Chipotle and Qdoba

Initially, I was going to title this post "Chipotle vs. Qdoba", but after much consideration, I realised that I really don't know which one I prefer. I can't profess loyalty to either company - in fact, maybe I don't adore either (remember, Govinda's took over the "My Favourite Restaurant" label). Sure, I love burritos, but while I was eating Qdoba recently, I realised that I eat burritos for

1. Avocado

2. Beans

3. Cheese

(Haha. The basics - A, B, C.)

I don't eat burritos for the white flour tortilla, the rice, the tomato salsa, and certainly not the cilantro.

For around $7, I can get definitely two cans of beans, two avocados, and a package of cheese.

Anyway, I guess I shall talk about each.

QDOBA

My first visit, with TJ - the location on 15th and Walnut St. allows you to get a free drink if you show the cashier your college ID. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the one on campus.

I asked for everything in the burrito, which meant that it wasn't properly shaped. By "everything", I mean rice, black beans, all the salsas, sour cream, cheese, and guacamole.

Cross-section.

Taste? Well, I got a super spicy salsa, which TJ warned against, but I could tolerate it fine. The guacamole taste wasn't that prevalent, since guacamole was such a small component of the overall burrito, and it was mashed finely. The cheese melted really fast, and the beans and rice were soft. I don't really love the taste of the tortilla, but I guess I'm not a huge fan of store-made white flour tortillas, anyway.

This is another Qdoba burrito, without the sour cream and only including corn salsa (I don't particularly like sour cream). I find that heating up the burrito in a microwave, thus heating up the guacamole, actually makes an amazing dip! Again, I'm not really big on the rice or tortilla.

A vegetarian burrito with tax is $6.25, and Qdoba has a rewards card and coupons, so after some number of points, I can get a free burrito. The coupons are useful because I managed to get two burritos last weekend for $6.25. Qdoba also has other options (e.g. tortilla soup), but I don't really think I'm interested in them.

CHIPOTLE

I used to prefer Chipotle because there's one in the town next to mine, but since I'm in Philadelphia, Chipotle and Qdobas are usually next to each other (which doesn't really make sense, but it's true). Recently, Chipotle started using gold foil wrappers because they want to stress that their food is high quality. It doesn't really make a difference to me, but...

...they have brown rice now! Definitely a plus. I ordered the burrito with brown rice, fajita vegetables, medium salsa, corn salsa, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, and lettuce. There was a lot of guacamole (okay, not enough in my honest opinion, but enough to satisfy me), plenty of rice, and an even distribution of beans. I definitely should've chosen the mild salsa, because the medium one was really spicy... or maybe that was the fajita vegetables? The rice was perfectly chewy (the way brown rice should be), and the tortilla was plain.

Chipotle's burrito in the town next to mine is $6.25 without tax, and at the one on campus, it's $6.93 with tax. I don't think Chipotle has a mailing list, which therefore means that there are no coupons or anything...

OVERALL

Portion sizes a side (hah.)...the matter of which is better weighs little in my list of priorities (hah.). I would say that Chipotle does have higher "quality" because of the chunkier/higher portion of guacamole, the presence of vegetables (fajita vegetables and lettuce!) and the brown rice option. However, Qdoba definitely has it in for price; it has double-point days, it has a rewards program, and it has coupons.

Through all this chomping though, I realised that neither actually offer what I really love... they just stick in convenience and packaging, and make me think that I love the restaurant. Like I said, I don't care much for the carb parts, or the proprietary recipe for the rice/guacamole/salsas! I don't even care much for the spices added to the beans because I like beans out of a can (or British baked beans!!).

So, I guess I should from now on make my own burritos-without-the-carb-parts...

1 can of black beans = ~50c, 400 Cal

2 mashed avocados = ~$3.00, 550 Cal

2 servings of low-fat cheese = ~$1.50, 200 Cal

Maximum $5.00 for the same 1000+ Calorie "burrito".

Actually, Chipotle and Qdoba aren't even Mexican, right? I mean, maybe the ingredients are used the way they're used in Mexico, but the portion size is highly Americanised. Still, delicious.

Kale Wraps

Roasted eggplant and kidney beans wrapped in fresh-ish kale leaves. So pretty! I love kidney beans...

Err Chard.

Y'know how raw tomatoes taste delicious? And how they taste similar to cooked tomatoes?

Now let's talk about chard.

Raw chard is terrible. Urg! So bitter and weird-tasting and fibrous! I put it in my sandwich (just the leafy part) and it was...pretty bad.

So I decided to cook it for a long time in my spaghetti and it was, can you believe it, sweet! I am not kidding. Sweet stems. They were so bitter, throat-burning, and fibrous raw! Now, cooked, they are tender, sweet/mild, and sorta like really baby celery!

It also stains my spaghetti pink, which is cool.

Today! - Fall Fest

I'm finally updating about something that happened today. I still have heaps to write about concerning the past two weeks, but for today, I will blabber on about the blubber today. And yes, that is the line for Coup de Taco about an hour and a half into Fall fest.

Fall fest is overrated. I'm not kidding. Sure, you get free stuff, but the cool stuff actually costs money. The first 750-1000 people get a taco and cupcake for free, but that's if you stand in line.

For at least half an hour.

With a wristband, that you had to stand in line to obtain, as well.

Luckily, I had gone to the library from 12-2, so I was basically right inside the door [outside the door? I wasn't "outside" the door, though, since Fall fest was OUTSIDE the library. Anyway. I was right next to Fall fest], so I went, stood in line for a few minutes, realised I needed a wrist band, then went allllllll the way to the LOVE statue to get a wrist band, and jumped back in line. By this time, the line for Coup de Taco had doubled, although it wasn't as bad as it was 10 minutes later, where it had quadrupled. Oh exponential equations...

[Indoor photography pales - I mean, yellows - in comparison to sunlight photography]

I'm not actually sure why I bothered to stand in line for half an hour [ish?]. I do have a meal plan that guarantees that I get food and don't starve. I also have many kilos of adipose tissue that can sustain me for a while. However, I suppose it was just the fact that I didn't want to outline more for Comparative Med. Anyway, halfway through, two guys who were behind me in line were contemplating getting out of line, and then I told them that they didn't have wristbands... and I asked if they wanted mine. They said no, and went to get wristbands, and came back. Later, two girls [their friends?] dropped by, and they decided to beat the system by just cutting to the front. This meant they cut off ... at least thirty of us. Okay, maybe twenty. Which is still plenty [that wasn't meant to rhyme]. Pretty douche-bag thing to do, in my opinion, especially as there were another zillion people standing behind us [quadrupled, remember?] waiting patiently. The guys behind me, however, said "oh, we got honour... we're not going to cut", which is nice to know.

Anyway. I finally got a vegetarian taco.

Then I went to get a cupcake from Call Me Cupcakes, which was extremely fast since all the dude had to do was hand out a cupcake. No toasting or cooking needed.

I'll review the cupcake first because it sucked.

It's just a generic, bland, un-moist, unflavourful, NONchocolately, dry, small-air-holes, cupcake-shaped cupcake. It did not taste chocolatey, which is always an issue for me, especially when something is labelled CHOCOLATE. I tried to be unbiased about the icing. It was too fatty and oily for my liking. It was also quite tasteless [no chocolatey flavour, at all. It was just chocolate coloured]. Oh, it's pretty alright, but most cupcakes these days ARE pretty.

The taco, however, was quite amazing. It was crunchy, due to sliced tortilla chips INSIDE the taco!! The outer shell was a soft flour tortilla. I'm actually confused as to the difference between a burrito and a taco. Apart from the fact that the taco is open, I can't really see a difference. I guess it's like asking what's the difference between a sandwich and an open-top sandwich. Anyway, about the tortilla strips - I was amazed at this piece of ingenuity. It actually reminds me of the time I had a tortilla chip sandwich. It was amazing, too, although this surely beats it. The Cuban rice and beans were full of chunky flavour; the salsa companion was spicy, but not overwhelming. The cheesy-sour-creamy-cilantro thingy was actually pretty good, because I couldn't really taste the cilantro [I don't particularly like cilantro, so it's a plus for me, but maybe a minus for other people].

I also got an apple from the Penn Environmental Group, although it was just a generic fat GMO apple. The International Students Association [I think that was the group name?] gave out some candy and stuff too, so that was cool. Apart from that, I ended up falling asleep at the library again.

[Note the boxes of cupcakes at the back of the truck. I could've totally taken a box of them.]

I did, however, have a delicious Greek salad with a lot of creamy feta cheese this evening, which reminded me of AK. I miss her.

Penn Picnic and Reception - 2nd Sept

Penn NSO started on the 2nd of September, and we all got up at 5:30am to drive to PA by 9am. As usual, it took 90 minutes to get into Philly, but half an hour to actually end up at the specific street on which we stopped. I'm not disclosing where I live, although one could probably figure it out... since I don't have a cafeteria at my dorm house, unfortunately.

Anyway, after unpacking and all, there was a Penn Family Picnic for all we families and kids. It was actually very similar to the food at the Penn Frosh Picnic in my area on the 19th of August. There were wraps and cookies, but there was also some punch and iced tea and lemonade, which helped, since it was really hot that day.
Firstly, I'd like to say that I fell for the cookie trip again. Last time, I ate a chocolate cookie that was way too hard for my liking. This time, I made the same mistake. I need to learn!! I'm not particularily fond of hard/crunchy cookies. I like the moist cakey ones more, such as the raisin one. It's good to know that Penn has consistency though, concerning its cookie production. The wraps were really good though, with the mozzarella cheese and vegetables, although it was a tad oily.
After the President made a speech, there was a reception, and it was quite a sight watching 3000+ people swarming around taking food... There was this amazing mashed white bean thing, some caramelised onions [the first I've ever had] and a smokey-chipotleish spiced [I'm guessing?] eggplant thing.
There were also tons of cookies. They were the hard kind.
The vegetable station was ridiculous. I wonder what they did to the half heads of cauliflower, the whole peppers and the corn. Surely it's not solely for display? If it was, that'd be a waste of vegetables...
Whole heads of broccolis! Whole rutabagas! Utterly ridiculous!

Excess. Superfluous. Extravagant. Luxurious. I don't know; so much for this being the "year of water". Think about all the water used to produce these crops...they better use them.

Eight Treasures Rice

I love rice pudding. With raisins, with cinnamon, with milk, or just plain... I love the gooey yet chewy texture. My mum today made some ba[1] bao[3] fan[4], which translates literally to "eight treasures rice". It's basically glutinous rice, another type of rice, kidney beans, mung beans, peanuts, lotus seeds, jujube berries, black beans, and there may be a few other ingredients [but it's okay, because I've already named 8 of them!]

Although I'm not really going to miss eating Chinese food every single day, I AM going to miss my mum's cooking.

With milk! Sans sugar.

CHILI SIN CARNE!

CHILI sans la viande - without animal pieces...instead, there are roman beans and lima beans and TVP and pickles and artichokes and tomato and parmesan and onion and crushed up tortilla chips [the leftovers].

A.k.a., awesome-everything-I-love-chili!

In fact, this chili even looks better than these here! YAY! This is just to prove to my brother that my plating, in fact, is not substandard [I've never really liked the idea of plating though, because it makes food appear more as an ornament than as a food].

Onions, artichokes, pickles, getting "gently browned"

Rehydrated TVP with dried chili and tomato paste marinade.

Adding the lima beans!

Ingredients:

1. A LOT of water. Keep adding cups of water throughout the.... 3-4 hours it takes to cook. I was initially going to make tomato/chili soup but that would mean that I used twice the amount of water. Which would've required a larger pot. Which I do not possess.

2. Lots of tomato paste!

3. Garlic

4. Onions! LOTS!

5. Pickles

6. Artichokes in oil - we have a jar of them. I don't know why, since no one in the family except for me and my brother has actually ever heard of the term "artichoke" before. I don't know who bought these... just that they've been sitting in the fridge for a while. Well, at least it covers the "oil" part of the chili.

7. Two cups of Roman beans. Soak these for a few hours. They take AGES to cook.

8. Half a cup of lima beans. They swell TREMENDOUSLY when soaked for a few hours. Literally 2.3 times their original sizes.

9. Half a cup of dried TVP, mixed with two cups of water and one scoop of tomato paste and two packets of dried chili. This way, the flavour gets "infused". Supposedly.

10. One cut up Boca burger since I dislike eating them grilled.

11. Leftover tortilla chips with the salt at the bottom.

12. Herbs - oregano, basil.

13. Quinoa, just because.

Method:

Cook everything on low heat for a few hours in a giant pot. Cook for an hour, turn off the heat, and go to XC practice for three hours. Come back later at around 9:30pm and continue letting the stuff simmer on low heat, adding water every now and then. When the roman beans are done, the chili is ready. The roman beans determine the cooking time!!

I wonder who else makes chili at 10:41 pm.

I ended up with a lot of chili. Look at that! Three boxes of chili. BUT IT'S AWESOME BECAUSE I LOVE CHILI!

The last time I made chili was the first day of school last September. It wasn't as great as this one. This one is "awesome-sauce"ly thick and beany and protein-filled! And it DOES NOT taste bland... for those of you who think vegetarian stuff is "rabbit food". It is NOT.

MIT Burritos!

I love MIT, even though I'm not going there for college. I might go for grad school, but that's another story... but the burrito really was nice. Except for the fact that my mum held up the line of 20+ people because she was trying to order a chicken burrito but they didn't have chicken, and she kept pointing to the trays of fillings without comprehending anything the cook was saying. In short, my mum's bad English cut a few minutes off everyone else's life...

The burritos were worth it, though, and even though I forgot the name of the store, it's the one across the road from the admissions office on 77 Massachusetts Ave. I got the beans and cheese and rice one, with guacamole and salsa. And lettuce. Fresh burritos are always so much more satisfying than reheated ones from the frozen food aisle...