Bay City Burrito Hawthorn - CLOSED

Overview

Let's get any awkwardness out the way before we start. There is nothing photogenic about a burrito. To be brutally honest, the burrito is a long way down the list of the most Instagrammable foods out there. And yet, it's just so darn tasty that it's a far better idea to just get amongst it anyway than waste all that eating time lining it up, getting its good side, standing on chairs for the aerial view and picking just the right filter. There's a burrito emoji for that.

For the most part, the burrito has been misunderstood in Australia and left behind in the wake of the taco and burger frenzy. Enter Bay City Burrito. Established in Hawthorn in 2009 under the perhaps more questionable name of High Tech Burrito, Bay City Burrito came into its own in 2013 when it rebranded and opened a second restaurant in St. Kilda.

You hear burrito and think Mexican, but BCB is all about celebrating the big burrito that came out of feeding the masses of Latino immigrants who swarmed to the Mission District in San Francisco in the '60s. And by big, they really do mean big— it's an all-in-one meal. A tinfoil-wrapped banquet, if you will.

Essentially, the burrito is rice, beans and grilled meat or chicken wrapped in a tortilla. BCB up the ante with these fillings, offering a variety of grilled meat and vegetables and salad additions, as well as brown rice options and the low-carb burrito bowl where you have all the deliciousness of the inside of the burrito of your choice, without the outside (the tortilla). BCB make their burritos to order, using fresh ingredients prepped on the day, which not only means you're eating well, but that they can also cater for allergies and intolerances.

Things can get messy when you're eating a burrito — hence the tinfoil wrapper. But there's a certain glory in eating sloppy food, and the burrito is comfort food at its finest. Eating the La Fajita with its smoky grilled steak, capsicum, melted cheese, Spanish rice, salsa and lime sour cream ($15.60) is like coming home.

The burrito may be the core of their trade, but there are other delights to be had. Why not kick things off with their house-made tortilla chips and salsa ($7.50-9.50), and while you're at it, wash it down with a jug of sangria or one of their frozen mandarin margaritas ($9.90). There are tacos, nachos and quesadillas if a more Mexican crunch is more your thing. A bigger dessert menu is on the way and a collaboration with 7 Apples means talk of guacamole ice cream amongst other sweet things.