Simply the Nastiest Burrito on God’s Green Earth
Written: Oct 22 '02
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Pros: By reading this review, you will have been warned
Cons: After a year, the nightmares still haven't gone away
The Bottom Line: Run, don't walk, in the opposite direction.
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| Mr.Eyore's Full Review: Dos Amigos Taqueria |
I ought to know better than to judge an ethnic restaurant by the face I see behind the counter. After all, the Korean gen-xers who run Stelladoro’s bring me a totally serviceable pizza or chicken parm hero at least once a week. The Japanese man who appears to run Le Central serves up some grand Frenchie grub. And the African-American family that owns Brothers-in-Law makes some of the best barbeque in the city. And who ever heard of black people making barbeque?
But something about the (what I believe was) Vietnamese woman behind the counter at Dos Amigos Taqueria Mexican Grill just gave me the wrong vibe. I just knew this wasn’t gonna be my daddy’s burrito. Maybe it was the sickly stench of ammonia throughout the place, drowning out the greasy meat-boil warmth that I expect from a taqueria. Maybe it was the fact that the woman behind the counter ignored us and talked on the phone for several minutes while we waited at the counter of the empty restaurant to place our order. Maybe it was the fact that the huge, brightly lit restaurant was dead empty on a Friday night even though it’s pretty close to a bunch of movie theaters and bars and stuff. Or maybe it’s just that I have a sizeable enough scoop of prejudice in me that, until proven wrong, I’m skeptical when a low-end variety of ethnic food is being prepared for me by someone who claims a different ethnicity than the cuisine. Maybe this makes me a bad man; I don’t know.
If I had been paying attention, I probably would have noticed that the menus on the counter boasted that the food had “No MSG.” That’s kind of presumed with the Mexican food, isn’t it? And if I had been paying even more attention, I might have noticed that the menus also had a little pull-out pronunciation dictionary that included such gems as:
TORTILLA (Tor-TEE-yah) A pancake like bread made of corn or flower.
ARROZ A LA MEXICANA (Ah-ROSS-a-la-MEH-hee-KA-nah)
FRIJOLES (Free-HO-lehs) Beans – each type has its own unique flavor
It’s not really ringing “authentic” to me so far.
But I wasn’t paying attention to those things. I was just paying attention to the fact that I wanted to sneak some food into Monster’s Ball, because nothin’ primes me for a little schoolin’ on America’s complicated relationship with its own conflicted views on race, gender and family like a little carnitas and cheese.
But the carnitas was not to be. I mean, I tried, but when I walked around to where the little chaffing dishes of scoopin’ food were hidden, I saw the woman behind the counter attempt to scoop up what appeared to be a gnawed-at uncooked chicken-breast bone in green stuff. That’s all she had there in the carnitas dish. So I caught her with what was probably a little too much horror in my voice:
Hey, uh, no! No! Please, no carnitas. I beg you, no carnitas. May I have some carne asada instead?
She gave me a sort of quizzical look, shrugged, and covered up the carnita-like thing. Then she revealed the pile o’ suspect-beef dish, which I didn’t really want either, once I saw it. But, if I had turned it down, that woulda left me with just chicken, and I’ll take gristly undercooked beef any day of the week over chunks of dark-meat chicken.
So yeah, carne asada, black beans, rice, avocado-flavored juice, white stuff, sliced tomatoes. That’s what I had. My friend had the same thing, but with whole pinto beans and without any meat in it, which, I don’t know, what’s really the point? But we got the food, and some chips, and it was a little over ten bucks, which is not such a great deal for even good burritos.
The movie theater has a big-a.s.s sign out front that says NO OUTSIDE FOOD, which makes sense, because all the food at the concession stand is so nasty looking that they wouldn’t sell nary a malt-ball if the place was generally accepting of outside concessions. Nevertheless, I stuck both our burritos in my armpits to sneak ‘em in. And to keep ‘em warm.
And by “keep ‘em warm” I mean to say “maintain them at what I assumed to be a reasonable burrito temperature.” But when I finally sat down and opened up the burrito-foil to commence the messing-up-the-theater-floor process, I found that nothing inside was really warm at all. In fact, the black beans were downright refrigerated. Hence, the cheese was not in the least bit melted and meat was bereft of greasy goodness. And the Ah-ROSS-a-la-MEH-hee-KA-nah? Straight from a box of Uncle Ben’s Spanish Rice and Vermicelli Mix. It was sort of yellow-brown, and bloated and without taste, like Whitney Houston in about 5 years. The whole thing was just an abomination, so bad that even I couldn’t finish it, and I’ll eat anything wrapped in a burrito. My friend, she took one bite then asked me for the bag.
So, in conclusion, I highly don’t recommend ever eating at Dos Amigos Taqueria on Polk Street at the edge of San Francisco’s Tenderloin. And I give a thumbs up to Monster’s Ball, because Heath Ledger shoots himself.
Recommended:
No
Kid Friendliness: No
Vegetarian Friendly: Yes
Best Suited For: Friends
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Mr.Eyore
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Reviews written: 129
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I come for the pervasive sense of elitist self-importance and semi-witty expressions of faux camaraderie
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