Burrito Trail
A banner will get you every time.
It was flapping along San Pablo Avenue, bright and impossible to miss, promising BREAKFAST BURRITOS with absolute confidence. No qualifiers. No fine print. We were already pulling in.
El Jardín de los Sueños, at 12411 San Pablo Avenue, occupies a sprawling space almost under the freeway overpass once occupied at various times by an indoor playground business, a storefront church, and, we think, a real estate office. A covered walkway lined with palm trees leads to picnic tables set on artificial turf, while one side of the building is painted with a colorful mural that catches your eye before you even park.
Inside, there's a little bit of everything: string lights, pink walls, a display case of bagels, chalkboard menus pointing in every direction, a kids' play area, Richmond merchandise, candy, and a "Richmond Trinket Trade" cabinet filled with magnets and odds and ends. Yelp reviewers call it a treasure and a community gem. After walking around, it's easy to see why.
We ordered the chorizo breakfast burrito. Twelve dollars and six cents.
It came out in foil, impossibly hot. We brought it back to Grandview Headquarters and put it on the scale.
Three hundred and fifty-five grams.
To put that in context: the Bacon Breakfast Burrito at Angel's Restaurant down the street, $11.28, eggs, potatoes, beans, crispy bacon, melted cheese, piping hot home fries, weighed 561 grams.
On the Richmond Burrito Trail: Angel’s Restaurant breakfast edition
We were greeted with a question. Do you want a burrito? Yes, but how did she know? She knew. It was a cold morning, but we were motivated to venture out into the world and find something warm and tasty. A sandwich board placed on the sidewalk out front lured
Soren Hemmila
The Taco Bell Cantina Chicken Burrito, which we have said unkind things about in print, weighed 406 grams. The smallest burrito we have logged on the Richmond Burrito Trail to date was a Taco Bell Supreme at 287 grams, and we ordered that one as a joke.
On the Richmond Burrito Trail: 23rd Street’s cantina burrito
The Richmond Burrito Trail is back on 23rd Street, exploring a fast-food staple serving Mexican-inspired food. We’ve long been curious how this outpost of the multinational restaurant chain survives in a food mecca populated with authentic Mexican food. With our preconceived opinions firmly in check and our
Soren Hemmila
The chorizo itself was fine, a loose crumble, nice and spicy, doing what chorizo does. But the tortilla was dried out and chewy, the texture of something reheated rather than cooked. And everything inside was too hot in that particular way that only happens when something is reheated, not assembled with love.
For $12.06, 355 grams feels like a tough sell.
We're willing to concede we may have picked the wrong item. El Jardín's menu is enormous, with bagels, crepes, smoothies, sandwiches, and plenty of other options. Maybe the breakfast burrito simply isn't what regulars come for. The bagels looked good. The pastries looked even better.
El Jardín de los Sueños clearly fills an important role in the North and East Gourmet Ghetto. It's a welcoming community gathering place, and it feels like the kind of business people genuinely enjoy supporting.
But the banner out front advertises BREAKFAST BURRITOS.
The Grandview Independent is working its way through Richmond's taquerias, food trucks, and restaurants in search of the city's best burritos. Follow along as we continue the Richmond Burrito Trail, one stop at a time.
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