This is one of the most exciting Mexican restaurants in the Bay Area

That makes El Burro Veloz, a casual Mexican restaurant in Antioch offering eight varieties of guisado at a time, worth the pilgrimage to the eastern end of the Bay Area, where, as poet Shel Silverstein might say, the sidewalk ends. 

Antioch is hardly considered an exciting food city in the Bay Area. Yet I continue to find excellent Mexican food with each visit. (Census data shows the area’s Hispanic population has grown considerably in recent years, from 13% of the total in the 1980s to more than 30% today.) The Antioch Flea Market is like a weekly food bazaar of birria tacos, Zacatecas-style gorditas and abundant antojitos. El Pueblo Taqueria, located inside a panaderia, makes some of the region’s most deeply flavorful carnitas.

Then there’s my most recent fascination, El Burro Veloz. Located in a shopping center, the restaurant has an informal, unpretentious vibe. The red and black ceiling tiles are color-coordinated to match the logo of an ice-climbing donkey. A TV screen in the corner streams movies or is tuned to the latest sporting event. On weekends, customers tend to pop in and out, enjoying a quick lunch at the bar or picking up takeout orders. Weekends draw the late breakfast crowd seeking hot gorditas and a cold Modelo.

The guisados can be enjoyed in every type of dish, from tacos to tortas. But the gorditas ($3.50) are the restaurant’s strong suit. They’re like circular Hot Pockets made of maiz and stuffed to the brim with guisados like picadillo (spiced ground beef and veggies), pork in green salsa or chicharron in red salsa.

Just as rice is crucial for good sushi, quality masa is paramount for great guisados. It not only serves as the vehicle for consumption, it also comprises the majority of the dish, be it taco or gordita. El Burro Veloz sources its masa from La Finca Tortilleria in Oakland. It’s made with yellow maiz that has a resonant taste of corn, like freshly made popcorn. So dishes get off to a great start. 

To make her gorditas, Irma Padilla Martinez, who owns the restaurant with her two sons, Ivan Barron Padilla and Ernesto Padilla Martinez, grabs a fistful of masa and presses it down until it’s slightly thicker than a tortilla. After cooking the corn puck over a plancha, she makes a surgical incision along the edge to open it, then loads it with refried beans and adds a generous guisado scoop.

The most stunning filling is the pork in salsa verde, which is simmered for two hours until the sauce reduces down to a rich, thick consistency. The pork fat-infused, earthy salsa has a spicy, indulgent quality. The chicharron en salsa roja is also extraordinary. The fried pigskin is wonderfully slippery and slightly sticky after its long bath in a bubbling cauldron of salsa made of guajillo and chile de arbol peppers. 

Among the milder options, the steak and cactus combination is stellar, too. It works particularly well in a burrito ($11), where the guisado’s soupy liquid vividly flavors the beans and rice. Then there’s the vibrant, crimson-colored barbacoa, which is made with pork instead of the more common beef or lamb, and is best experienced as a taco dorado ($2.89). A relatively small taco, this potent red crescent moon is fried over a hot griddle in the spiced pork lard left from cooking the barbacoa. The shatteringly crisp tortillas contain a cherry red, shredded pork core. 

The more traditional taco fillings at El Burro Veloz are exquisite as well, like the extremely crunchy tripa ($4.25), which is always served crisp, and the remarkably bouncy lengua ($4.25). If you’re a cheese fiend, you can add shredded Jack cheese to the barbacoa tacos ($3.30), though I prefer them without. When I am in a cheesy mood, I stick to the perrona taco ($5), made with a 6-inch corn tortilla (really more of a quesadilla) padded with guisados. I’m partial to the puerco en salsa verde, whose spice doesn’t get lost in the molten cheese.

The torta ahogada, the drowned sandwich hailing from Guadalajara, is sadly missing the essence I love about the dish. The tomato sauce is a little too sweet, and the bread is too soggy, making it impossible to eat with your hands.

El Burro Veloz got its start over a decade ago. In 2010, the Martinez family left Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, and landed in Concord. After working double shifts at Taco Bell and McDonald’s for a year, Irma decided to try selling food from her backyard. With little cooking experience of her own, she would call her mom back home for recipes, trying her best to re-create them. Today, virtually all of the restaurant’s recipes are still abuela’s. 

To build an audience, Irma’s sons invited people from the neighborhood to try their mom’s food. Through word of mouth, the family built a loyal following. So loyal, in fact, that customers followed them as they moved from Bay Point to their first restaurant in Martinez in 2019. After two years there, they moved El Burro to Antioch, where it opened in May 2021 with double the amount of space and ample parking. Their followers came with them.

As long as the family keeps making their elegant guisados, I count myself among them.

El Burro Veloz

4815 Lone Tree Way, Antioch. https://www.elburroveloz.com/ or 925 732-2255. 

Hours: 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

Accessibility: All on one level.

Noise level: Low to moderate.

Meal for two, without drinks: $25-$30.

What to order: gorditas ($3.50) — puerco en salsa verde, chicharron and steak and nopales, tripas and lengua tacos ($4.25), perrona ($5), burrito ($11, $13.50 for super)

Meat-free options: bean and cheese gordita ($3.50). 

Drinks: Beer and agua frescas.

Transportation: Near 385 bus route. Parking lot.

Best practices: Order two gorditas, a tripa taco and an ice cold cucumber lime or strawberry guava agua fresca ($3.63).

Cesar Hernandez is The San Francisco Chronicle’s associate restaurant critic. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @cesarischafa