Friday, March 14, 2008

The McDonald's of Burritos -- Or the Anti-McDonald's?

The cheap eats restaurant review by Sheryl Julian in this week's Boston Globe samples three different Chipotle's burrito restaurants in the Boston area, including the newest one at Cleveland Circle. Amazing how the review was timed to coincide with the exact day for a new Chipotle's to open in Harvard Square.

Julian likes the burritos: "This food is indeed fresh, it's made quickly, it mostly tastes very good, and the quality is evident."

The Cleveland Circle restaurant opened near to another burrito joint, Boloco at 1940 Beacon Street, leading the Allston-Brighton TAB to declare the instigation of "Burrito Wars." The opening salvo was a day of free burritos at the Chipotle's.

Yelp.com already has eight reviews up on the new restaurant. One excerpt: "Good burritos. A bit pricey though. Guacamole on our burrito is $1.75. Not a great value. Easy to spend $10 here for one person." Boloco has eleven reviews.

Chipotle's has become a big chain with 700 restaurants across the country, but McDonald's, their seven-year investor, divested in 2006. Julian now thinks of Chipotle's as the anti-McDonald's, because of Chipotle's emphasis on "organic, natural, unprocessed, family-farmed, and sustainable ingredients."

If you want a reason to avoid eating at Chipotle's, just check out the Chipotle Nutritional Calculator. If you get the extra cheese, sour cream, and guacamole you can easily get that burrito to come in at over 1200 kilo-calories -- including virtually all of your daily allowance for total fat and saturated fat (for a 2000 kilo-calorie per day diet). That sounds more like McDonald's than an anti-McDonald's.

Chipotle's Restaurant, 1924 Beacon St. (Cleveland Circle), Brighton, 617-232-0788. Image from Meemo's Kitchen, who has recipes to reproduce Chipotle's products at home.

1 comment:

RacyKacy said...

All sounds yummy. signing off as an anti McDonald consumer. Always enjoyed my holidays abroad until I would come across grrrrrrr not willing to mention it.