User Review
Taqueria Cancun (Mission/19th) (San Francisco, CA)
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.
