Friday, March 6, 2009

Burrito Wars

Over the last few years, burritos have joined pizza as the food of choice for college students. In Ann Arbor, there are three main burrito joints battling out to be the top dog. Unfortunately, all of the burrito joints have similar ingredients, but there are a few things that set them apart from one another.

The Criterion:
I always get the same thing at these places. I order a chicken burrito with rice, pinto beans, the pico salsa, the hot salsa (whatever they have), and cheese. I will vary it up sometimes by getting sour cream and/or guacamole. However, the main ingredients are always the same.

The Competition:
Chipotle-Chipotle is a big national chain that was once owned by McDonalds. They recently entered the Ann Arbor market, and have a seemingly perfect location on touristy but not too far off campus State Street. I expected that upon opening, it would be a big hit. However, that is not the case at all. Every time I enter this Chipotle, there's nobody there. I'd be surprised if they're still in business by the end of this year. 

Why is it so empty? I'll tell you why: pinto beans. I don't know what people's preferences are between pinto and black beans, but I've always been a pinto beans type of person. Beans are vital ingredient in any burrito. How are Chipotle's pinto beans any different? They flavor them with smoked bacon. I love bacon. Let me repeat that, I LOVE bacon.  I love pinto beans. However, I don't love bacon flavored pinto beans. 

Instantly, they are alienating the vegetarians who like pinto beans on their burritos or quesadillas. They're alienating those who like plain and ordinary pinto beans as well. This may not seem like much, but I'll tell you one thing that they're not doing and that's selling burritos.

I asked one of the workers there today why they offered just bacon flavored pinto beans and he offered this fine answer, "I don't know...I don't know why we don't have vegetarian pinto beans."

Big Ten Burrito-I've only been to BTB once, and for good reason. They're open late and are a viable option for the late night burrito munchies, but you order a type of burrito and they make it for you. There's no choice in what you want, you don't get to see your ingredients, you don't get to decide what you want. Their burritos are perfectly delicious, and I'm sure that I would've enjoyed my burrito had I chosen what ingredients I wanted. However, I was turned off by the experience.

BTB is probably most known around campus because of their "Cinco de Montho" celebration. They offer cheap beer and cheap drinks: what college student wouldn't love that! It's things like this that make BTB a presence on campus.

Pancheros-Pancheros is probably the burrito establishment I have most frequented. The tortilla's are made fresh, they put a roll of dough, press it, and let it sit on a flat top. They have all the ingredients you could ever want. The only gripe about Pancheros could be that if you get too many liquidy ingredients, that the ingredients will seep out. It's hard to keep a Pancheros burrito together. 

The Verdict:
As I stated in my first post, the goal is to find good cheap food. Burritos are a quintessential staple of good cheap food. Chipotle loses points with me because of the bacon flavored pinto beans and BTB for not letting me choose my ingredients. Pancheros is overall, the most solid burrito establishment on campus. The fact that they make fresh tortillas is a huge plus. However, they're all similarly priced, and it's a matter of preference.

What's your verdict?

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Quest for Cheap

I've been living in Ann Arbor for about six months, and I'm a student at Michigan. I love the school, I love the sports, I love the parties, but the one thing that really has been missing is good food. Not just good food though, but good food that I don't feel bad about getting. I have a once a week place or two where I really enjoy what I eat, but finding cheap and good places has been hard thus far. This is the purpose of my quest, to find good food in Ann Arbor as well as affordable food. I want the best bang for my buck. After all, everybody eats in Ann Arbor.