Lettuce-inclusive, soupy at times, and on the slender side, Cilantro’s cilantro beef burrito had the early makings of a real clangfest. But the mustache-hit parade soon kicked into gear, led by on-point beef, a bunch of alluringly smoky pinto beans, and marinated brown mushrooms that had our panel recalling steakhouse meals of yore, before this whole burrito thing got so out of hand in the 1980s. Furthering the great family fun here was the 40-stories-tall spice, as well as melted cheese that wormed its way into every bite, and brown rice that knew its role and played it well. The tortilla was nothing particularly special, sodden as it sometimes was by all the bean and meat juice creeping out. But with avocado slices, an exceptional ingredient mix, and intangibility galore stepping up to foot sauciness’ drippy bill, everything turned out equitably by the final bite. Cilantro! Um. Onions!

Too many faceless elements and a disappointing ingredient mix characterized one of the longest-awaited San Francisco taqueria debuts in recent years. Construction was fully crash-proof, and we surely appreciated the sharp vegetable contingent anchored by large tomato chunks and, of course, the taqueria’s namesake item in the pico de gallo; the tangy guacamole was equally terrific. The cheese blend may have been overly dominated by cheddar, but the best news was that it was nearly entirely melted. Then the ingredient dullards took over: too-polite spice; pale-faced, taste-deficient rice that had “six mustaches” written all over it from the get-go; fine, adequate, and wholly unspectacular pinto beans; overly stubby dimensions that resulted in a mere 12-bite meal; and most notably, a less than robust set of pork that seemed to have gone through some sort of flavor-removal machine on its way to the grilled, but still strangely chewy tortilla. Integration was poor overall and ensured this burrito’s date with mediocrity, with the guacamole in particular off in its own orbit along one side of the tortilla. Hardly a disaster, to be sure - but clearly not worth the year or so of anticipation.