History:
This idea was conceived when I moved back to the Bay Area in mid 2016. I've always loved burritos, but wanted to create a definitive list of the best places around The Bay. That coupled with my love for data and spreadsheets naturally turned into this. Over time it grew more and more complex and robust.
You will notice that the first few entries are quite bare, but the list has now developed into a ranking system complete with full descriptions, category breakdowns and mathematical formulas to calculate overall ratings. So, if there are some missing pictures or poor, fragmented sentences they are probably from the first few reviews when I was just jotting down notes.
I thought people would think I am crazy for doing this, and most people do seem to. But they also always asked me to share my list. So here it finally is in all its nerdy, delicious glory.
Method (consistency):
There is somewhat of a method to all of this madness. How can one possibly compare so many different burritos in a systematic and fair way? Well...I did my best.
I started with my ideal type of burrito: Mission Style. The Mission Style burrito likely started in the 1960s in the Mission district of San Francisco. This style has developed over time, but usually is served as such:
- Large size
- Steamed tortilla with cheese
- Choice of meat
- Choice of beans
- Rice
- Guacamole
- Crema
Some places serve with salsa, some do not. Many places are now starting to grill the tortilla instead, or both steam and grill. Some places will occasionally add corn or lettuce, but I do not consider this part of the Mission Style burrito. As you'll notice in the order section of the posts, most taquerias/trucks have a "Super Burrito" (described above). Usually it is larger than the regular burrito and comes with guacamole, crema and cheese.
The Super Burrito is the first measure of consistency for this list. Similar ingredients are a must to be able to accurately compare burritos. Here is my ideal burrito that you will see in most of my orders:
- Super Burrito
- Carne Asada
- Refried Beans
- Mexican Rice
- Guacamole, Crema, Cheese, Salsa
- Steamed and Grilled Tortilla
- Large and Cheap!
There are numerous types of meats available to choose from at every taqueria. Carne Asada, however, seems to be the most consistent. I find that almost all places have the same goal in mind with Carne Asada: meaty flavor with a light marinade and grilled to incorporate a char. It is simple and usually not altered much. Other types of meats have different marinades and recipes, cook times, amounts of fat, or other variables. For these reasons, I chose to order Carne Asada for almost every burrito on this list.
Rankings (math for the nerds):
The ultimate rankings come down to a series of mathematical calculations. They are a trade secret, but I'll give you the general idea.
Each burrito is ranked by categories: Cost, Meat, Beans, Rice, Guacamole, Crema, Salsa, Tortilla, Cheese, Size, Overall Taste.
The Overall Taste category holds the most weight and is essentially the first impression of a burrito. It includes the "wow factor," the ingredient distribution, the extras (chips/salsa/etc.) and the rest of the intangibles. There are some things that an ingredient rating cannot capture, so they are incorporated into Overall Taste.
The rest of the categories hold as much weight combined as the Overall Taste. However, each of these categories is weighted to my personal taste (out of 10) as well. If one category has a 0 it means that it will not be included at all. If one category has a 5 and another has a 10, the latter will be twice as impactful as the former.
Here are my weighted categories:
The Overall Taste category holds the most weight and is essentially the first impression of a burrito. It includes the "wow factor," the ingredient distribution, the extras (chips/salsa/etc.) and the rest of the intangibles. There are some things that an ingredient rating cannot capture, so they are incorporated into Overall Taste.
The rest of the categories hold as much weight combined as the Overall Taste. However, each of these categories is weighted to my personal taste (out of 10) as well. If one category has a 0 it means that it will not be included at all. If one category has a 5 and another has a 10, the latter will be twice as impactful as the former.
Here are my weighted categories:
As you can see, cost, meat and size are the most important to me. Beans, salsa and tortilla fall to the bottom. If you would like to be able to add your own scale to re-sort the list, send me a message in the Contact section to let me know. This may be a feature that can be added in the future.
Each of these categories is ranked from 1-10 (in the Burrito Rankings List) except for cost. To normalize the cost (since almost no burritos are under $5 and some are close to $20 - this does not work on a 1-10 scale), I took the standard deviation across all cost entries and normalized them to a scale out of 10. However, due to the nature of standard deviations, outliers and typical burrito costs, I decided to set the rating of the lowest cost burrito to a 10 (there are never outliers of low cost burritos since there is a minimum price of $0). This means that very expensive burritos may actually have a negative normalized rating. Also, since the cost rating is dependent on other entries, overall ratings may change as new burritos are entered. Ratings shown on each post are from the time of entry.
For repeat visits to the same place, the table shows the average ratings from each visit. The most recent visit will be weighted twice as much as the previous visits to reflect how the burrito has changed over time.
If you were not already aware that I am a nerd, you must be now. Hopefully that math breakdown made some sort of sense for those that made it this far.