Location. Location. Location. The three most important words in real estate are almost as important in the restaurant biz. Especially when it comes to burritos in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

When Don Day first arrived in San Miguel, he used to get his burrito fix at a place on Calle Correo, called El Burrito Bistro, conveniently located right in the middle of town.

Calle Correo was just one block from Calle San Francisco which seemed very appropriate. For even though the burrito may not have been born in San Francisco, it certainly was raised there, raised to a new height that has made it the ultimate in Cal-Mex food. In Mexico, it’s been around since the 19th Century with the earliest mention that Don Day has found in the 1895 Diccionario de Mexicanismos. Interestingly the word is attributed to San Miguel’s home state, Guanajuato, and is described as a rolled tortilla with meat or other ingredients.

In the sixties, in the taquerias of San Francisco, the mission style burrito evolved. It was bigger, much bigger, and better, much better, than Mexican style and, in addition to meat, would often also contain rice, beans, guacamole, cheese and sour cream.

Don Day used to live in San Francisco and the burrito became part of his every week diet. He’d walk way down Taraval Street, almost to the ocean, and pick up one of the juiciest delights in town for Don Day and Don Day’s Wife (one was enough for two people).

The burrito at El Burrito Bistro in San Miguel was a very good one too. The best Don Day had ever had outside of San Francisco. Perhaps it was because the restaurant was owned by a woman from My City By The Bay who therefore understood the science and mechanics of these rolls of joy. Don Day would start thinking about his first San Miguel burrito before he even boarded the plane south.

Then one day Don Day arrived back in San Miguel to find his beloved burrito had vanished. El Burrito Bistro was no more. And this was doubly depressing.

You see, before Don Day met Don Day`s Wife, he had a passion for redheads, especially those with an abundance of freckles. He had chased a number of good-looking redheads to distant corners of the world. He even caught one once who helped create his very own good-looking redhead for him. The chef-owner of El Burrito Bistro, that woman from San Francisco, was a good-looking, abundantly-freckled redhead. It was a double-whammy, like being hit with both barrels of a shotgun. The redhead had gone and she’d taken her burrito with her.

Don sent out a search party and a couple of times he had the redhead in his sights. Once for a few months, she was cooking chef`s choice meals from a house in Colonia Allende, and made some spectacular Indian and Middle Eastern feasts. On another occasion, but only for a couple of months, she was back to crafting those so sadly-missed burritos at a spot called the Sunset Bar at Casa Linda. But damn it, didn`t she disappear again, faster even than that good-looking redhead who works for David Copperfield.

Then Don Day got an email from one of his posse. There had been a sighting. There was a new restaurant at the end of Stirling Dickinson and through a window, opening to the kitchen, the freckled redhead had been spotted. And on the menu, there was the other missing link; the burrito was back.

For you to better appreciate how important that discovery was let me describe that redhead`s burrito for you. The menu lists two burritos, the regular and the drowned. Ordering the regular over the drowned is like choosing a cute girl over a beautiful woman.

The drowned burrito is about eight inches wide and stands about three inches tall in the middle. It brings memories of rainbows arching over the Golden Gate Bridge. It is automatically covered in sour cream but you will be asked if you also want red or green salsa also swimming on top. You will answer both.

You will also be asked if you would prefer shrimp or arrachera inside. Though again you’ll be tempted to answer both, you will bite your tongue for fear of upsetting the redhead in the kitchen (Don Day knows well about the wrath of redheads) and choose only the beef (or only the shrimp if you are red meat challenged). That beef (or shrimp) will provide warm and tender company for ample quantities of rice, refried beans, cheese and guacamole that will be crammed inside.

So, since that rediscovery, has Don Day made that redhead`s restaurant a regular, recurring event. No, he hasn`t. For, as you probably already know, men sometimes go astray. What might surprise you though is that Don Day was not led astray by another redhead, but by a big bear of a man.

Remember that location, location, location adage back in the first paragraph. This big bear of a man had a burrito joint (joint is a good word in Dondayese) appropriately named Burrimania, with some very tasty burritos with some very imaginative choices of fillings, located on a much closer street. That meant Don Day had to walk about seven or eight blocks more to get to the redhead’s restaurant and, not that Don Day is particularly lazy, but that meant that it took 14 to 16 minutes before Don Day would have his hands on one of those beauties.

Then, one day last year, despite that location, location, location, the big bear’s sign came down from above the door. Don Day recognized it as truly a sign from above. It was time he changed his location for consuming burritos.

If Don Day had a tail, it would have been between his legs. But he went back. Back to the redhead’s restaurant. Back to the palace of the burrito queen. Back to the best burrito in San Miguel de Allende. And has promised to never stray again.

The redheaded chef is called Noren Caceres. The restaurant is called La Frontera. It not only serves the best burrito but some of the best American style comfort food in San Miguel de Allende. It`s located at 28 Stirling Dickinson. It`s open from Monday to Saturday, Noon to 8:00 pm.