Dave’s take on Chipotle vs. Freebird

I’d like to chime in, since I’m mentioned in this post. I won’t go into near as much detail as Mark did, but I’ll explain my Chipotle preference for the world (or at least our little portion of it).

The year was 1999. I had just moved to Evanston, Illinois. Evanston is a suburb of Chicago (directly to the north) much as Plano is to Dallas. Everything that you needed could be found in Evanston, but for the really interesting stuff, read fun, you needed to go downtown (45 minutes by the “L”). Pretty much every weekend, I’d go downtown for the fun stuff, but on week days I was trapped up north. There were several eateries in Evanston I frequented on a regular basis.

Giordano’s — My favorite Chicago Stuffed Pizza which had a “Half-Price Pizza Mondays” deal going on at that time

Philly’s Best — The absolute best Philly Cheesesteaks I’ve ever had in my life (BTW, I’ve never been to Philly, so just don’t argue with me on this one)

Walker Brothers — Amazing pancakes anytime of the day (if you try to go in the morning, the wait-to-be-seated line always extends out the door, and if you try to go on Sunday morning, the line goes down the block)

However, I never found a place that satisfied my cravings for “Mexican” food (I’m not referring to authentic Mexican food, just the stuff that your normal everyday Joe-Sally McCluckford eats at their local establishments). That is, until one day, while meandering through downtown Evanston, I spied the image of a pepper glowing on a red sign, which I immediately recognized as a Chipotle Pepper. My recognition was confirmed when I read the words on the sign which said, “Chipotle”. Being a chilé-head, this revelation piqued my interest. However, being a non-hungry chilé-head, I just stored the restaurant’s location into my memory banks for later use.

When the time arose, I convinced my non-chilé-headed wife to accompany me to the afforementioned eating establishment. I was hooked. It was like no place I had ever been before (but very similar, as Mark points out, to many places I have been since then). My love for Chipotle has been largely emotional (as love tends to be), but I do love the flavor of their food (especially the free range pork (those pigs must hang out with some chickens)).

To make the comparison mentioned in the title of this entry, you must know one more thing. I have been to Chipotle more than a dozen times since my first experience, but I have only been to Freebird’s once, and to me, Freebird’s is the kind of place where you really need to experiment quite a bit to find food that you absolutely love. I’ve done that with Chipotle, and I would like to do it with Freebird’s, but the inconvenience factor doesn’t allow me that freedom at this time. Hopefully, as summer approaches, I’ll have many more opportunities to allow my tastebuds unrestricted access to burritos, but until then, they tingle with anticipation (and a little capsaisin every now and then).