Pancho Villa Taqueria is a perfectly respectable choice when discussing San Francisco's much lauded burrito scene, and that's what Mayor London Breed's immediate choice was when the Chronicle asked her for her go-to burrito place.
"It’s easy," says Breed, an SF native who's gone to Pancho Villa since she was a teenager. "Everybody from my neighborhood would go to Pancho Villa.” She says friends would make burrito runs and "we’d all pile in the car and drive over to Pancho Villa. That’s the spot."
The Chronicle mapped the favorite burritos of an odd mix of San Francisco political and culture figures, and strangely there was no love for SFist's longtime declared favorite, Taqueria Cancun — though critic Soleil Ho knew a good thing when she tasted the al pastor there, and Cancun has a spot on her concise list of the 11 best burritos in the region. (This is all part of a BIG burrito package the paper just put out.)
SFist also made it known when that bullshit burrito bracket thing came out on The Five-Thirty-Eight a few years ago that in no universe does La Taqueria make the city's best burrito, let alone the nation's. But City Attorney Dennis Herrera likes his burritos from there, "no rice."
And DA Chesa Boudin makes the unfortunate choice of saying the Sunset's Hook Fish Co. is his favorite burrito place, because he likes fish burritos and apparently never goes to the Mission.
A bunch of people including state Senator Scott Wiener still think Gordo is tops, and El Farolito gets plenty of much-deserved praise from MythBusters alum Kari Byron and SF Public Defender Mano Raju.
Ho's list of the best burritos around the Bay is, on balance, solid, and includes a few spots outside the city that we'll need to try now. Though she might want to consult our list as well next time.
She includes La Taq, El Farolito, Papalote, and the Al Pastor Papi truck, as well as Cancun — but notably she does not find room to include Gordo, or El Toro, or any of the other nonsense that the "newsmakers" list includes.
Let the griping and sniping commence!
Related: The 15 Best Burritos in SF [SFist]
Photo courtesy of Pancho Villa Taqueria
