Chicken California Not As Satisfying As Its Carne Counterpart

I visited Sarita's Taco Shop on my very way back in October. I had the old standard, the California Burrito, and came away marginally impressed. Subsequent trips to the Casa de Oro favorite have yielded great results, including my for the Burrito Blotter yet.

For this trip, I decided to shake it up and try the Chicken California ($5.10) and see how it matched up. Here's the breakdown:

Tortilla
Very balanced between hard and soft, crispy and chewy. On every trip here, this is the one thing that has been consistently excellent. Sarita's has the perfect vessel in which to hold the trappings of deliciousness. The burrito was very hefty and substantial, but at no time did I fear losing any of it due to an inferior tortilla.

Chicken
The chicken was very tender and moist, and provided the most flavor of all of the contents. It had a nice balance of salt and spice. I tried bites with hot sauce and bites without, and actually preferred without, as the taste of the hot sauce kind of tarnished the chicken.

Potatoes
As always, the big debate when eating a California Burrito comes down to the potatoes: chunky or french fried? As one who prefers fries, the chunks of potatoes in this burrito are a little disappointing. Though they were tender, they were also underseasoned, and didn't provide a lot in the way of taste.

Guacamole and Sour Cream
Kudos to Sarita's for offering both of these in the burrito, as some taco shops often have only one, or even neither. There was a perfect amount of guacamole in the burrito – not so much as to always notice it, but not too little as for it to get lost. The sour cream provides a, well... creamy contrast as well.

Cheese
Another of my big areas of contention when eating any burrito is whether or not the cheese is melted. In my initial offering, the cheese was melted and nicely distributed. However, in this Chicken Cali it wasn't as melted as it could have been. I'll chalk this one up to an anomaly, as the chicken was seemingly hot enough to melt the cheese, but for some reason it didn't happen.

Overall
The burrito was flavorful, large and substantial. But there are just a few things that are holding it back from being truly awesome. Since the switch over to French fries isn't like to come soon, it will always leave me wanting.

Rating: 3.0 (out of 5)