TBG Eats: The Monster Breakfast Burrito from Los Primos

Current Weight: 168.0 lbs.

I used to be a big breakfast guy. B-I-G. In every sense of the word.

My mother sent us off to elementary school with bellies full of homemade French toast, waffles or omelets and a variety pack of cured breakfast meats. On weekends, she'd find time to add home fries.

As we moved on through middle school and into high school, my mom retired from daily desayuno duty. Undeterred, my brother and I satiated our enormous AM food fix by splitting one half-dozen donuts from Manna's -- cruelly located across the street from our apartment -- or with one of the recently-introduced microwavable Jimmy Dean biscuit sandwiches. 20 years ago, those cholesterol bombs were the size of a shoebox.

These days, my breakfast consists of an apple or strawberry cereal bar and two full travel-size cups of black coffee. Huge breakfasts now make me feel like I'm on the verge of childbirth, so I only indulge after one of my increasingly rare evenings of moderate-to-heavy drinking (Why hello there, Christmas party season! Has it been a year, already?")

Regular readers of this lightly-read blog might remember that I've had some infrequent, isolated sinus issues this year. Two weeks ago, I met with an ENT specialist who informed me that the single retention cyst in my sinus cavity has invited its girlfriend to move in -- the two of them living in sin within the spacious confines of my own skull.

The doctor wanted to be "aggressive" in prescribing a treatment. In his most serious voice, he told me about a steroid called prednisone. In MY most serious voice, I told him that I'd already been prescribed prednisone. Six months ago. It messed up my stomach, screwed up my sleep and left a chemical taste in my mouth for several hours after the initial ingestion.

His response: "Let's double the dosage!" He convinced me that the drugs were pretty much my last non-surgical option and strongly recommended I eat a huge breakfast every morning to better absorb the impact of the prednisone. For the most part, I've ignored the doctor's admonition. For the most part, I've paid for it. As I posted to Twitter on the fifth day of my steroid regimen: If Barry Bonds' insides reacted the same way mine are then America should understand why he was so mean.

So, with my stomach in a state of surrender, I'm hitting it with some hole-in-the-wall Mexican food to make it feel better. Wait...what?

Los Primos is a San Diego-based mini-chain with 15 restaurants in California. They've got about 5% more polish than the hundreds of other less-established Mexican spots; which is to say their three-legged "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" pinball game in the corner actually works. On this 70-degree Sunday morning, they were doing brisk business.

I ordered the $4.49 "Monster" Breakfast Burrito. Ham, bacon, potatoes, scrambled eggs and cheese wrapped in a ginormous flour tortilla. I added four single-servings of their hot, smoky chipotle salsa. Unlike many breakfast burritos, Los Primos' "Monster" isn't 98% eggs. The saltiness of the bacon and ham hit you in the first bite, with just enough eggs to cut the sodium, somewhat. The potatoes are crisp and plentiful, increasing the black hole density of this bad boy. The salsa isn't just superfluous heat, either. It's plenty hot, but with a wonderful roasted flavor that compliments every ingredient within.





Through and through, in every bite, you're getting meat-eggs-potatoes. There's a "complete balanced breakfast" joke somewhere in here, but those of you who didn't grow up on Saturday morning sugar-coated cereal commercials wouldn't get it. Hours later, I still felt satisfied. Thanks, doctor.

I assume we'll deal with the eventual angioplasty at a later date.

Grade: 5 (out of 5)