Mexicali Soft Power

Burritos man, that's some Mexicali soft power right there.  Never heard of em’ when I was a kid.  I guess I’d heard of a taco.  But I’d probably never eaten much of anything except the hard shell things you used to get that always seemed clumsy and stale.  Somewhere around the time I lived in Manhattan in the late eighties, you could find places like “Bennies Burritos” downtown that were notable for their use of the word in neon.  But my friends would visit from San Francisco and wave such places off as if they were well beneath consideration.  What did I know?  Let’s get a slice then.

One lives in San Francisco and one develops an appreciation for what the taste should be.  La Taqueria on Twenty-Fifth an Mission.  El Toro over on Valencia, these classic places that defined, for me at least, what a burrito should be. I’m sure someone down San Jose or perhaps in L.A. might insist that they actually have something yet again more authentic.  But to my thinking the classic taste was established somewhere there, in the Mission. 

I’m on about burritos because I was tasked with going and buying them for everyone today.   This happens a lot.   The burrito joint is the place to go for a quick eat in our local expat ghetto shopping joint.  An azure sky day, I biked over after taking everyone’s lunch order. 

The older daughter wants a ‘burrito bowl” with no meat.  I’ll take the meat, in fact I’ll opt for an extra helping, but join her for a bowl instead of the starch.  I love the hand held log as much as anyone.  But I don’t love the handles.  The younger one wants a quesadilla and mom’s having the classic.  There was no real question about where I’d be directed to, when I popped the lunch question. Why?  We could be having pizza or burgers, or jianbingguozi  or any number of other quick bites from around the globe, but everyone is set on this taste. 

Throwing my bike up against the restaurant wall, where I could see the tire if I craned my neck, I headed into the Avocado Tree and took my place in line. There is always a line.   I’m sure there’s some foreign know-how behind the drill, though I couldn’t say if there is any Mexican know-how involved, but everyone behind the counter is definitely local.  A bald guy half my age takes me through the choices, order by order.  A bit inefficient, but they all get made in the end.  The burrito order is last and it is stuffed so full I question whether it will close, but he manages.  The brown paper bag they hand me it all in is also stuffed.  There are no handles to hold for the bike ride home.  Stuffed, and rolled up, like the items inside, I will have to take the speed bumps slowly on my return ride home.