Lots of things are said about the fact that Australia is damned lucky when it comes to the wealth of produce available to us, and that this combined with an astounding diversity of cultures living here leads to a vast array of taste sensations. There are also a lot of food courts in Australia that promise said delacacies, and then put peas in a burrito.
Thing is, I don't know if it's OK to put beans in a burrito, or if it's OK if this burrito is the size of your head. What I do know is that XQuisito at the University of Sydney's Camerdown campus thinks it's OK, as long as they put some red stuff on top of the burrito along with some partially melted cheese. Don't get me wrong, this thing was perfectly edible, but it was edible in the same way that combining lettuce, cheese, sour cream, guacamole and some sort of warm chicken goo in a wrap is fundamentally edible, it just didn't feel particularly authentic.
And that's the kicker, isn't it? Authenticity. Serving mexican speedily has always been somewhat in fashion in Australia (especially when combined as an outlet for stuffing things into potatoes), but it's recently hit some sort of new plain of franchised consciousness, with at least two competeing chains doing the rounds in Sydney. This is on top of numerous actual restaurants serving burritos around the inner-west, all purporting to different degrees of authenticity, or at least authentic tex-mex. That's a whole other deal.
I don't care about any of this. I just want someone's grandmother to make me a burrito, the way their grandmother used to make it for them. Maybe this doesn't even exist, so I'll just take whatever, and be immensely grateful for the experience. Either way, I bet it won't involve an ice-cream-scoop-worth of sour cream. Everything else, is a bonus.
