Yeah, I’ve been to evans a lot (photos even). But this time I got in the door at 10:30 and got to stand behind the line and taste each burrito ingredient on its own. First things first, while some people call this the “original” or the “first” those are just adjectives - and as far as store manager Dave Hawkins is concerned, it should just be called “Destination Evans”.

There’s a lot of stuff to write about, so here’s the first installment.

Original Chipotle is Small

That original store is small. I thought the dining area was small, but the kitchen is tiny. They’ve really set things up efficiently in there, though I guess that makes sense after 15 years in that location. They have a fridge (NOT a freezer) on the back of the building that used to be in the basement and the basement is, in general, less than 6 feet tall.

Surprisingly Mild Flavors - Balanced Heat and Spice

On the midtown lunch blog there’s this pretty long and drawn out post about how each ingredient is overly spiced and piquant. Having tasted them all separately let me assure you this is not the case. I was really surprised by the subtlety in some of the items and in the lack of spice in most ingredients. Specifically, aside from the salsas, only the chicken, steak, and barbacoa were piquant. That really surprised me. The pork (carnitas) is high in flavor - but very mild.

I was also surprised by the steak. Generally I don’t like the steak because I find it to be overly tough. Dave mentioned that the steak tends to keep cooking and get tough in the warmers so they need to be sure that while they fully cook it, they don’t overcook it at all. I think that I probably have only had the steak after it was sitting in the warmer for too long which made it overly tough. I’ve heard the advice before to choose which meat your going to get based on which has been replaced most recently and I’m starting to really understand that philosophy.

He also pointed out that they have moved to all natural for many of their meats and part of that change involved new cooking times. The factory chicken was a more regular size and shape so they could cook it by the time it had spent on the grill. Now the variance in size and thickness means that time isn’t an accurate measure so they just pull out an instant-thermometer and test it that way. Pretty brilliant, really, and leads to better tasting meat no doubt.

That’s all for today - more to come.