The surf and turf burrito puts two premium proteins inside one flour tortilla and asks them to share a core: grilled steak and shrimp, the land-and-sea pairing borrowed from the steakhouse and rolled into a Mission-style wrap. The whole proposition lives in that pairing. Steak brings char, chew, and deep savor; shrimp brings sweetness, a snap of texture, and a faster, briner note. The tortilla and the supporting cast of rice and beans exist mostly to carry that contrast without letting either protein drown the other. It is a burrito defined by what is in its center, not by its wrapper, and the center is doing the talking.
The craft is mostly about not ruining two ingredients that fail in opposite directions. Steak, usually carne asada or a fajita-style cut, wants a hot grill and a char, then a rest and a chop so it does not leak. Shrimp wants the opposite: brief, hot, careful cooking, because shrimp held too long on the heat turns rubbery and loses the snap that justifies its presence. The two are cooked separately and combined at assembly, never stewed together into one indistinct protein. The flour tortilla is warmed until pliable; rice goes down as a moisture buffer so shrimp liquid and steak juices do not soak straight through; beans add bind; cheese and a salsa, often a salsa verde or a chile-lime blend, tie it together without burying the seafood. A good one keeps the steak and shrimp distinguishable bite to bite and the tortilla intact. A sloppy one overcooks the shrimp to erasers, drowns both proteins in watery rice, and overfills past the point the wrap can close.
The variations are largely a question of which proteins occupy the core. Drop the shrimp and the build collapses back toward an ordinary steak burrito. Add the full maximal load of sour cream and guacamole on top of both proteins and it crosses into the everything-in super burrito, a larger relative that deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here. Swap the steak for al pastor and keep the shrimp and the pairing tilts sweet and achiote-stained instead of charred and beefy. Pull the rice, beans, and tortilla entirely and shrink to a single folded tortilla and you are back at the open taco, the form all of this descends from, which deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.