Swashbuckling flavor! Searing spice! Shoppers! Must be Andalé again. This burrito may have been a bit on the small side (especially for $US 9.75), but it's tough to gripe about too many elements here. Let’s get those gripes out of the way early: a Jack/cheddar blend that didn’t get its melt on until the latter third of the slab; hind-end sog, due to the pinto beans and juicy carne asada; and, that whole stunted-size issue. Everything else was on the money, from the mildly grilled tortilla and moist, flavorful rice on through the pinto beans that revealed an alchemic smokiness all their own. Applause also goes to the smooth ingredient mix, its sole flaw being the bunched steak down low. A choogling sweep of hot bites, along with extraordinary salsa ranchero and infallible intangibility, ensured a sky-high OMR from this subterranean, maddeningly alluring burrito counter.

Sorry to cut out early, but we have to go get a $175 wallet at Kenneth Cole now.

And on our second visit, Andalé succumbed to the seven-mustache gravitational pull. This stubby, but dense slab ate bigger than it looked – our panel’s bellies were surprisingly sated by the end of things here. A little ingrown tortilla trouble prevented a perfect burstage abatement rating, but Andalé’s raging tomatillo (two types!) rammed its head on our ten-mustache ceiling for both sauciness and spiciness, and that’s no cheap trick. The mesquite chicken was plenty juicy and said all the right things...just not often enough. Translation: not enough meat. The tortilla, meanwhile, stuck to the grilled facts – nothing spectacular, but all was fine and well throughout its stay. The tight wrap didn’t fall prey to the scourge of ingredient segregation, as everything from the exceptional, lightly oiled rice and disappointing pinto beans to, well, everything else, mingled naturally. Occasional, minor temperature issues reared up from time to time, but the sorriest moments here came courtesy of the tiny, unmelted grates of jack cheese. Still, certain bites were amazingly delicious - mainly due to the rice, salsa, and chicken – and even in a shopping “centre” food court, there’s never anything wrong with that.

As much as San Francisco’s soul food, the burrito, seems a little out of place in an upmarket food court like this, Andalé’s overall burritowork on this visit transcended all the shopping mall silliness to ratchet up a well-mustached rating. The side green salad, while theoretically a nice touch, got a bunch of oil all over our foil, and that ain’t right. But from the first bite down, a super-grilled tortilla and some furious spice were hallmarks of this clumsily assembled, but still fine lunch. Although Andalé’s mole de olla provided plenty of saucy punch, the meat it drenched – though tasty and plentiful – erred on the mushy side somewhat. All the melted cheddar was a welcome event, and we enjoyed the chubby-grained rice all the way through. We quietly dealt with the respectable whole pinto beans and the underwhelming length of the whole deal. And the ingredient mix was very nicely realized. But the big disappointment here was the lack of contribution from the vegetable family. Avocado in the side salad, but not the burrito? Oh, come on now. All the various shades of brown and orange grew visually wearisome, other than the occasional flash of guac. Nine dollars! And seventy-five cents! This burrito should have come with a free cosmetics bag, not just some chips and a side salad.