Popeye’s spicy chicken samich is amaze good, and I want to try the fish.
I wanted to do a crap taco showdown last week when we were in Great Falls MT, visiting our son and new DIL. Along 10th Ave South, there are three pseudotaco joints in close proximity: Taco Bell, Taco John’s, and Taco Treat. I wanted to pick up one basic taco from each one for a shoot-out. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to get it done. Maybe next time.
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Chipotle is a mass market Mission style burrito imitation and falls short of the real thing. Qdoba, too. They’d be better if they griddled the tortillas. The gummy tortilla combined with the rice is too much for me, so i stick with bowls at Chipotle and Qdoba. I have better options that even have a drive-thru, so I almost never go to Chipotle or Qdoba.
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I don’t mind the quesadillas at Qdoba.
I haven’t tried the burritos at Chipotle or Qdoba. I have always ordered bowls or quesadillas.
My first and only Mission burrito, which I liked a lot, was at Cancun in the Mission, in 2010. Other than the occasional bean burrito at Taco Bell (a different animal), I haven’t ordered any fast food or fast casual burritos in 15 years.
I’ve never been to any of them, either.
We have pretty good Mexican in town for being in Central PA, as well as very good ME food, so I see absolutely no reason to eat at any of these chains. None.
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Taco John’s is miles better than Taco Bell. I’ve never heard of Taco Treat.
Much less consumed with flashy snazzy temporary specials than TB.
Side note- looking at yelp, there’s a veritable feast of real taco shops in GF, looks like.
Didn’t really look for Mexican in GTF. I mean, there’s so many great Mexican joints where we live (CA) that it’s hard to believe that anything in Montana is better than what we can get at home. I confess, however, to wondering how good bad tacos can be. I mean, I do count JitB tacos as one of my guilty pleasures. Seeing the three of them in less than about half a mile made me think it’d be perfect for a shoot-out.
ETA: I’m pretty sure Spawn1 thinks that Bell>John’s. His opinion may be influenced by the fact that he grew up about a mile from a Bell and had it from time to time, whereas he had never even seen a John’s until he was in his 20s.
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Early Whataburgers in Houston (ca 1970s) did not have drive-thrus, you had to go inside. The slogan for a long time was ‘we don’t start until you tell us to’ - or something like that. The thing was, when you got your burger it was almost too hot to hold in your hands. That’s a big part of the satisfaction. But it wasn’t really FAST food - I have been in late night lines after the bars closed on the Seawall in Galveston and near me that took 25 mins to get to the squawk box.
Sometime along the way they changed over to being a FAST-food place and emphasizing variety rather than freshly off the griddle. They’ve been going downhill ever since as far as I’m concerned, although I still kept eating them. Haven’t been since I retired in '05. Last one I had was double meat cheese with jalapenos - took me about 60 seconds from the squawk box to being back on the road and by the time I got where I was going it was room temp. They started making that one even before I left home 15 minutes away.
I used to love the Breakfast on a Bun Ranchero for a breakfast sandwich. Whataburger Jr. sized bun, thick sausage patty (more meat than any other breakfast sausage sandwich I think) and a spicy ranchero sauce. Still on the menu but no mention of the Ranchero. Maybe you get a couple of pillow packs of hot sauce?
Consistency varies from location to location in every fast-food chain, I think.
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Tried it? We had a chain here called Grandy’s for a while. Out of somewhere in the Mid-South I think. Sit down resto with drive thru and they had a CFS that I went for - not the best, not ‘real’ meat, a formed patty. Church’s used to have a CFS on the menu too – decent. I see the new Church’s (Church’s Texas Chicken) doesn’t have it on the menu.
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Wow. Thanks for the information. I did not know.
Hot off the grill according to the famous self-effacing1980s pitchman:
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Thanks for that.
Learned about the ‘real, original’ butter burger on Roadfood. Sounded like an awesome culinary innovation. Learned about Culver’s (possibly also on Roadfood) and saw there were some planned for here but not yet open. I was headed to SA for a seminar, so I looked 'em up and found they were already open there so I booked a hotel a short distance from a location and had my first experience. Loved it - loved the service model, too. Still only had a Culver’s butter burger 3 times but headed out a couple of years ago during Lent to try their Walleye sandwich. 1.5 hrs + both ways – not worth it. Still haven’t been back to try the cod, which is year-round, but I see they have a location that’s a mere 1:05 mins from me, both ways. I have to try to make that.
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And one daughter was equally memorable with microphone in front:
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I’ve driven by a half dozen times but never stopped.
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It’s a Cantina Taco Bell – adult beverage service:
I did a search for Sweetgreen, the fast casual chain…and didn’t find anything on HO. Anyone been? What did you think?
I didn’t go but someone gave me a chicken avocado bacon ranch wrap. It was tasty and it really seems like loose or deconstructed chicken salad burrito. Priced around $19 +/-. That seems to be the going rate for a nice sandwich. Seems high in sodium and fat, which puts in the fast food range…and of course that makes it tasty. Here’s the nutritional info:
Calories: ~715–755
Protein: ~23g–28g
Fat: ~42g
Carbs: ~59g
Sodium: ~1,070mg–1,200mg
Dietary Fiber: ~14g
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Sweetgreen salads aren’t bad and we have bought it from time to time but have stopped buying anything from Sweetgreens when they recently started working together with Mark Hyman, one of the Maha key figures and Kennedy ally. He says to much BS ranging from anti-vax to functional medicines that we are not interested to support any shop/chain who is so anti-science
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Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality, Shake Shack , Daily Provisions, etc… is a key investor in this MAHA trojan horse, Sweetgreen.
Carry on.
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