El Burrito Grande: Part 1, Freshwest

Check it out. Three years ago, burritos didn’t really exist in our food courts. Since then, the only way to describe how many burrito shops have popped up is: HOLY SH-T! Why wouldn’t these things be popular?

It’s a wrap with nothin’ but goodness inside. Your choice of meat, rice, beans, veggies, cheese and whatever else you want to stick in there. Ok, it’s far from authentic (a true burrito is just basically meat in a wrap, topped with salsa and cheese, with rice and beans on the side). No, these super massive burritos are eaten like a sandwich.

I love burritos. And when I fulfill my once-a-week craving, I take my choice very (very!) seriously. Today, I chose Freshwest Grill, one of the first on the scene. Why? Because it’s more convenient and closer than the superior Burrito Boyz and Quesada, cheaper than the usually superior Z-Teca, and better than some of the others around. (I will eventually post reviews on the others, that’s a promise!) Yeah, it’s middle of the pack, but look… you can’t eat lobster tails every day, otherwise I’d be eating Burrito Boyz all the time. Freshwest is good, at times very good, but never exceptional and yet to be worse than not-bad. So I walked to the TD food court and got in line…

They make it how you want. I got chicken (I’m not a fan of their steak) with everything, but purposely excluded the rice, burrito sauce and sour cream. These burritos truly are grande (I estimate 2+ lbs), so cutting out some extra fat and bloaty carbs makes it more digestible. Today, the refried beans were watery.

The salsa was watery. I had to ask twice for extra stupid sauce (their hot sauce). Otherwise, the stuff that went in looked fresh. I carried it back to work and took a bite. Unusually overly salty, but I keep going. Wow, it’s quite hot today! But it’s just a mouth hot, the kind that’s hot when you bite into it and stays in your mouth, getting hotter as you eat more; it’s not a deep heat, which builds throughout your entire body, and more preferable to me (I will also eventually post some info on spicy food, and that’s a promise, too!). By the time I get to the last third, every bite results in a gushing out of today’s excess wateriness from the beans and salsa. Some goes into my sleeve, some onto my desk, and a tiny bit into the bite that’s in my mouth. OH NO, gotta get the sauce out of my sleeve!!! Damn, that’s not so easy, and really pisses me off. Anyway, I do what I can to clean up and keep going… back to the blog! Eventually, I need to get a fork and eat the filling out of the burrito shell, or else I’ll look like a salsa covered fool by the time I’m done.

So here’s what I’ll say. At $8.25 tax-in, including $0.75 extra for guacamole, this burrito is well priced. You can choose an “inside-out” (without the shell) or a salad covered in burrito toppings. Either way, you get good value. The filling is good, but not as inspired as some of the other shops. If you put 87 octane into a race car, you can’t expect it to win the race. Salty salsas don’t cover up the fact that the chicken is somewhat bland on its own. But on the whole, it’s tasty nonetheless. Here’s a pro tip: you gotta get there before 11:45, or else you’re in line for a crazy long time. And you gotta ask them to toast it “well done”, or else it will be impossible to eat as a sandwich. Yeah, it’s messy, but it’s a burrito. It takes true talent to make one that doesn’t fall apart, and that’s rare to find (stay tuned when I discuss Burrito Boyz). I’m pretty satisfied today and hope that next time the wateriness and saltiness is corrected.

Ah, El Burrito Grande. ¡Hasta la semana próxima!