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[Turbo Ninja]

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.

[AugustWest]

We don't have Chipotle, but it sounds like Q-Doba.  I could eat there about every other day.

[CortJstr]

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).

[Gimpson]

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, 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.

[St_Zartan]

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, 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.

[wombat]

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?

[CortJstr]

but I've heard that the whole "Fresh Mex" thing is pretty much bullshit, 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.

[St_Zartan]

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.

[andalucia]

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.

[Nabubrush]

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.

[CortJstr]

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.

[Turbo Ninja]

I just looked at their nutritional information.  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...

[wombat]

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.

[slink]

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.

[St_Zartan]

FRESSSSSSSSSSSSSH



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