March 28, 2024
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A&E

Mystery Diner: Unique salsa, extensive menu, great quality make Los 3 Burritos a must-try

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DeKALB - Salsa, especially from a restaurant, can tend to get predictable.

It's going to be chunky. It's going to have strong cilantro and lime tastes. The only variable is the level of spice.

But a pair of salsas at Los 3 Burritos, 185 W. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb, keep things interesting as a complement to large portions of traditional fast-food-style Mexican fare.

Both salsas are blended smooth, a rarity in the restaurant game in and on its own. The red salsa has a strong, initial hit of spice and a very strong, smoky flavor. The green one starts off citrusy, but builds and builds in the spice department as you munch through the order of firm, crunchy chips.

And, again, that's just the side dish. The main dishes offer huge portions and great quality.

In a $9 combo plate, diners get their choice of a pair of items from the menu. This time, we got the steak quesadilla and tostada. Both are huge, with the quesadilla cooked to perfection and the cheese the perfect consistency of melty but not too runny.

The tostada was very well-balanced and innovatively served with a double tostada shell. That second one came in handy for picking up the spillings that inevitably happen with a tostada.

The enchiladas are incredibly filling, and an order of two costs just $5. The red sauce is mild and remains distinct from the salsa, as the establishment avoids the lazy trap some other restaurants fall into.

The taco salad is enormous and loaded with ground beef. In this case, the meat was cooked well-done and managed to avoid being insanely greasy. A lot of times the shell on a salad can get bogged down and soggy, but this one stayed crispy the whole time.

Then there's the namesake of the restaurant, the burrito. Even the baby burrito is huge and almost too much for one person to eat. It's overstuffed with beans, lettuce and tomato as well as the meat of choice – and the meat choices are extensive. You can deep dive into milanesa (breaded steak), chicharron (pork skin) and lengua (tongue), or go traditional with barbacoa, carnitas, or pastor, or basic with chicken, steak or ground beef.

In the chicken burrito, all the flavors played well together, providing a solid contribution to the Mexican-food staple.

An extensive menu that offers countless possibilities of well-above-average Mexican fast-food staples at extremely great prices makes Los 3 Burritos a must-try.

• The Mystery Diner is a Daily Chronicle employee who reports on their experience at local restaurants. The diner's identity is not revealed to restaurant staff when ordering or picking up the food. If the Mystery Diner cannot recommend the establishment, we will not publish a story.