Archive for 'Chipotle'

Chipotle Hack: Get Two Burritos for the Price of One: Over on Midtown Lunch: Los Angeles Zach goes head to head with Chipotle again, building on the recently famous Apartment List Chipotle hack to create a doubly awesome new hack: getting two burritos for the price of one.  Let us know if it works for you.

New Chipotle Coming to Bryant Park

New Chipotle

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. A new Chipotle Mexican Grill is coming to 40th between 5th and 6th Avenue, right next door to Zeytinz. For those of you keeping track, this new location is almost directly across from the Chipotle on 42nd. If you’ve ever found yourself arriving at the Chipotle on 42nd, only to be greeted to a line stretching out the door, you will soon be able to zip across Bryant Park to the new location where you will probably be greeted with a similarly long line. Nonetheless, it should be open shortly. As you can see from the image, they appear to be making things happen rather quickly.

Zach Finally Talks to the Chipotle Food Guru Himself, Nate Appleman

Here at Midtown Lunch, we’re no stranger to how Zach feels about Chipotle. As one of the first places reviewed back in the day, the relationship was an instant “I Love Burritos I Hate Chipotle” roller coaster, which spawned the Midtown Lunch Ultimate Burrito Theory (and how it relates to Chipotle sucking), an in-depth look at Chipotle’s calorie math deception, and finally, a truce, aided by Jamie Oliver.

Last week on the Food is the New Rock podcast, our resident fat guy had Nate Appleman, Culinary Manager at Chipotle, former Next Iron Chef Contestant and founding chef at restauranteur Keith McNally’s, Pulino’s, sit down to talk 80s music, Robin Thicke, metal, hear out Zach’s beef with Chipotle’s quesarito, as well as speak at length about Shophouse, the so-called “Asian Chipotle,” whose awesomeness we would LOVE to experience in NYC (despite the fact that they made Pure Thai Shophouse change their name).

Stream the episode (plus find out how you can win free Chipotle for twenty years) after the jump…

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Zach Calls BS on Chipotle’s Quesarito: Have you heard about the quesarito, Chipotle's off the menu quesadilla wrapped burrito?  Zach tried it out in L.A. (naturally) and goes all ballistic over how it's not technically a burrito wrapped in a quesadilla.  Enjoy!  [Midtown Lunch: Los Angeles]

Chipotle Forces Pure Thai Shophouse To Change Their Name

Pure Thai Shophouse FrontAs soon as Chipotle announced that they would be launching a new Asian fast food concept known as Shophouse, we knew this had to be coming… ML favorite, Pure Thai Shophouse (on 9th btw. 51+52nd) is now calling themselves Pure Thai Cookhouse. A call to the restaurant confirms that Chipotle did indeed set their legal hounds on the Hell’s Kitchen Thai spot forcing them to drop the “Shophouse” moniker. Although it was a sucker punch for this tiny Thai eatery, everything else, including the menu and ownership, is still the same as before.

Chipotle Raises Prices: If you already think Chipotle is expensive, you'll want to close your eyes for this one.  Gothamist is reporting that due to increase food costs the NYC locations have raised the price of almost everything by 50 cents.  Normally we'd tear these guys apart, but Zach proclaimed a truce back in January.

Chipotle Gearing Up For “ShopHouse” Launch: "Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. has registered the name ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, leading an analyst to speculate what the chain has planned for its new fast-casual Asian concept." Wonder how Pure Thai Shophouse feels about that? Probably the same way Kogi felt about Baja Fresh. [NRN via Eater]

Can Nate Appleman Make Chipotle Good?: The food media is going crazy over the news that Nate Appleman is now working for Chipotle. But all we care about is will it make the food better!? He did used to work in SF, and that city does know how to make a good burrito. Plus he's into whole animal cooking. Could lengua be coming to Chipotle? One can only hope.

Possible Free Burrito Alert: Just got word that a new Chipotle is opening on 37th and 7th. tomorrow, which means tonight from 5-8pm they'll be giving away free burritos. Technically you're supposed to have an invitation (which they've been handing out around the hood) but if you work in the area it might be worth swinging by. The worst they can do is turn you away!

Funniest Thing I’ve Read All Day

Yes, as reported in the NYT this morning I will cover the “arrival of a new Chipotle” (ideally because they’re giving away free burritos!) But clearly they didn’t read “The Midtown Lunch Ultimate Burrito Theory (and how it relates to Chipotle sucking)” or the Midtown Lunch post that exposed Chipotle’s posted “calorie ranges” for the sham they are! (Spoiler alert: That burrito bowl you’re eating is not 130 or calories.)