El Castillito — Restaurant in San Francisco

This is the type of Mexican restaurant that will make every New Yorker stop dead in their tracks. Unassuming. Rugged. Authentic. It's the type of cuisine you'd expect to only find in the depths of Parts Unknown, but allas here we are in the center of it all, San Francisco.

This isn't your grandma's ricearoni joint. This is straight up south of the border home cooking. Every man has his vice. At El Castillito, expertly named for a famous castle, I found mine...the vegetarian burrito.

Ordering from the man behind the counter repping the SF Giants hat, I can tell he is ready for business...he is ready to serve up the burrito that will make my night. Assertive, yet attentive, he asks me to make some of the hardest choices of the evening. Black beans or pinto beans? Cilantro? You get the drill. Once the bad boy is all wrapped up, he gives it another 30 seconds on the oven to heat up to a perfected crisp. Perfection at last.

After paying what is due, I make sure to grab some salsas and slather my burrito up. It's time to induldge. The crescendo of the evening is finally here. I take the first bite, the salsa verde hitting my palate doesn't hold back. Excellence. They don't make it this good in NYC. The first bite, game over. This is it. Satisfaction at long last. And I still have the entire burrito to go.

If you're in the neighborhood, try El Castillito. You won't be disappointed. And if you are, it's...

Today, I ordered two burritos over the phone from Juan. I like to call in the order instead of using a. online service so the restaurant doesn’t have to pay an ordering fee. He asked me if I wanted super and I said no I’d like regular burritos. When I picked them up I was told they were super and asked to pay for super even after I explained I ordered regular. The sweet woman who was working the register went to talk to Juan. He told me I could wait 5 minutes for new burritos to be made and then says there’s no fish left and tried to talk me into paying extra for the super burritos. I explained to him I didn’t order super and should not be charged for something I didn’t order. He gave me attitude which I didn’t appreciate. I’ve witnessed similar behavior when ordering in the restaurant. His English is not very good and he seems to get extremely frustrated when there’s a communication breakdown.

Our conversation wasnt going anywhere so the cashier whispers to me that she won’t charge me extra. I left her a large tip that covered the cost of the super burritos.

The food is good and I’ve only had an issue with this one individual. I don’t understand why he’s allows to take food orders. If there is a next time we will be ordering online and not calling...

I've bought burritos at this location for a number of years now and have to say that although most of the time the flavors were fine, what was in the burritos was not! I had found the owners to be less than honest and though they always got a hefty tip even though the food was always taken out, they had never made the burritos with the ingredients that were requested! Case in point the instructions were given in both English and Spanish, so it was impossible to misunderstand what was asked, but despite this extensive effort and the above mentioned tipping, tomato tortillas were never used. Also, instead of chicken, I had found multiple large tenants, skin, and large bones inside several burritos. When you pay extra for something you expect the service to be on par and those taking the order as well as the ones preparing the food to have at least a little of bit of decency and honesty, but this is obviously not the case here! Hence, I will not support this business going forward! You shouldn't be in business if you don't value...