The Blind Burro — Restaurant in San Diego

I've been coming to Blind Burro for years, and used to be somewhat of a regular when it was within crawling distance of where I lived downtown. It's a large Mexican bar & grill operation near PetCo Park with multiple bars. I can always find an open chair to slump into and pretend to ignore the commotion around me, even after Padres games.

I love Blind Burro's "Chips & Salsa." Since I've lived in San Diego, Blind Burro has always prepared what is, in my estimation, the best chips and salsa in the city. Unfortunately, they have learned how comparatively excellent they are, because what used to be complimentary when I lived downtown now bears a $3 price tag. The secret to these corn tortilla chips are that their surfaces "puff" out like pita bread due to the kitchen deep-frying the corn tortillas when they're raw rather than frying "finished" corn tortillas. The steam from the moisture of the raw hydrated masa harina trapped under the surfaces of the tortilla creates the air pockets, stretching the thin masa "walls" out from within just before they are deep-fried crispy. This "airy" texture in the chips is unique and allows better scooping of the incendiary salsa as well as a "double crunch" texture when you bite into them. This process can only be accomplished by a restaurant that makes its own corn tortillas as Blind Burro does.

Notionally, Blind Burro's "Lobster Taco" is a well-constructed seafood taco: cabbage and pico de gallo, a rich garlic butter, and an avocado that provides textural contrast but not a lot of flavor, which is perfect for lobster. It is when you add the lobster meat in to that taco that the train runs off the rails. Blind Burro claims this is Maine lobster, and I've intuited that the meat most definitely does not come from the spiny lobster species native to San Diego's waters with their small pincers, because the claw meat in this taco was too large to fit that profile. Since there are no other lobster dishes on the menu, I'm reasonably speculating that Blind Burro is not flying in fresh, live lobsters just to shuck for taco meat. And, unfortunately, this is where they've failed, as lobster meat needs to taste ultra-fresh, and this does not. I would have much rather they used local lobster meat, which is more widely available and fresher, and which I find tastes better and sweeter than Maine lobster anyway (please don't tell my friends and family back home in New England I wrote that).

I much preferred the "Lengua Taco," consisting of beef tongue that has been marinated in a sweet and spicy sauce, then grilled so that the sauce caramelizes on it, mixing with the natural Maillard browning phenomenon to create a fiercely awesome meat crust. Yet, because it is lengua, it is soft and tender on the inside. They could get away with JUST serving this meat on one of their house-made corn tortillas and have an excellent taco. What takes it to the next level are the pickled vegetables and incendiary salsa macha, adding sweetness, spiciness, and acid that rounds everything out. I find the spiced candied peanuts to be unnecessary, as I'm not a fan of their "chewiness" as peanuts go - but they weren't very distracting.

Other food here such as the "Mezcal Oyster Shooter," "Street Corn off the Cob," and "TJ Dog" I will typically order late at night and hence I don't have much of a memory of them other than that I think they're good when I order them.

While it has a few warts, Blind Burro is dependable, consistent, somewhat authentic (depending on what you order), sometimes excellent, and seemingly always open. In an area full of tourist traps and rip-off fly-by-night bars and restaurants, Blind Burro deserves a visit if you're in the...

Came here with my fiance for a double date which ended up being just a single late.. I got the lobster tacos and he got the surf and turf. Both were amazing. Really really juicy tacos and very fresh corn tortillas.

I was surprised how much lobster filling was in my lobster tacos! It looked very little but definitely was a lot of content in there. And also fresh and perfectly cooked - not rubbery or anything. I had asked to not use the butter, so they offered to cook it with some of the salsa that came with. Totally worked out. The avocado on top, cabbage and lobster definitely went well together.

Fiancé definitely enjoyed his surf and turf as well. The amount of filling here was MASSIVE! The tacos were actually overloaded with filling! So much that he had to take some out to be able to hold them, haha. I think the meat part was more as compared to the amount of lobster, but good flavor in both.

We got the Kale-Cabbage Slaw for our sides. I was hoping to get some vegetable intake from this, and it tasted decent. but WAY TOO MUCH OIL. like WAY WAY WAY too much. Its like the slaw was dipped in oil and then put in the bowl. I tried to press out the oil with napkins, but it wasn't worth it. There was too much oil and was all absorbed in. I ended up not eating the slaw at all.

We also got the Mexican Panzanella Salad (mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumber, queso fresco, pickled red onion, avocado, serrano-lime vinaigrette, chile-herb tortilla crisps) and it was lovely! The portion size on his was huge as well (much more than what we've seen at a lot of other restaurants). Queso fresco was so fresh - I Loved it plain!!! Even those tortilla chips (house-made from what I could tell) were good by themselves. Dressing was nice too and everything went...

This was our second time visiting this restaurant in the past month. They knocked our socks off with both the service and food on a busy rust night the first time, but this past Sunday was a disaster. We were left abandoned at the getter station with no explanation for 20 minutes then we left. After checking the neighboring spots we decided to come back. The house margarita was just as good as the first time, but the mango skinny was terrible. The previous time it was great. The server explained that they had a new bartender so my girlfriend just switched to the house. My avocado toast which should be simple enough wasn't wrong once, but twice. The only thing I asked for was no onions or cilantro. The first time it was brought out the gentleman that brought it tried to argue with me that it was radishes. I told him I know what a radish is and was fine with those. It was the pile of raw onions and cilantro that I had issue with. The next one came out and had no onions, cilantro or radish. I wouldn't miss the radish so I didn't care about that. The runny egg that was on top wasn't runny at all and was cooked hard. By this time we've been here an hour, my girlfriend had finished what she could of her giant breakfast burrito and I was fed up. I got another margarita and told them to forget my food order. I was never visited by the manager or anything at all. The server really did her best and I made sure to take care of her. I'm just disappointed in a place that I'm going to spend over $100 regularly for two people to have the initial poor service and then disregard when there's clearly an issue. I doubt we will...