El Burrito Loco, which is Spanish for “The Crazy Burrito”, is not the name of a Mexican wrestler, but rather a non-descript taqueria on North Portland Blvd. There are two other locations in Portland, but I haven’t been. I’m not even going to tell you where they are. There.

As the name suggests, this place is evidently proud of its burritos that may or may not have full control over their mental faculties. I’ve even sampled one in the past (carne asada), but I prefer tacos over burritos, and this is taco survey, not a burrito survey. I won’t speak of burritos again.

There are some endearing traits here. The napkin dispenser is on a roll — much like toilet paper — and you have to tear off your napkins, like you would a square to wipe your ass. In addition to featuring squeeze bottle table sauces a la your prototypical taqueria, they also provide Heinz “taco” sauce in small, self-serve, aluminum packets, like as if they wanted to outlame Del Taco’s “Del Scorcher” or Taco Bell’s “Fire” or your average junior high school cafeteria, really. They also feature hard shell tacos at El Burrito Loco, which sets it apart from most taquerias and from most Mexicans, for that matter.

Best of all, in the adjacent dining room from the counter, you can drop some coins into this classic “Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker” video game.

After throwing down some tacos, it’s always a best practice to bust a moonwalk and fuck up some perps.

On to the tacos.

The taco triumvirate. Each taco runs $1.35 apiece. The table sauces (green and red) are serviceable. The green is actually kinda red, and is not your typical verde in that it packs a punch — wielding a few Scoville units — and the red is sauce made mostly from reconstituted dried chilis. Since El Burrito Loco does not have pastor, I subbed their namesake taco.

This is the “loco” taco. It features shredded beef that’s been simmered in a red chili sauce. It is garnished simply with onions and cilantro. The meat is sort of the pulled variety, and compares favorably I suppose to the “barbacoa” you’d get at the Chipotle chain.

For the most part, I would say I like this. The meat can be flavorful, and the texture can be quite nice. But other times it has been alternately too dry or too mushy, and the portion ample, and some times not so much. If they could consistently get “loco”, then I could recommend it without reservations.

The asada tacos at El Burrito Loco are probably your best bet. They are generally quite ample, and come dressed with a decent guacamole (and not the weird guacamayo that King Burrito slops on their tacos) and with a nice salsa fresca. The meat is often grilled nicely and full of beefy asada goodness, but on occasions it can tend towards overly greasy.

The carnitas. This isn’t real carnitas, it is simply sliced cubes(!) of pork that have been thrown into a deep fryer. For that alone it deserves six whacks on the wrist and a dozen Hail Mary’s. We will not speak of it again.

El Burrito Loco
1942 N Portland Blvd
Portland, OR 97217
(503) 735-9505