipotle he projectile vommited..Atta boy - The good lord knows though he will never go near Flash Taco!)

Back to the story of this evening.  Armed with my family and a quest for the delicious taste that can only be found in May, we headed to the burrito dominated neighborhood of Logan Square. I figured that since we had formed and expanded our family, it was time to spend this Cinco de Mayo expanding our stomachs with some tasty and wonderful burritos.

We chose Taqueria Moran located in the heart of the Logan Square, a natural choice due to it location, wonderful cuisine and availability of high chairs.  I had the Carnitas burrito suizo, my wife had some chicken enchaladas, and my son had a varried order that included:

(a) A fistful of cheese
(b) Googly eyes at the female patrons
(c) a spoon for tossing
(d) Gerber squash which may or may not be code for pureed steak burrito.

The staff was great, the carnitas were to die for, the chicken was real poultry, the parking was easy and there was a lack of hipsters.  Overall, we give the experience 6 thumbs up, great fun in Logan Square for under $25.

We are headed to Madison for the weekend, maybe you'll hear from us again in the next 48???  Who knows what the hell we'll get into up there #!#!

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/

La Cocina

Hello friends!
Today I had the pleasure of eating a burrito from a place called La Cocina. The restaurant is located in downtown Chicago although apparently the owners have restaurants in other locations as well. I cannot vouch for those other locations. I can only vouch for the downtown locale. I can also vouch for a guy named Bob Garfield. He's a stand up guy and a person you should get in touch with if you are interested in term life insurance.

Other people I can vouch for: Ned Torgorson, Alan Ivy, Dick Thompkins, Ritchie "Fizzle Head" Polanski, and Gary Rohrbacher. I can't vouch for any women. I wish I could but I've been scorned so many times that I've become bitter and jaded. Maybe I should just let go of my hang-ups but they are pretty deeply seeded within my persona at this point. I mean it's like I meet a woman, talk to her about burritos for a few minutes, and then when I ask her if she ever wants to get a cup of salsa she claims she has a communicable disease.  Either there's a large percentage of the populous walking around with Chikungunya Fever or I'm getting the cold shoulder!

At this point I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I will die alone. That does not depress me at all. I will just use the extra time spent by myself eating and writing about burritos. In this way I give back to society and make the world a better place. Funny how life works out, huh?

As for the burrito at La Cocina, it was tasty. I give it a 7 out of 10.

Until next time,
Burritophile

An Asian, a Mexican, and an Irishman Walk Into a Burrito Joint...

Hello friends,
Welcome to Burrito Appreciation Month! We have a lot of great burritos to eat this month and look forward to sharing our adventures with you. My colon, Ted, and I are on great terms right now. We realized that we need each other in order to thrive as a human and a colon respectively. As such, a tenuous truce has been declared and there is peace within my stomach.....for now.

Yesterday I ate a burrito from Taco Burrito King located at 405 S Wells in Chicago.  I've eaten at this location before and for some reason I thought it was a good place to get a burrito but perhaps the events of that day clouded my memory....

Summer of 2012 I walked through stifling heat with two friends - Allen, from Korea, and Miguel, from Mexico - to get a burrito from the Taco Burrito King. Temperatures bordered on 100 degrees which is very hot for those who stay indoors all day. As we made our way through the streets of Chicago, a man approached us and began to regale us with a tale of woe. He needed money to get to St. Louis to visit his son who was dying of a broken heart. When he asked for our group to take pity and donate a gold coin for his journey I said "I haven't a farthing to spare good sir! I myself am a student and poor by nature. I have only enough coins for a burrito and nothing more."  The man was not amused by my response. He reached for my arm and touched it sternly on the fore. I recoiled quickly. "Good sir! You may not touch my being!" I screamed. He became quite agitated. "I'll touch your ass whenever I want!" he exclaimed. I could see Allen and Miguel readying themselves for battle or maybe they were readying themselves to curl up in the fetal position I can't be sure which. We moved cautiously down the sidewalk leaving the man behind us in a rage. He followed for a few steps bought thought better of attacking one against three.  I'm not sure if the man ever made it to St. Louis or not as we took a different route home.

For some reason, I remembered the burrito of that day being very good. And maybe it was, but I as I said maybe I was still shaken by my encounter with the gentleman on the sidewalk. The burrito I had yesterday was very average. Quite soupy in consistency and not a ton of flavor. A certain level of soupiness is to be expected for a chorizo burrito, but a steak burrito should not have so much goop falling out of the bottom of the tortilla. I give it a four.

Until next time....

Burritophile

New Burrito Delivery System

From the geniuses at Darwin Aerospace, we share with you THE BURRITO BOMBER. "The World's First Airborne Mexican Food Delivery System". If only more young people were willing to pursue careers in the science of burrito delivery, we could once more set this country on a path to global supremacy.

Bucks for Burritos '13

‘Fear the Deer’ was the chant of the 2009-2010 Milwaukee Bucks who won 46 games and took the Atlanta Hawks to a tightly contested game 7 in the NBA Playoffs.  Three years later, after the 2012-2013 season,  no one fears these deer, and they have found themselves as 76:1 underdogs in Vegas to beat the all-powerful Miami Heat in the first round of the 2013 NBA playoffs.  Personally, I love a challenge and I love an underdog.  In response, I have tracked down my bookie and placed a burrito bet on the Bucks.  Most people familiar with Vegas wonder how this is possible, but trust me, when you are in the burrito biz, anything is possible.

So here is how it goes, the Bucks win, I get 76 burritos.  The bucks loose, I forfeit 1 burrito. 

Here is where you come in…I need all of the followers in Burrito Land to cheer hard for the Bucks!  If I win, we all win, and burritos for all!  If you are able to do something even more than cheer (I’m thinking Tonya Harding style on LeBron James) that would be greatly appreciated too.  Instead of ‘Fear the Deer’ let’s think ‘Bucks for Burritos’ in ’13.

P.S.  You may have noticed that the Burritophile and I haven’t had much April traffic on the site posting about warms-up, practice and such.  Much like the NBA game, we have graduated to the pro level and don’t practice anymore.  As a result, we are saving it up for ‘game time’ which starts next Wednesday May 1.  It about time for all of us to get our game faces on and go!