“Little Donkeys,” they’re called, though no one knows exactly why. To the inexperienced palate, the burrito appears simple and straightforward. However, as the mystery of its etymology might suggest, the perfect burrito is as elusive and superstitious as a mythical chupacabra.

This reviewer’s been scouring the streets of Santa Rosa for years, searching in and out of every taqueria, cantina and taco truck for a veggie burrito that checked all the boxes on his list or rendered the list obsolete. Unfortunately, my dream burrito is wrapped far from La Palapa, the taqueria on the corner of Lewis and Humboldt.

Ultimately, La Palapa doesn’t distinguish itself from its competition. Within a one-half mile radius from the SRJC campus (and all on Mendocino Avenue), five taquerias vie for dominance. Surprisingly, despite so much competition, their differences are superficial. La Palapa didn’t impress.

The waitress started me off with the traditional chips and salsa. Not bad; though I much prefer salsa bars to finite amounts of pre-chosen salsas, La Palapa was able to compensate. The chips were thick, warm and crunchy; and in addition to the pleasant roasted pepper salsa, La Palapa serves refried beans with its chips; the only restaurant in the area that does so.

A Mexican folk saying goes: when Mexican police suspect someone of being an illegal immigrant, they ask them how to eat a burrito: with a spoon, or with a fork and knife. The answer a real Mexican gives, of course, is with their hands. However, when La Palapa’s veggie burrito ($5.50) arrived at my table, it proved too beany-gooey for this gringo to even prop upright. Minus a point for low rice/bean ratio. Iceburg lettuce and a sad slice of winter “tomato” lie next to it as garnish. I’m always skeptical of these attempts at gourmet-style, fork and knife burritos; they ignore the humble burrito’s true spirit. For comparison, if someone served a ballpark hot dog on a fluffy bed of kale and expected it to be eaten with silver, you’d know something was up.

On the plus side, the cheese was mostly melted, the tortilla was perfectly warm and slightly grilled, and the amounts of sour cream and guacamole were ideal. As for the restaurant itself, the waitress was nice, but the ambience unremarkable. Unremarkable’s the word; La Palapa and its veggie burrito, though satisfying, proved unremarkable.