Chipotle expanding to London in 2009

I live on Bedford Hill...�  Tacuba is literally just down the road from me.�  Where do you live, supercarrie?�  I haven't gone there, it didn't seem to impress me and I didn't want to be disappointed.�  My partner went one night and said it wasn't worth it.�  It is mostly drinks and what appeared to be your standard London "Mexican" food.�  I swear if I see chips (french fries) on another "Mexican" menu, or get served Doritos and Salsa, I WILL SCREAM.�  Jalapeno Poppers are NOT MEXICAN food.�  Basically it seem to be an excuse to get pissed on taquila.

I am going to have to try out Mucha Mas.�  We are always around Angel due to being Arsenal fans and enjoying parts of Islington quite a lot.

I live in Tooting Bec, closeish to the common. We only had the tacos which were pretty good - avoided all the fake Mexican food on the menu! I will agree with your partner though on the rest of the menu, now that I think about it in a bit more detail.

Mucho Mas is quite good - although my husband and I can't decide whether we like that or Tortilla better! There have been a large number of nights we've rode on my husband's motorbike up to Angel on a whim to get a freshly made burrito. They are both on Upper Street in Angel so worth a taste test.  I suppose the fact we do that and only went to Tacuba once says something!

I am from Arizona, so, obviously, the biggest shock EVER was suddenly being without decent mexican food (that I didn't have to cook myself.) I am a burritoholic.

So, Chipotle in the States wasn't authentic but I enjoyed them for what they were, but I rarely went out of my way to go there. Since moving over here, I will literally have ANYTHING (but may complain quite a bit about how they did it, or maybe just laugh at how silly it all is... like some of the weird made up dishes and how a majority of places have a hard time spelling things like Chimichanga. One place I went to spelled it Chemichanga... no thank you!) just to have something... if we are out and about and are wanting to go out to eat.

Well, in Manchester, there is a place called Bar Burrito. I was totally shocked. It is Chipotle, right down to font and how they serve it and everything.
I sent them an e-mail about it and asked if they got the idea for Bar Burrito after visiting the States, and they said, "No!"

Haw haw, YEAH RIGHT!

Chipotle menu:
http://www.chipotle.com/assets/menu.pdf

Bar Burrito in Manchester menu:
http://www.barburrito.co.uk/resources/downloads/Piccadilly_menu.pdf



Come on, they must have gone to a Chipotle and thought, "Hey, yeah, cool!"


 

Also, the best Mexican food I have had since living in the UK was two different places in Edinburgh when I visited there when my mom visited us in October 2007.

I was blissing out. Maybe it was nothing that special, but it was seriously the closest thing to decent I had since living here!

The very first Chipotle restaurant in Denver was right down the street from my house, and it was pretty good, too.  We used to go there on Saturdays for a hangover cure.  There are tons and tons of authentic Mexican places in Colorado, and they definitely competed favorably with places like Taco Bell.  Infinitely better food.  There used to be a couple of similar local chains (Baha Fresh, Azteca, the fish taco place) but Chipotle out-competed them.  Azteca used to have a fabulous vegetarian burrito, but their other food just wasn't as good.

I'd take Chipotle over Taco Bell or the horrible-smelling place in the Metro Centre any day...

TGI was a revelation when it first came to the UK!  There was no Hamburger Union, or any other 'upmarket' burger joint back then, and I remember the first time I went to a TGI and how thrilled I was to be asked how I wanted my burger! 

Vicky

I was under the impression that the reason why you don't get asked "how you want your burger" in the UK is down to food hygene laws in the UK. Any bacteria on beef is on the surface of the joint at the abbatoir, this is killed off during cooking, so having a steak done rare it's killed any bacteria on the surface....however with mince you then don't know what the surface of the original piece of meat was so it has to be cooked through in order to guarantee it's killed the bacteria.
It may well be overkill but that's just what I understood the reasoning to be.

yeah, it's a bit late to be seconding this, but I have to agree with suregena about the bar burrito / chipotle similarity, they are nearly identical but chipotle is better in my mind.  still, though, I tend to eat at bar burrito in piccadilly when I happen to be there, which is relatively often.

We just got a Chipotle. I haven't tried it yet, it just opened Friday. It's about 100 yards from a Moe's Southwest Grill, which is about 200 yards from a Qdoba Mexican Grill. 

We just got a Chipotle. I haven't tried it yet, it just opened Friday. It's about 100 yards from a Moe's Southwest Grill, which is about 200 yards from a Qdoba Mexican Grill. 

Jealous!!  I am coming to visit you!

For the love of god, WHEN is Chipotle coming to London  :\\\'( I called DBF and he responded that he and two of my other friends were getting FREE burritos from Chipotle in the US. Apparently, if you wear tin-foil, they give you free burritos on Halloween. Gah, why did I have to call and why did he have to answer?  :\\\'( :\\\'( :\\\'(

For the love of god, WHEN is Chipotle coming to London  :\\\'( I called DBF and he responded that he and two of my other friends were getting FREE burritos from Chipotle in the US. Apparently, if you wear tin-foil, they give you free burritos on Halloween. Gah, why did I have to call and why did he have to answer?  :\\\'( :\\\'( :\\\'(

I just Googled and found something that said the second quarter of 2010. Their last quarterly financial report wasn't good (unsurprising in this market), so maybe that's slowed down their expansion plans.

I just Googled and found something that said the second quarter of 2010. Their last quarterly financial report wasn't good (unsurprising in this market), so maybe that's slowed down their expansion plans.

Noes... :\\\'( *sighs* better late than never right?