BETWEEN SPARKS AND Salt Lake somewhere, in the van, I ate the rest of my burrito. It was cold. We did not have Bernie, master chef of the exhaust manifold. While I was pumping gas, while Chris was checking the oil, while Jason was washing the windshield, Bernie could have been under the hood, cooking us up a three-course dinner – but Bernie was not a part of our pit crew.

So I ate the rest of my burrito cold. I was driving. I should say I was behind the wheel. Cruise control was driving. Chris was reaching over from the passenger seat, steering. I had set up a little salsa buffet on the dash, and was occupied with getting as much as possible of my humble meal into my body and as little as possible all over my fancy-pants western shirt, which I had forgotten to change out of after our show in Sparks.

You know how Nevada is. But have you ever eaten a burrito behind the wheel of a moving motor vehicle with no concern whatsoever for the road? I have, and I lived to tell you that Taquería Los Pericos makes a mean day-old burrito butt.

The chips were stale and the tortilla was a wee bit soggy and stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouthish, but the innards were not no worse for wear. Carne asada! Still juicy, just a cold kind of juicy.

But maybe I should be telling you about the night before, in San Leandro, when everything was still hot and/or crispy. Los Pericos is a very green taquería. It was recommended by some guy in San Diego, who e'd me and e'd me about the greatness of Los Pericos. How it was the best taquería in the Bay Area, and maybe San Diego too. I don't remember. Cheap, he said. Chicken tacos, he said. Great, he said. But he didn't say anything about green. He left its greenness up to me.

And it only gets greener and greener, the bright green painted walls and all-around green columns, greener and greener in my mind as I sink deeper into brown and white Nevada toward the Great Salt Lake, where I will hopefully float tonight, to wake up in a cheap motel room, make a mug of coffee, and write nine poems in a sliver of light from the bathroom while the rest of the band sleeps.

What else I remember includes fake palm trees, fake braided onions, fake garlic, fake chile peppers. A race car driver video game, television, and the voice of a guy in the kitchen going, "taco taco taco" between five-second pauses.

It was 10 at night last night in San Leandro, and I hadn't had dinner yet. In a fit of starvation, I'd ordered two tacos and a burrito. The tacos were not $1.20, like Mr. San Diego Guy had said and said in his e-mails. Maybe if I'd gotten on it more expediently they would have been, but then I'd of been going around saying $1.20, $1.20 while meanwhile they'd raised the price to $1.85.

A regular burrito goes for $4.25. I can do better than that in the Mission. But I'll grant you this, Mr. San Diego Guy, they do got exceptionally good meats, and good salsas. The salsas are all laid out in a salsa bar, help yourself. And the meat ... I got grilled chicken and carnitas on my tacos. Carne asada, like I said, on the burrito.

I washed it all down with a Jamaica, and I don't even know what a Jamaica is. It's not horchata or tamarindo, and it's not melon or watermelon or strawberry, or any kind of the good kind of aguas frescas. Which is a bone I could pick with Los Pericos, but won't, because what do I care? They have beer. I just liked the color of this purple stuff, this Jamaica. I thought it would go good with the green. And it did, but I didn't like the taste of it.

The grilled chicken was very tasty, very black peppery, and smothered in a red sauce, with onions and cilantro. I think this is the thing to get: the grilled chicken. Although the carnitas was also very good. It came with regular fresh tomato salsa, or pico de gallo, if that's what it's called. And both tacos were piled high with meat.

The burrito was average size, but of course I didn't need it to be any bigger than that, what with the two-taco appetizer. At the time, I mean. In retrospect, Salt Lake looming, not to mention the general blandness of the so-called Great Plains ... (If they're so great, why can't you get a decent cup of coffee? Why can't you get anything green, or even good, to eat?) In retrospect, I was saying, I would like my day-old burrito butt to be as big as – I don't know. Who has a big fat ass these days?

Not me.

Taquería Los Pericos. 101 Pelton Center Way (at E. 14th St.) San Leandro. (510) 352-7667. Daily: 7:30 a.m.-midnight. Beer. No credit cards.

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Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).