The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: Turbo Ninja on December 07, 2004, 06:31:23 pm
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You know those plastic bags full of coupons that are sometimes hung on your doorknob/mailbox/fencepost? They're usually stocked with offers from oil change places, pizza shops and dry cleaners or something and they get ignored like so much e-mail spam.
But this week is different. This week the bags themselves are coupons for Chipotle. I can bring a bag to any Chipotle in the Columbus area and they'll redeem it for a free burrito, burrito bol or order of tacos.
I walked a free burrito gauntlet on my way to work this morning, surrounded on all sides by these bags/coupons. I thought about snagging the bags - they mostly go ignored anyway - and building a stockpile of delicious lunches and/or dinners but then I wondered just how much Chipotle is too much.
So the question is: Could you eat there more than once a week? Would you eat there more than once a week? Please consider in your answer the savings of $5.75 per burrito and how that money could be reappropriated for other purchases. $5.75 per day x 24 days remaining in December = $138, or almost enough for a new PS2.
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We don't have Chipotle, but it sounds like Q-Doba. I could eat there about every other day.
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Chipotle is owned by McDonald's. It's burritos meets Subway.
I'm not a fan as I find their stuff too dry unless I pay extra for guac. I much prefer Baja Fresh (which is Wendy's).
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I tend to discover food I like and eat at the same place over and over. Chipotle was an obsession of mine last year, and I did in fact eat there several times a week. It can be done.
They're no Freebirds (http://www.freebirds.com/), though.
Baja Fresh recently opened several restaurants around the KC Metro area, but in the year they've been open two have since closed. I find this particularly sad because one of the ones that closed was walking distance from my house.
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I've never had Chipotle - there's just not one convenient to me, and I can't really get my head around the idea of a burrito being expensive - but I've heard that the whole "Fresh Mex" thing is pretty much bullshit (http://www.skatelog.com/nutrition/fresh-mex-cpsi.htm), and Chipotle is just as bad for you or worse as other fast food offerings. Do they taste pretty good at least?
OK. So basically visualize this 24 days' worth of burritos you're planning on eating and turn them into Quarter Pounders and see if it still seems like a good idea. Oh, man, does that ever sound preachy.
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They have no soft corn tortillas at Chipotle. What is the point of flour tortillas? What is the point of a burrito? What is the point of "Mexican" food with no corn in it? But why doesn't Baja Fresh have any PORK?
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but I've heard that the whole "Fresh Mex" thing is pretty much bullshit (http://www.skatelog.com/nutrition/fresh-mex-cpsi.htm), and Chipotle is just as bad for you or worse as other fast food offerings. Do they taste pretty good at least?
I'm going to disagree here but on a technicality. "Fresh mex" <> "healthy mex." With the exceptions of items marked as low-fat/carb the advertising never claims to be healthier than fast food they just claim to be closer to actual food.
They often have open kitches so you can see that they are putting actual raw chicken breasts on the grill as opposed to warming up caramel-colored diced chik'n bits like at normal fast food stores. And the salsas and such tend to have flavor variations each visit thanks to small differences in available ingredients. So they're only tangentially claiming to be healthy in that they advertise ingredients without preservatives/chemicals but not to be low-cal/fat/carb on the whole.
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With the exceptions of items marked as low-fat/carb the advertising never claims to be healthier than fast food they just claim to be closer to actual food.
I agree with what you're saying - it's just that I think their usage of the word "fresh" is, while technically correct, a little dishonest in that people have been more or less programmed to assume that "fresh" is synonymous with "healthy" (broken link to animation of clean white hands tearing apart heads of wet, leafy lettuce in slow motion). They've always got the "well we never said it's not bad for you" position to fall back on (although I thought it was amusingly telling that Chipotle "...doesn't disclose the calorie or saturated fat content of its burritos") knowing damn well that the connotations of "fresh" have got people sucking down burritos the size of a nine-year-old's forearm and thinking they're doing themselves some kind of favor.
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As a college student, I'd like to affirm that if I had the opportunity for this much free food, I would go for it until I started to fall apart inside.
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OK, this is my 1000th post and I was going to save it for something good, but I realized that I'm not going to have anything good. So, I'm just going to say that I enjoyed:
Chipotle's Carnitas Burrito is like an artillery shell filled with a day's worth of saturated fat and sodium,
and leave it at that. Well, and I'll add that my wife is very pretty* (I go home tomorrow!).
*and naughty.
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They have no soft corn tortillas at Chipotle. What is the point of flour tortillas? What is the point of a burrito? What is the point of "Mexican" food with no corn in it? But why doesn't Baja Fresh have any PORK?
Flour tortillas are generally made with lard and are thus more appealing to the American palate because they remind us of tasteless bleached Pillsbury products. Corn tortillas add their own bit of flavor and texture to the food and American's have been trained by whitebread that food wraps/pockets/substrates should be utilitarian and neutral.
I would say no pork because it generally seems to be slow-cooked in Mexican food which runs contrary to Baja Fresh's "watch us grill it!" motif.
As for Zartan's fresh thing, you have a point. They intend fresh to mean "lacking potentially dangerous, cancer-causing, or addictive chemicals, additive, preservative, and flavorings" which is healthy by comparison but peoeple's minds twist that into healthy overall. Kind of like that Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor beer commercial. We're programmed to hear salad and think "good for me!" while ignoring the pile of greasy ground beef swimming in sour cream.
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I just looked at their nutritional information. (http://www.elviradarknight.com/diabetes/ChipotleNutritionSheet.pdf) I gotta get some bravery before I attempt to eat there more than once or twice a week. Or there's always portion control: Eat half for lunch, eat the other half for dinner...
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American's have been trained by whitebread that food wraps/pockets/substrates should be utilitarian and neutral.
Aaargh! Yes, the evil assumption that the breadlike-substance in a sandwich only needs to serve the function of keeping you from getting the filling on your hands. How did we ever come to this sorry culinary pass as a culture??
And can I just say that what I want is some nice healthy FRESH LARD.
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Has to be said I quite liked O'Briens over here on the bread issue. It's an Irish sandwich shop originally that is popping up all over now, and they use fairly good bread, and really thick slices! I've not actually had one of their wraps, so I can't comment, but the sandwiches are good.
I have been to Subway once, and well, it wasn't bad, but I wasn't hugely impressed.
Some day I'll get round to being in London long enough to go to Pret a Manger, which some people say is great, if exhorbitantly expensive.
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(http://www.deliaonline.com/picturelibrary%5Cjpeg150/la/lard.jpg)
FRESSSSSSSSSSSSSH
(http://www.wymans.com/Health/Images/Healthy-Kids_42173.jpg)
NATURE - LOTTA FOLKS TALKIN' ABOUT IT
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Here's something tasty for you:
In 10 NFL cities, players will work the fast-food chain's drive-through windows. The Hardee's/NFL featured item is the "Monster Thickburger." It's a 1,420-calorie Tidal Wave of Oozing Gooey Fat That Will Gum Up Your Heart But Good. It's two one-third pound slabs of fatty meat between three pieces of cheese and four strips of slithery bacon slathered over with a slimy glob of mayonnaise under buttered sesame seed buns the size of cow patties. Add fries and a soft drink, it's 2,340 calories for $7.09.
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Here's something tasty for you:
In 10 NFL cities, players will work the fast-food chain's drive-through windows. The Hardee's/NFL featured item is the "Monster Thickburger." It's a 1,420-calorie Tidal Wave of Oozing Gooey Fat That Will Gum Up Your Heart But Good. It's two one-third pound slabs of fatty meat between three pieces of cheese and four strips of slithery bacon slathered over with a slimy glob of mayonnaise under buttered sesame seed buns the size of cow patties. Add fries and a soft drink, it's 2,340 calories for $7.09.
Come on, if you're talking about that Thing, you need to provide a link with a photo (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6498304/). It's completely grotesque.
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NATURE - LOTTA FOLKS TALKIN' ABOUT IT
You know what comes from nature? Onions!
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NATURE - LOTTA FOLKS TALKIN' ABOUT IT
You know what comes from nature? Onions!
Sad songs are nature's onions.
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Have you tried the Monster Thickburger? * 77459 responses
Heck yeah, and I ate every bite.
53%
Yes, but I couldn't finish it.
47%
No, but it will be on the menu some time soon.
0%
No way. It's a heart attack waiting to happen.
0%
These results cannot be true, can they?
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Sweet Jesus.
That's hilarious.
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These results cannot be true, can they?
Why not? Are you having trouble believing that many people can finish it or that many people can't finish it?
It's nothing but their Double Thickburger with some bacon slapped on it. I've eaten several Double Thickburgers sans bacon, I can't imagine the bacon would change the experience much.
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I'm surprised that, on an ostensibly neutral site, all but a statistically insignificant portion of the 77,000 respondants had tried it. I voted 'No way' along with 0% of the other voters.
I guess it's possible that all the people who would not have tried it just decided the hell with it.
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I've eaten several Double Thickburgers sans bacon, I can't imagine the bacon would change the experience much.
But were the buns buttered? WERE THEY?
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I haven't even seen a Hardee's in over a decade, let alone eaten at one. Didn't they all turn into Roy Roger's?
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Around here it was the other way around - Roy Rogers became Hardees and then they promptly went out of business.
There are a lot of Hardees in the Baltimore area. I have no idea why.
And those poll results aren't exactly accurate - or if they are then the "No fuck*ng way" votes don't add up to a full percentage point, which is really kinda scary.
I must say, though, it does look delicious. The only thing keeping me from ordering one is a lack of availability.
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It's also interesting that MSN lists this as a "Related Story":
New bioterror food regulations unveiled (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6660766/)
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"Probably no nutritionist ever imagined that a product like this would be marketed."
It's not like I've never made myself a sandwich that evil. Jeez.
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I'd have to say that the meatlovers pizzas with the extra cheese and pepperoni in the crust that Pizza Hut used to sell was worse.
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Wow.
Okay, first off, I love Chipotle; not as much as my beloved Qdoba, but enough to where I got really, really excited to see one opening up across the street from my dorm. In fact, I'm probably going to apply for a job there; if you go to their website, they actually have a kickass packet of benefits. Probably the best of the breed are unlimited burritos during working hours, flex-time, and 2 weeks paid vacation (based on weekly salary average) after THREE MONTHS. Shit yeah, friend.
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One of the top benefits: unlimited burritos.
I am not judging, I merely felt that bore repeating. My fast food was Popeye's, and I couldn't imagine eating their chicken limitlessly. Not to mention they charged employees half-price for food.
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One of the top benefits: unlimited burritos.
I am not judging, I merely felt that bore repeating. My fast food was Popeye's, and I couldn't imagine eating their chicken limitlessly. Not to mention they charged employees half-price for food.
?! You can eat yourself sick at Popeye's for $3, half-price kind of seems redundant.
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my beloved Qdoba...
Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeah. A little seasoned shredded beef w/ habenero salsa, puhlease. Or perhaps a naked grilled veggie today...
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Chipotle's Carnitas Burrito is like an artillery shell filled with a day's worth of saturated fat and sodium
And it is a beautiful thing. We ate Chipotle a couple of times a week during the month waiting for our stove to arrive.
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I'm craving unhealthy food really hard lately, to the point that the Monster Thickburger actually looks kind of good. (Better without the bacon and mayonnaise, but still good.) I think it comes from having no fast-food place within walking distance and not having a car to get to one, because Jesus, no sentient being should want McDonald's this much.
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my beloved Qdoba...
Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeah. A little seasoned shredded beef w/ habenero salsa, puhlease. Or perhaps a naked grilled veggie today...
Jesus, I must return to Louisville. All I want is medium salsa fuck*ng verde, dammit! SALSA fuck*ng VERDE! Why would the Lord, who has taken so much, deny me this, as well?
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my beloved Qdoba...
Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeah. A little seasoned shredded beef w/ habenero salsa, puhlease. Or perhaps a naked grilled veggie today...
Jesus, I must return to Louisville. All I want is medium salsa fuck*ng verde, dammit! SALSA fuck*ng VERDE! Why would the Lord, who has taken so much, deny me this, as well?
Oh yeah, Kentucky is the first place I think of when someone mentions "Authentic Mexican Cuisine."
Are you saying there are better mexicano restaurants in Louisville than there are in New York fuck*ng City?
For some reason, all of the best "mexican" restaurants in Philly are run by Puerto Ricans or Cubans. You can't drink the water in the really authentic ones.
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my beloved Qdoba...
Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeah. A little seasoned shredded beef w/ habenero salsa, puhlease. Or perhaps a naked grilled veggie today...
Jesus, I must return to Louisville. All I want is medium salsa fuck*ng verde, dammit! SALSA fuck*ng VERDE! Why would the Lord, who has taken so much, deny me this, as well?
Oh yeah, Kentucky is the first place I think of when someone mentions "Authentic Mexican Cuisine."
Are you saying there are better mexicano restaurants in Louisville than there are in New York fuck*ng City?
For some reason, all of the best "mexican" restaurants in Philly are run by Puerto Ricans or Cubans. You can't drink the water in the really authentic ones.
Who said anything about "authentic"? It's just good. I don't care how authentic it is.
Also, there are tons of Mexicans around here -- lots of farmworkers, but other folks too. Many have opened restaurants. I go to one Taqueria just around the corner from my office that's like eating in somebody's kitchen. I think it's pretty authentic -- and the food is fuck*ng excellent.
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Yeah, I gave up on "authenticity" a while ago. Give in to the burritos, Jough. GIVE IN.
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It must have been more authentic than some if it had salsa verde. I weep to think of all the years I went without salsa verde in my life. You kids today don't know how good you've got it.
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Salsa Verde is just green salsa, right?
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Salsa Verde is just green salsa, right?
Literally it just means "green sauce" so there's a lot of leeway. But generally in America salsa verde contains no tomato and is more watery with few if any chunks. But I've also seens salsa verdes that were just regular Tostitos-style salsa with green tomato or tomatillo substituted for regular tomato.
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Salsa Verde is just green salsa, right?
Just? ??
As Cort says there are many variations, but green things like tomatillo and green chiles are usually involved, and importantly, it is always more wonderful than the red kinds.
And in Olden Times, it was a thing never to be seen on the East Coast. And don't you forget it, you unappreciative young whippersnappers you.
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With thoughts of this thread swimming in my mind and limited time to get/eat food before a lunchtime appointment for a haircut, I chose to try the Hardee's Monster Thickburger. The drive through was very busy, so I went inside to get place my order. I have never before been embarrassed to order a fast food meal, but my shame was palpable as a placed my order. In the several minutes between when the order was placed and when my food was delivered, I felt that the staff at the Hardee's was looking at me funny. When they called my number, I took my bag and slunk out of the restaurant.
As for the burger itself, it really is a bit too much, and I'm the kind of fellow who rarely says that about a meal of any sort. The whole thing is just gloppy with cheese, and I never before thought I'd have something with too much bacon. It was cheap bacon and kind of made the sandwich stringy.
I went to the gym last night and did a couple extra laps to at least partially make up for the punishment I had subjected my body to.
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Remember when I brought up the "Monster Thickburger"? And then andalucia was kind enough to provide a link with a photo (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6498304/)?
Well, it turns out that's amateur hour. This guy (http://diaries.suchisthis.com/jwagman1/?cmd=view_entry&eid=23) knows how to get it done. How you feeling there, champ? (http://jwagman2.home.comcast.net/pics/52.jpg)
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Remember when I brought up the "Monster Thickburger"? And then andalucia was kind enough to provide a link with a photo (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6498304/)?
Well, it turns out that's amateur hour. This guy (http://diaries.suchisthis.com/jwagman1/?cmd=view_entry&eid=23) knows how to get it done. How you feeling there, champ? (http://jwagman2.home.comcast.net/pics/52.jpg)
His beverage is comically small.
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His beverage is comically small.
Come back on Amateur Eaters' Night, Cort - every serious glutton who was ever bound and fuck*ng determined to get their money's worth at an all-you-can-eat buffet knows that carbonation fills you up too quickly.
I remember when this link made the rounds a few months ago - I remember some weblog's comments thread being full of wailing and screaming about what a wasteful, useless, arrogant display of fatness and gluttony and First-World Thoughtlessness etc etc it all was. I agree, mostly, but damn, people; what we have here is nothing less than a spectacular display of giving up at life. It's an Atkins-era analogue to those D&D Steam Tunnel Suicides of yore.
He is even wearing the little hat.
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I remember when this link made the rounds a few months ago
I don't feel tardy.
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Okay, I'm late to the game. GOD I am totally salivating at the thought of a vegetarian Chipotle burrito with a side of guacamole.
GOD WE DON'T HAVE ANY CHIPOTLE HERE ON THE ISLAND.
I have tried making my own version but it is NEVER THE SAME. First thing that I do when I get back to Denver, besides seeing my family, will be to have a massive, baby-sized Chipotle burrito. I plan to go for broke -- I will get two sides of guacamole.
Amen.
And in response to the question...Baby Jesus agrees that you can NEVER have too much Chipotle.
And by the way...I am not a fan of Qdoba or Baja Fresh or any of those other chains. I judge a burrito joint solely by virtue of its guacamole. Yes, guacamole is JUST THAT IMPORTANT. I don't know wtf Chipotle does to its guac, all I know is that it is a miniature plastic takeout tub of pure artistry. And Qdoba et al. just can never compare.
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Okay, I'm late to the game. GOD I am totally salivating at the thought of a vegetarian Chipotle burrito with a side of guacamole.
GOD WE DON'T HAVE ANY CHIPOTLE HERE ON THE ISLAND.
I have tried making my own version but it is NEVER THE SAME. First thing that I do when I get back to Denver, besides seeing my family, will be to have a massive, baby-sized Chipotle burrito. I plan to go for broke -- I will get two sides of guacamole.
Amen.
And in response to the question...Baby Jesus agrees that you can NEVER have too much Chipotle.
And by the way...I am not a fan of Qdoba or Baja Fresh or any of those other chains. I judge a burrito joint solely by virtue of its guacamole. Yes, guacamole is JUST THAT IMPORTANT. I don't know wtf Chipotle does to its guac, all I know is that it is a miniature plastic takeout tub of pure artistry. And Qdoba et al. just can never compare.
I don't like guacamole, so it's a lousy way for me to gauge the quality of a burrito. And amen to the discussion way back about corn tortillas. I love corn tortillas and I get sad when I can't have them. I think the best tortillas have the balance of wet/dry correct. Nothing worse than soggy burrito except maybe a really dry one. If everything is nice and fresh, I can definitely enjoy a burrito. Even a giraffe one (if you haven't had this, ya gotta).