
So anyway, Newberry raved in particular about a place called LA CALLE ASADERO in downtown Oakland. I looked it up, and I’ve probably driven by it a hundred times without noticing it. “Prettiest burrito place I’ve ever been to”, she said, and check it out – the table pictured here is the exact same one I parked my burrito-lovin’ carcass at. Their Burrito Gringo (hey, if the shoe fits..) with pollo asado was everything I’d hoped for and more. WOW. What was the secret sauce? Well, the easiest way to unpack the vagaries of a given burrito are to highlight its subtle differences from the mean. In La Calle Asadero’s case, they slap the flour tortilla on the grill first, instead of steaming it. Yeah, I know a lot of folks do that, but theirs somehow seemed to have a lot more heft and crunch to it, which still being “supple” and “flexible”. Sexy, right?
They also throw in a total curveball among the big juicy pintos and the perfectly melted cheese: red onion. That’s right, I said red onion. Fresh and packed with flavor, like it was grown in the garden plot out the back exit and sliced right as I was coming in the door. Oh – and there’s this: fresh tomato. Not watery chunks, but meaty squares obviously chopped with the sharpest of knives. Put it all together, and I’ve got a new favorite burrito to nearly supplant the firm hold PAPALOTE in San Francisco has had on my burrito-buying wallet the past decade.