Doggy Bag: In Love with a Foil-Wrapped Local

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Forearm-size burrito from Ocean Taqueria in the Excelsior.

Regular or super: SFoodie contributor Andrew Simmons files a writerly exposition of the Mission-style burrito for Bay Area Bites. It's not exactly the kind of apologia that appears whenever Jonathan Gold maligns our hefty local specimens. Simmons is unapologetically in love with the genre ― read here. Start with this foil-swaddled bite:

Nachos are a little silly, masochistic, a nutritional mockery; they belong in sports bars, where they should never be ordered. Portable, tasty, and immensely filling, burritos are your thing. Ohio had burritos too. So did Kentucky. But, until California-style wraps invaded the fast food lexicon, those were vile orange cheddar-and-ground beef roll-ups populating the refrigerated cases of gas stations and college dining hall steam tables. You never ate them before, but now, having thrown down new roots in America's burrito basket you try many variations on this startling new discovery, too many, in fact, your stomach wearily tells you again and again, as you retire to bed at least two or three nights a week with a baby-sized slug of meat, beans, rice, and tortilla burrowed into your gut.