After its completion, which happened under the “officially edible” time limit, the volunteers celebrated by consuming the world’s largest known burrito. “We ravaged that fattie like a wild pack of dogs,” the aforementioned blogger poetically wrote.
These days, it might seem strange that this record-breaking effort even took place in Mountain View, a tech suburb that isn’t exactly known for being a Mexican food destination or hub of Latinx culture. Back then, however, the city’s Mexican and Central American immigrant populations were far more sizable than they are today. With that came a famed burrito war between La Costeña and its Salvadoran-owned rival, La Bamba, that lasted over a decade. But in 2013, as part of an ongoing wave of gentrification and redevelopment, both restaurants were effectively “evicted” from their original locations, as La Bamba’s co-owner, Leo Munoz, told the Mountain View Voice at the time.
La Bamba has since gone out of business, along with many of the Latino-owned businesses from that era. But La Costeña — and the legacy of its long burrito — remains.
A few weeks ago, I commemorated the achievement by ordering a mole chicken burrito at La Costeña for under $10, which is a steal in today’s economy. For the record, the restaurant’s burrito meat selection is impressive for a sleepy, outwardly-unnoticeable joint in a suburban neighborhood surrounded by tech offices. Besides mole, they offer chile colorado, lengua, pollo borracho (chicken marinated in beer), garlicky al mojo de ajo, fajitas and carnitas estilo Chiconcuac, in addition to the more common options.
La Costeña also serves a super burrito that could easily feed two. The dish still attracts a noticeable lunch crowd — albeit mostly tech workers on their break, rather than the shop’s former working-class Latino clientele, who have mostly been priced out. And amateur food reviewers continue to travel from places as far as Austin, Texas, to seek out the former record-holding burrito destination.
Websites like AOL and Ask Jeeves may no longer be around to feed our sense of connection like they once did. But other remnants of the dot-com era, like La Costeña, are still on the map — if you go offline to search for them.
