Chino's Taq. Outer RichmondOMR: 6.50
3416 Balboa
cross street: 35th Ave.
ph. 415/668-9956
Map Visits: 4
This echo chamber of a taqueria has been a linchpin of this stretch of Balboa for years, but we theorize that its neighborhood popularity is due more to convenience than anything else. It’s got one outside table and a community bulletin board going for it, though, even while you’re getting dinged 50 cents for a bag of chips. Hmph. Cash only.
Will My Health Be Violated?
03/26/08Super Carnitas$5.866.58 Mustaches
Swish: burstage abatement (10); beans (8); spiciness (8)
Shrug: temperature (7); size (6); tortilla (6); meat (6); rice (6); vegetables (6); sauciness (6)
Clang: cheese (5); ingredient mix (5)
Intangibility bonus: 0 (of 2)
Chino’s highest-rated burrito to date still nearly bored our taste buds clear off. Mister slabmaker fella steamed the living daylights out of the tortilla, throwing the lever on the steamer not once, not even twice, but three times. The predictable result: a wrap device whose stickiness harked back to Post-It Notes we’ve snacked on during times of particular destitution. This burrito’s partitioned ingredient mix – pale, just-there rice here; overly soft carnitas and steady-truckin’ refried beans here; and, vegetables (including some snuck-in lettuce, boo) over there – fostered lukewarm bites more often than we preferred, and despite the grates of jack cheese hitting the tortilla before the tortilla hit the steamer, they remained surprisingly unmelted. Chino’s salsa roja supplied eight mustaches worth of spice-fire, but the excitement pretty much ended there. A disappointing slab, to be sure, but a minor step up from previous debacles endured here.
10/16/05Super Spicy Pork$4.996.33 Mustaches
Chino’s highest-rated burrito to date still banged the drum of disappointment mercilessly - and off-time, no less. The pork’s considerable salsa roja had that jarred look to it, even though they’d never pull such a stunt (would they?), and its iffy flavor didn’t exactly do much acquitting in our taste buds’ court room. In fact, taken as a whole, the burrito looked kind of pathetic there on the plate – stubby, a little emaciated, and floppier than a fresh-caught sturgeon on the deck of a fishing pier. What else can we bellyache about here? Plenty. For one thing, some flat pico de gallo, a few slices of jalapeño, and that newfangled InvisiGuac™ don’t produce an intriguing vegetable contingent on their own. For another thing, our seventh grade after-school dances were better mixed than was this weak slab. The pork itself wasn’t lousy, there was a respectable amount of melted cheese (although even that was kind of a gaffle, due to its relentless clumpiness), and despite some sauce bleed, burstage abatement wasn’t a major concern here. But at Chino’s, even compliments such as these come with caveats. This is the kind of place where guys read The Onion aloud to one another on Saturday evenings.
12/29/03Super Carne Asada$4.606.31 Mustaches
An improvement over our first visit, but still only average in nearly every area of examination. The tofu-like steak struck us as particularly baffling, and the burrito included enough rice to feed Romania for a week. Burritos from Chino’s appear to best suit those who have grown increasingly irritated with presence of flavor in today's foods.
01/01/03Super Carne Asada$4.604.00 Mustaches
The first burrito to ever go under the knife of our patented 10-Mustache Scale™. Floppiness, smallish size, and an overall disappointing taste assured slow-healing scar tissue on our taste buds, as well as an unsightly rating.