I’m No Longer Excited For the Westside Freebirds
Last week Squid Ink brought the news that Freebirds, the Texas burrito chain (with roots in Santa Barbara and a six month old USC location) would be opening in Marina del Rey on May 20th. I really love burritos, but don’t completely love Chipotle, so I was kind of hopeful that Freebirds might be a good lunchtime alternative for the Westside. My ideal burrito has carnitas in it, and looks something like this (I guess a lot of people would describe that as “Mission Style”?) And based on their menu, Freebirds seems to be that kind of place. Of course being ultra successful in Texas doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence that your burritos will translate here, but obviously their USC location was doing well enough to warrant expansion to the westside… so it had to be at least decent, right?
I decided to head Downtown to check it out.
Freebirds fits perfectly in the fast food chain dominated area around USC, with their Venice Beach by way of Sturgis vibe, gigantic burritos and “pot brownies”. I could totally imagine the 19 year old me getting stoned, heading to this place at two in the morning and ordering their freakishly large, $12, Super Monster burrito. (Who am I kidding? I didn’t even smoke that much pot in college… I probably just would have gone down at 2am and eaten the gigantor burrito because I was a fat bastard.) Sadly, I’m not in college anymore. And was under no such haze when eating at Freebirds.
I’ll spare you the excruciating details (because what’s more annoying than a blogger going into detail about the flavor profiles or toothsome-ness of a $7 burrito) but I’ll just say this… I got a carnitas burrito and I didn’t love it. You know how you just eat at a place once and know it’s not for you. In fact, it brought up all the same feelings as when I tried Chipotle for the first time (back in 2007). Only one thing… Chipotle is better. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Which basically begs the question- why bother? Answer… don’t.
Or, better yet, do. Go. Try Freebirds for yourself. You’ll leave thinking “Zach was right”. (And I like it when people think “Zach is right”. It doesn’t happen too often.) I usually like to find out what’s good about a place (the +/-) and I’m sure there are people who like Freebirds, and have a go-to order which they’ll swear by. But with all the burritos in L.A., I’m just not willing to put in the time to figuring out what mine should be.
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:41 am, May 11th, 2011 under Freebirds.
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7 Comments
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Agree completely! I was excited to try it and found it to be very bland and tasteless. The onions were chopped to big so you got hunks of onion in a bite instead of just flavor and the salsa was just bad. Chipotle is way better and that says a lot.
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oh and the place was packed! which didn’t make sense to me.
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In my mind, Chipotle is as disappointing as they come. So to hear something may be worse? Yikes.
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I used to live pretty much equidistant between a Chipotle and Freebirds in Austin, and I would opt for Chipotle as well if forced to choose, and I was forced to choose often. Austin is a pretty terrible burrito town when it comes down to it. I did like that Freebirds offered a cayenne “tortilla” option, and the choice of BBQ sauce in your burrito seemed pretty uniquely Texan. But yeah, there’s no reason to it this in California.
Also, thanks once again for avoiding the usual perils of bad food writing. The worst abuse these days is how all food is “balanced” or “unbalanced.” I heard someone describe a breakfast burrito as “unbalanced” the other day. It’s making me unbalanced.
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what’s more upsetting is the fact that you can get a decent burrito up the street. Oh the madness that is chain food near USC
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Thanks for letting me know..I wouldn’t have ever tried this place but perhaps as a college student I would’ve been tempted. You could theoretically do a pretty good burrito run-down around USC with Chipotle, Freebirds, Chano’s, and La Taquiza. Chano’s is pretty terrible but I had more than few burritos when I was in school there…La Taquiza on the other hand – delicious.
Direct and to the point. Appreciate it. I admit that I was a little curious as well, but couldn’t imagine it being too different from Chipotle. Now I don’t have to imagine.