Taqueria Cancun (Mission/19th)
San Francisco, CA
| Overall Score based on 11 reviews |
6.4 not recommended |
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User Reviews (11)
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Showing 1-11 of 11 (most recent reviews shown first)
Score: 8 / 10 Reviewed by: burritowizard (Los Angeles, CA)
The tourist trap of San Francisco taquerias, Cancun does make a decent burrito. Textbook tightly wound Mission style burrito with all the bells and whistles for $5 and change. A buttery lardy taste draws some alarm, but their amazing spicy guacamole sauce (with whole avocados) helps to offset my worries. Little too much rice and the flavor is a bit flat. Enjoyed it, but with all the extraordinary options in the Mission I doubt I will return to Cancun anytime soon.
www.burritowisdom.com
Score: 1 / 10 Reviewed by: vcuevas
Dont believe the hype.....
i didnt enjoy this place even after stumbling in there WASTED after beauty bar one night!
but im reasonable, so i decided to give it another try while sober. nope, still sucks.
the food is forgetable....unlike la cumbre
and whats with everything being rediculously spicy!?! you cant even taste what youre eating because youre mouth is on fire. i like spicy, but there is a difference between spicy and not good.
in my opinion this place should change their name to taqueria caca. :)
Score: 2 / 10 Reviewed by: mauriceah
Went here to try the Al Pastor after reading good reviews on Cancun. The meat was horrible - too fatty, chunks were large and too chewy. This was not like the al pastor you could get at Altena or TSJ or even an El Grullense. It was just horrible - no good flavor, no good texture and nothing came together in the burrito. It was a huge disappointment.
Salsa was nice and spicy but that was it. Everything else was crap. You'll have a much better time at Altena or TSJ although Cancun has one good thing that differentiates it: nice decor.
Score: 8 / 10 Reviewed by: flea607
Taqueria Cancun is a staple mission burrito shop. Their flavorful rice and beans are typical of San Francisco burrito excellence. Take an East Coast visitor here and enjoy the look astonishment creep across their face after they take the first bite. 'This is what a burrito can be?' Yes, my friend. Rice and beans do not have to be boring filler. They can be delicious. Welcome to The Mission. Very good carne asada. Fantastic, fresh guac. BIG, well-wrapped bundles of happiness. Chips and salsa with your take-out burrito. There are better places out there but not very many.
Score: 10 / 10 Reviewed by: cletusdog
this is my absolute favorite place in the world for burritos. mission style burritos are obviously the best and this is the best of the best. the tortillas are grilled. the super carne asada is absolutely perfect. slices of avocado, crema, salsa, great rice & whole pinto beans and wonderful grilled meat that is perfectly moist and crispy. my favorite avocado salsa of all of mission is here.
also, the Melon aguas frescas cool off a hot mouth from the perfectly fiery salsas.
i'm a huge fan of a lot of the places within a few blocks, but this is the best
my wife and I make 1.5 hr trips to the city just for these burritos.
Score: 6 / 10 Reviewed by: ariyana
Went to Cancun last night for a quick bite.
Got the Vegetarian burrito, sans extra cilantro.
Ingredients with commentary:
tortilla: wonderful (but I agree about the lard)
rice: very good (possibly more lard here?)
whole beans: very nice, good texture, well cooked
salsa: excellent flavor and texture, good balance of onions and tomato
avocado: yum!
cheese and crema: standard, but good
Why the low score?
When I unwrapped the top end, there was a puddle of frijole-water on the end of the burrito. Then the first two bites were literally nothing but beans, bite 3 and 4 brought in some rice, and it wasn't until 6 that I saw cheese and crema join the party. I had honestly started to wonder if they made me something else!
The salsa and avo were stuffed all the way down on the other end, leaving the burrito very imbalanced and not at all integrated. *sad face*
Lastly, I too was reminded of my dining choices for a full 4 hours after dinner. That was unpleasant.
Score: 5.5 / 10 Reviewed by: telene
as i recall, this place has been touted as having "sf's best burrito" over many years. i myself am a steadfast fan of pancho villa, but due to that status, one afternoon i thought i would give this place a go.
upon biting into my chicken burrito, i was surprised that it was one of the most flavorful burritos i'd had in a few years. however, after getting through about a third of it, i realized just why. the tortilla. there was something about it that made it tastier, heavier, thicker. as i took my next breath with a bite still in my mouth i realized what it was.
lard.
admittedly, i'm no expert on the substance, but the feeling and taste that coated my mouth most certainly wasn't vegetable or chemical; it was animal. and it didn't come from the chicken, sweetheart.
verdict: i won't eat there again. even if it isn't lard that makes their tortillas taste just so, i don't like whatever it is. i had a heavy stomach and felt that burrito late into the night. not a pleasant experience.
Score: 9 / 10 Reviewed by: TheRobin
This place sits at on a rundown block of Mission Street where there is an abundance of crack whores and tweakers no matter what time of the day or night you go. Once inside, the sound of the cranckin' juke box fills the air along with the smell of grilled meats and steaming beans. This place is not for the faint of heart. The burritos are made much like most street food is prepared in Mexico. They throw a huge flour tortilla on the grill and melt the chease on it. They flat grill all the steak to order. The sour cream is of the authentic Mexican kind (runny and tart). The salsa is super fresh and tangy (but not mouth-burning hot). The beans come in 3 choices: whole pinto, refried pinto, and whole black. All 3 are very tasty. The rice is fluffy and nutty with a nice body left in it. They don't put guacamole on their burritos (hell, they don't even HAVE guacamole!). Instead, they put fresh slices of creamy avocado (again, very authentic). Lastly they throw in some fresh cilantro and chopped onions. What's really nice about these is the ingredients are always hot and juicy (no cold spots here). If you perfer a bit more kick to your burrito, I suggest spooning on some of their spicy green salsa. For me it is the real reason I love this place so much.
I would have given this place a 10, but I have had a few burritos here over the years that were a bit "off". A big bonus is that they stay open until 3am on the weekends! It is a sure-fire pre-hangover cure (and not too bad post hangover either).
Score: 8 / 10 Reviewed by: mattthew (San Francisco, CA)
Ranking a burrito and ranking a burrito restaurant are two totally different matters. Taqueria Cancun does not make the best burrito in San Francisco, but I argue it’s one of the best burrito experiences in the city. Consistently high-quality burritos, efficient reliable service, incredibly low price per poundage, plus some notable extras make Cancun my perennial choice for mission burrito.
First off, I must admit that no small part of my fondness for Cancun is due to the ease of ordering my particular breed of burrito – rice, black beans, cheese, salsa, and avocado. At most taquerias, ordering this combination is a difficult process doomed to failure in one out three cases. The preference requires ordering an unlikely to be understood variant of a taqueria’s default super-veggie. For instance, “I’d like your super-veggie with black beans, no sour cream, no lettuce, no extra veggies, and avocado instead of guac, and yes I still do want the cheese.” I usually get a look of derision and pity, and in fact, I’ve abandoned the approach in favor of specifying each ingredient. But this works poorly as well. After ordering a burrito with exactly rice, black beans, cheese, salsa, and avocado, I often get the response, “you want super veggie?” and we’re back where we started.
At my closest burritoria, Balazo, they usually argue with me to get me to take guac over avocado, or worse, they don’t understand all of the requested ingredients. This has often resulted in a burrito without salsa, which is a shocking and monstrous revelation, on par with taking home a long hungered for male companion, unwrapping him, and discovering after several bites in that he’s a living Ken doll. At Papalote West, on the other hand, the order-taker cheerfully accepts my avocado request, but then the cooks spend five minutes discussing where the avocados are kept, and passing the order off to each other like a mess to be cleaned up. Maybe this all sounds bitchy, but I just want what I want. I won’t tolerate the pernicious infiltration of lettuce and sour cream and the drum beat of conformity demanded by the standard super. I’ve seriously considered keeping cards in my wallet that list my five ingredients, to avoid the constant sighing and confusion.
But at Cancun, the avocado comes standard, and they remain innocent to hideous iceberg. It’s not even an option. The salsa is fresh and heavily cilantrofied, just how I like it, the beans are hearty and unpretentious, and the cheese comes in abundance. Structural integrity is first rate and the ingredients are well integrated, unlike Papalote West’s beans on the top half, salsa on the bottom half approach. Finally, the finished and rolled tortilla is gently fried, resulting in a rich crispy-flaky wrapping not unlike lavash/injera cross-bread ;-). And it’s as simple as ordering a super-veggie, black beans, no sour cream.
But wait, there’s more! The Cancun burrito comes with abundant, if somewhat stale, thick and salty chips, salsa, fork and napkin ready to go in the bag or basket. Cancun includes two distinct and unique chip salsas, one a true salsa like that used in the burrito itself, and the other a super-spicy creamy avocado based salsa. There’s none of the pay extra for chips shenanigans found at Gordos and elsewhere. In fact, this whole concrete brick sized meal costs only $4.95 (at the time of this writing), a full dollar less than many of Cancun’s less appetizing competitors.
The ease of order and consistency are wonderful, but it’s the overall quality poundage per dollar that truly sets Cancun into a class of its own. And all this at three convenient locations open until 3 a.m. on weekends. Though the Mission/19th location is marginally my favorite over the Mission/Valencia location due to taste, you do have to contend with the worst block of Mission to get there. I’ve found that the Market location will do in a pinch, but the burrito salsa is not on par with the other two, and it lacks the great all mexican jukeboxes, and old-school fake-brick paper-garland authenticity of its Mission cousins.
David Byrne may not have mentioned Cancun on his blog, they may not sell a secret chip salsa recipe in jars, and let’s face it, the meat is a bit questionable. In fact, the burritos themselves deserves only a #8 rating. But at 3 p.m. I have not found a better combination of convenience, savings, and taste value in the city, and at 3 a.m. Cancun is simply unequaled. It’s why I’m going there enough to put their kids through college, $4.95 at a time.
Score: 5 / 10 Reviewed by: Pietro9
I have to admit that I was a bit reluctant to eat a burrito last Saturday night, as the old estomago has been a bit sketchy as of late. Nevertheless, I opted for an al pastor, as I rarely stray from pork when downing a burrito. Let me add at this point that al pastor was not my first choice. Though I am certainly an al pastor fan, I was all set for carnitas but forgot that Cancun doesn't even have it on their menu. However, I cannot let this detract from my overall rating of the burrito itself.
I usually order my burrito sin arroz (I'm not a fan of this filler), con frijoles fritos, y super - so I always expect to be served a somewhat smaller, somewhat soupy and less than rigid object. I was surely not disappointed in this respect, as what appeared in my basket resembled a long water baloon wrapped in tin foil. My attempt to lift it single-handedly for the first unveiling caused said burrito to fold in half, as if saying, "I am too weak to satisfy". Hmmm, looks like we have a problem here...
The first bite into my sack of sauce caused a seemingly endless eruption of extemely watery crema, pastor grease, and watered down fritos that created a large pool in the base of my basket. At first I thought myself a fool for ordering without rice, almost second guessing my own burrito mantra, but after careful thought I realized that there was no way one scoop of starch could have contained this flood. This definitely isn't right...
I continued onward, in search of something redeemable in all the mess. I was rewarded with a few bites of what was probably the spiciest al pastor on record, with flavors resembling a recent curry I had at Shalimar. Endless chunks of red pepper flesh and seeds sent piercing fiery lashes at my tongue and mouth--but somehow I carried on. Damn, I'm going to feel this on the way out...
Upon finishing the toxic creation I was left with a full belly, but I was also left wanting more--yearning for just one bite of spectacular burrito to give me a reason to return some day. I turned to my girlfriend's half-eaten veggie burrito with the look of a man possessed and proceeded to devour a quarter of it, only to find myself shamed for my actions and still unsatisfied.
In retrospect, through the spice-induced tears and gushing nose I was able to laugh at the whole situation. However, I will certainly think twice before returning to Cancun. I know that the burrito is the main focus, and in evaluating that singular experience I give it a 5. But overall I really don't care too much for this establishment. I really want to like it, as they serve Bohemia, fresh zanahoria, and other favorites--and always do so with a joyful smile. But the extremely sub-par chips, lack of decent salsa, and endless barrage of change beggers has me looking elsewhere for my fix. I yearn for the combination of fresh, homemade chips, creative and flavorful salsa bar, and of course, an amazing burrito. Can it be found...?
Score: 8 / 10 Reviewed by: omar
This place is outstanding on a pretty consistent basis. I'm not one to go for some of the more adventurous taco-truck fare, like cabeza or menudo, but when a dependable Al Pastor burrito (meat, salsa, no frills) is needed to soak up libations had at nearby Doc's Clock or Uptown, this place wins, hands down. The locals know this to be true. Yes, some know-it-all in your pack may turn up his/her nose and wave you on to El Farolito -- but that's a whole five blocks away and since you're already here and too drunk/tired/lazy/hungry to travel on, why not stay?
A bonus are the drunk/cracked-out Mission denizens (unless, of course, you're one of them -- in which case, they will appear to be perfectly sane human beings) that stagger in post-midnight. Share your bench, but beware the wandering hands and fingers of the inebriated and over-friendly. I once had a basket of perfectly good fried green onions ruined by such a set of dirty, pilfering digits.
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