Chipotle Review

My peeps at work go to Chipotle Mexican Grill at least once a week. Once I think they went three days in a row. While I don’t go as much as they do (I bring lunch on most days), today I decided to head out with them because I needed a change of scenery.

Chipotle is known for its “conscience-free” menu, because their meat comes from animals raised on vegetarian diets, open-range, antibiotic-free, and hormone-free. They use organic produce and local produce “when they can,” whatever that means. In any case, they have tasty, tasty food.

I particularly like eating there for lunch due to the ease of order. We fill out an order form online, give them a call, and pick up our food, bypassing everyone else waiting in line. We then have the option of eating there or eating back at the company. last week, our orders weren’t ready yet when we showed up, and they gave us two free fountain drinks!

Chipotle (and restaurants like chipotle) appeal to me because of their customizability. I like it when my food is composed of ingredients I can identify, and I like watching the assembly line in action. I call it the subway effect! It’s certainly intriguing to watch deft hands fold all those ingredients into burrito after fat burrito, but more importantly, I can be assured that my food will come exactly as I order it. I’m a little neurotic.

Today I went with a salad, with the following items:

• steak
• cheese
• black beans
• hot tomatillo salsa
• fajita veggies

I was soooooo hungry when I started eating, so I may or may not be biased when I rave about how GREAT it tasted. The salsa was very hot, even to my tastebuds of steel well-honed from a childhood of authentic sichuan cuisine.  Steak cubes were plenty and juicy and pink at the center, a perfect medium rare. The cheese, sprinkled on top, melted into the dish from the heat of the steak and fajita veggies. My salad was so flavorful I didn’t need the dressing, but the dressing was tasty so I kept it in the fridge and plan on using it on home-made salads I bring to work. I would have preferred the cheese to have more of a presence. I dislike it when cheese seems to taste like whatever it’s served with (ie. swiss cheese is so useless on ham sandwiches), and such was the case in this salad. The portions were enough — along with the astronomical protein content — to keep me full for 6 hours. :]

Item: Chipotle steak salad

Location: Route 1, North Brunswick, NJ

Price: 6.75$ + Tax

Rating: 9/10