Yes, this is a rant on making a burrito.

Last night I had my very first encounter with taco joint, Taco Del Mar (or Del Mar Taco, Del Taco, Mar Taco Del, whatever the name is, and no, this isn't racism - the Taco Del Mar in my town is listed under a different name on the internet, true story). It was about seven in the evening, and I was under the influence of a couple of Advil and a malt beverage.

My parents raved about the size of the burrito here - they checked out the place one night for dinner while I was out of town. They claimed it was a large burrito, and well, the claims are true, the Taco Del Mar Del Taco burrito is indeed large. But I ordered the quesadilla.

And I'll tell you why I ordered the quesadilla, after the jump.

Now that we've made the leap, I'll tell you why I ordered that quesadilla. I ordered said quesadilla because the process of ordering a burrito seemed too complicated. Now, I (as we all) live in a society where we can have what we want on anything we want, where we want, when we want. You can order your Jamba Juice to have extra grass and a shot of unobtanium, you can blurt out utter nonsense at a Starbucks and expect it to be made into a cup of coffee, and you can order chicken tenders on your footlong meatball marinara at Subway (that one is actually true, it happened to me a few years back, I was in the newspaper that day). And I've grown to accept (and sometimes abuse) these authorities over food service, but for some reason I just didn't want to deal with the authority of burrito making.

Was I lazy? No. I order things at places like Subway and Starbucks because I'm familiar with the ingredients. Starbucks is a coffee shop, Subway is a deli. You can put anything in a coffee, much like you can stack any combination of meats, cheeses, and vegetables on a hoagie and still be friends with Jared. But Mexican food is a different territory. Shredded pork. Ground beef. A medley of mixed peppers and chilis. Specific cheeses. Rice or beans. Flour, corn, or spinach tortilla. Varying degrees of hot sauce ranging from mild hot sauce to hot hot sauce. Some really sweet tasting tomato salsa thing that looks good at first but ends up making your tortilla soggy. Honestly, I don't have any knowledge of how to prepare a burrito, because, see, Taco Bell just puts things in their food I assume are good in a burrito. I don't question their logic, if the food looks good on the menu, I'll order it.

Famous Ray's Original Famous Recipe Taco Del Mar Taco, on the other hand, just says, "Put what ya want in it, we live in the land of freedom and choice." To me, it's like being the deer caught in the headlights. Yes, I understand it's a freedom to build your own meal, but I want ideas. Nowhere on that menu did I see any burrito templates, no specialty burritos, nothing. I need ideas. Hell, the American government was based on Rome's and then some. It wasn't original, it was someone else's idea, much like the Quarter Pounder and the Double Quarter Pounder, which are things I can order without having to be bothered with what goes in it. Instead, if I wanted a burrito, I had to sit in that taco sandbox and build it myself.

I didn't want to do that. So I saw quesadilla and said, "Chicken quesadilla." They put the chicken in it, and charged me for it.

And I ate it. Turns out I ended up liking it. I recommend it, actually. Maybe if I'm feeling creative one day, I'll try my hands on that burrito deli of theirs.