Midtown Lunch

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…

Food is the New Rock, Episode 51 w/ Nate Appleman

Don’t have time to listen to it now?  Subscribe to the podcast for free on iTunes, and check it out later.

Speaking of Chipotle, can you believe they have actually been around for 20 years?! Well, in celebration of their 20 “burritoful” years, there’s a chance to win free burritos for a year as well as free burritos for 20 years! Here’s the deal: Chipotle has launched Adventurrito, which is a “20-day-long treasure hunt” that starts on July 13th, Chipotle’s 20th anniversary.

According to the website, “Each day we’ll release a new puzzle, and every day but the 20th day we’ll choose 20 players at random to receive FREE BURRITOS FOR A YEAR. Players that correctly solve the first 19 puzzles get a shot at the Grand Prize on the 20th day. The first 20 people with the highest scores on the 20th puzzle win FREE BURRITOS FOR 20 YEARS (no, that’s not a typo).”

So, despite whether or not you have a love hate relationship with Chipotle like Zach, it’s hard to deny the chance at free food by solving some goofy puzzles, which I most definitely will be taking part in. Here’s to 20 years of Chipotle, which if anything, has offered all of us MLers something to talk about.

Chipotle, Everywhere you can smell it