On the Richmond Burrito Trail: the second-best La Flor de Jalisco taco truck

We kept riding around looking for lunch, and it was cold out. We kept getting denied. Locked doors with faded handwritten notes peeling at the corners. Dark taquerías that claimed to be open on Yelp but were never actually open when you showed up shivering in the parking lot on a Tuesday afternoon.

Then we saw a La Flor De Jalisco truck parked where La Alma De Sol normally stands at 37th and Barrett. That works. That'll do.

Jalisco, México, is two thousand miles away, but La Flor De Jalisco is right here at 37th and Barrett on a cold and rainy day when everything else has let you down.

See, we've burned through most of the burrito dealers in Richmond by now. We have mixed reviews of La Flora as a franchise operation. The La Flora Jalisco on San Pablo Avenue is one of our favorites, top three, easy. The one on Macdonald used to be a favorite but isn't anymore. Something changed. Different cook, maybe. Different motivations. We don't know. But this is the fourth Jalisco we've tried, and it's probably the second-best one, which in this town means it's still pretty damn good.

In honor of RFK Jr.'s new food pyramid, we went with the Carne Asada for our Super Burrito. Is that how it works? We usually prefer Grilled Chicken or Carnitas Burritos, but we are willing to do Our Part.

La Flora de Jalisco — The Carne Asada Super Burrito from La Flora Jalisco features a good steak-to-rice ratio, refried beans doing that melty-cheese thing, but the spicy herby red salsa is what makes it complete. Pour it on or don't bother ordering.

The Super Steak Burrito arrived quickly. Lots of steak cut small, just one small step above ground beef in terms of grind, but tender enough. Lots of sour cream coated the beef. Refried beans are doing that melty cheese thing that makes bean and cheese burritos so good in the first place, that textural, tasty magic act where you can't tell where bean ends and cheese begins.

Good mix of ingredients. Not rice-heavy like some places that pad their margins with carbs. Onions and cilantro added sharp, green notes. Spanish rice with those little tomato-stained grains. Untoasted tortilla, which is not the end of the world.

But here's the thing: pour that spicy herby red salsa on top. The burrito is not complete without it. It wakes everything up. It cuts through the sour cream. It makes the steak remember it used to be meat that moved around in a field somewhere. It ties the whole construction together. The burrito cost $16.11 and weighed in at 678 grams, short of the favorite La Flor de Jalisco burrito truck on San Pablo Avenue always a 700-plus honker.

We kept riding around looking for food, and we found it. Fourth Jalisco, second-best result. Some days that's a victory. Some days that's exactly what you needed. The truck is parked where it shouldn't be, but exactly where it should be. And the burrito does what a burrito is supposed to do on a cold day in Richmond when all the other doors are locked.

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