Chipotle Mexican Grill

Going off of popular opinion, my life wasn't worth living until I experienced Chipotle Mexican Grill. I don't know how many people have told me that Chipotle is the best restaurant they have ever been to. I know one person who would drive to Cleveland to go to Chipotle. And each time the past few months when my wife and I have tried to go, the line was out the door and we left. You would think that Jesus was rolling the burritos in there.

So tonight on our way to get Terminator: Salvation (yes, I even liked T3) we saw Chipotle without a line out the door and decided to give it a shot.

Upon entering I looked for Jesus but all I saw were pissed off college/high school students manning a grubby, gooey, lettuce-covered countertop. Distraught at the lack of Jesus this particular night, I still needed to try this food. I placed my order: carnitas burrito-style and the guacamole and chips.

Chipotle employs an assembly line to create each meal. The first person took my order and removed my burrito shell from a plastic bag (local plastic, I'm sure) and put in the steamer. Upon completion, she handed it to the next mumbling employee who looked at me and waited for me to say something while he stood in front of ingredients. Hey, I don't know the procedure here so I waited for him.. Sure, I'll have the medium sauce, the corn and the sour cream. The next person was too busy talking to someone behind her so my mumbling pal stepped into her assembly space. Sure, I'll have guac.. wait, what's that? Oh, now the girl that was talking will help me.. oh and it's $1.85 for guac on my burrito? I'll pass. Just give me the cheese and lettuce. Upon completion of my burrito, said mumbler put them at the end of the line. Confused (the reach for the burrito was too far for comfort), we walked down to pay. Our burritos still sat at the end of the assembly line, gathering lettuce bits and smears of goop. The cashier then went and grabbed them and put them into plastic trays and handed us a paper bag about 1/10th full with chips.

Needless to say, this wasn't a good start for Chipotle.

So we sat down and I filled up my cup with Mr. Pibb Xtra. First bite.. not too shabby. The sweet corn was a nice addition. The pork was moist and tasty. The rice was tasty but with maybe a little more cilantro than I would have used. The ingredients were not uniform with each bite. Some bites were all pork and some were all lettuce and beans. In any case, I ended up eating the whole thing. I felt free to stand up and get a refill of Mr. Pibb because the burrito hadn't been so good I wanted to fornicate with it. I down some more Mr. Pibb and hit up the chips and guac. Meh. Chips with a mild hint of lime and overseasoned guac. We make better stuff at home, I thought. A couple more chips and we left. There was a long line beginning to form.

I left confused at the popularity of Chipotle because I have had their exact same burrito at several other places. In fact, Sol Burrito (on Monroe) makes a better stomach-sized burrito than Chipotle, in my opinion. Maybe Jesus was still in HTML class at RIT or something.. I don't know. I just know that I won't be waiting in any lines for Chipotle in the future and I won't go around raving about how good the company is. Chipotle is a burrito place like Moe's is a burrito place. There is no difference between the two, in my mind.

Time for Salvation!