A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Is Chipotle Overrated?

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

Although there's a huge variety of Mexican restaurants in the United States, Chipotle is ranked as the US consumer favorite-- but is corn salsa and slick branding enough to deserve the hype? Today, we're asking: Is Chipotle Overrated? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Oh my god, I love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life. Although there's a huge variety of Mexican restaurants in the United States, Chipotle is ranked as the US consumer favorite. But is corn salsa and slick branding enough to deserve the hype? Today we're asking, is Chipotle overrated? This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what?

That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Handizadeh. And Nicole, today we talked about is In-N-Out overrated.

We did. Right, and In-N-Out is something that has a huge, huge, massive cult following. And I think the closest thing to In-N-Out's cult following might be Chipotle. Okay. And so we got a lot of comments from people saying like, In-N-Out's not overrated, but Chipotle's overrated. Yeah, we did. And so I figured we should tackle this one.

Yeah. But I mean, we've eaten a lot of Chipotle together. I love Chipotle. I also love Chipotle. I'm passionate about Chipotle. But do you think that the hype outweighs how good Chipotle is? You know, I'm going to, you know, I like to talk about the topics at hand with my fiance before I come talk to you because I like to ask other people's opinions before I form my own, because I think it's important to have other viewpoints. And he said something very interesting. He said, Chipotle isn't overrated.

Chipotle isn't underrated. Chipotle is perfectly rated. And that like really set into motion. Like, you know what? You're right. I do think it's perfectly rated. I think that people that love Chipotle love it for what it is. And people that hate Chipotle hate it for what it is.

It's good. It's not the best. I'll still eat it. It's not like a life-changing experience but i do love it a lot so i think it's right in the middle i think it is well rated does that work i does that work that's such a middle ground answer well yeah no i don't think you're wrong but i i am almost inclined to believe that and and i totally would if not for the fact that chipotle has taken on this like larger cultural meaning, right? Like David Dobrik doesn't have his own El Pollo Loco bowl. He was the one that had his own Chipotle burrito.

You can go there and get the David Dobrik burrito. Is that true? Yeah, right. We'll fact check it later. I don't know. We don't fact check crap on this podcast. No, no, no, no need to. But no, that's the thing.

Like Chipotle was, you know, and this, I suppose, is not necessarily indicative of how people respond to Chipotle or how they feel about Chipotle. So much as Chipotle's, you know, marketing director doing a very fantastic job. But, you know, they were giving all these like very young YouTube creators like these Chipotle platinum cards that gives them free burritos for life and stuff like that. And so Chipotle, you know, now has this huge following among young people. It's like the Charlie D'Amelio Dunkin' Coffee. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm talking about? I understand that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Chipotle, you know, has that. But, I mean, long before all this, Chipotle was, I mean, the fastest growing fast food franchise in the history of America. Actually, Blaze Pizza came and superseded the numbers that Chipotle was doing in the early days, which I think is very cool because Blaze Pizza is started by the Wetzel family of Wetzel's pretzels fame. I thought Arnold Schwarzenegger's son is incorporated in that. He might be involved.

I mean, LeBron James is very heavily involved in Blaze. LeBron James, this is one of the smartest business decisions for any athlete. He dropped his McDonald's sponsorship so he could invest in Blaze and then participate in marketing for it. And then he's already, I mean, got, I think, increased that investment like tenfold. And I think Blaze Pizza is fantastic. But anyways, Chipotle, I think Blaze wouldn't exist without Chipotle because I think they use the Chipotle model. So I think Chipotle was very, very, very game changing when it started. I mean, I remember having it for the first time in probably 2004, 2005.

Okay. When they were a little, little baby, little baby chain that people didn't really know about. And I think Chipotle absolutely changed the game. But I do think that now they are a little bit behind the times. And I think we're seeing the cracks in the walls. So I think at this point, Chipotle is overrated. What do you mean by behind the times? It's just food.

Behind the times of what? No, but food is cyclical, right? It is. It's like McDonald's right now. McDonald's is behind the times. McDonald's, they've gone through like four CEOs in the past six years for various reasons. Their profits are falling. I mean, we tried their new chicken sandwich the other day.

P.U. It was abysmal, like they can't really bad and there are reasons that mcdonald's can't respond to the times right and that has to do with their business model so it's the franchise model right which chipotle has never done chipotle is purely a corporate owned entity so owned by mcdonald's no it's not not anymore it was never So Chipotle was never owned by McDonald's. But this is a great piece of lore in the Chipotle history. Everything I know is a lie. That was a weird kind of like slanderous. I guess they invest.

Okay, here it says in 1998, McDonald's became an investor in Chipotle. Over the course of about seven years, McDonald's poured more than $360 million into the company, allowing Chipotle to expand further. Yeah. So at some point, McDonald's was the majority shareholder. Shareholder. Okay, correct. So they were majority shareholder, but that was before Chipotle ever had a public IPO. Okay.

And then McDonald's divested so Chipotle could get maximum value out of this IPO. Can you explain what IPO means to the listeners? God, no. Jesus Christ, no. To the listeners, a.k.a. me listening to you, what IPO? Intellectual property owner uh initial public offering well bum was way off uh the only things about money that i know are from shark tank oh yeah yeah and so anytime sharks go ahead no you do it sharks today i have an investment for 10

in my company is that good that's pretty good good. I love the best products on Shark Tank. I mean, one, there was one really sad one. We may have talked about this in the past. It was called Slossa. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The girl. Was it a girl?

Yeah, it was a woman. She was like, I took out a second mortgage on my house. I've poured my entire life savings and energy into a combination of coleslaw and salsa called Slossa. That is supposed to be a hot dog topping and the worst part about that is i was like that's a great idea for me and only me and no one else would want this but she was like begging mark cuban she was like mark cuban you can have this at all the food carts at the mavericks games and i was like oh honey no they all tasted they're like this is good but girl it's slasa no we can't

sell this I love shark tank it's like a ritual like my family would get around the TV and watch it like during Shabbat and be like that is not good investment Mark you bet Mr. Wonderful you bet that's for 33% it's so funny because that like

the only real corporate math I know is if someone's like I'm offering a 10% for $100,000. I'm like, that's a million dollar valuation. That's the only math I can do. My favorite is the people who show up and they're like, I make chocolate covered pretzels. And they're like, what's different about your chocolate covered pretzels? And they're like, well, they're very good.

And I make them with my hands. But now my hands are cramping and I need some help, Mr. Wonderful. Some of those companies have blown up, though. Like Mr. Wonderful made a ton of money off of the cupcake in a jar. Yeah. And the bagel bombs. And bagel bombs. Bantam bites.

Yeah, yeah. Huge, huge. Anyways, what were we talking about? Oh, we're talking about IPO, IPO, IPO, initial public offering. Basically, when a company goes from private to public, meaning that they open up shares for people to buy. Like Shake Shack had a very famous and profitable IPO that basically gives places the capital to expand like crazy. So Chipotle did that in like 2006, 2007. And then they started expanding really fast, which to me is sort of where the problems started to happen.

Because if you are doing a franchise model, right, you're basically like letting people buy a McDonald's. You pay McDonald's a million dollars a year, you sign a contract to abide by their corporate rules. And so that means they have a new menu item that they want to plug. You have to make that certain things like that. That's how it works. But you're essentially operating a small business and it makes companies expand very, very fast. McDonald's has 35,000 locations. I want to do that one day. I want to be a franchisee.

Yeah, what would you franchise? Probably my own concept. That's not a franchisee. Shut up. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Let me tell you what would happen. I would come up with the idea and then I would sell it to like, I don't know, freaking I'd sell to McDonald's.

And then I would own like one of them while someone oversees the rest and visa scams visa scams dude you should open it so there are have you heard of burger ream oh yeah oh my god it's not can we say this I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but it's all it's all been disclosed it's a visa scam it's a visa scam right it was it was okay see no they burger ream has gotten sued like multiple times. It's an Israeli slider concept. Oh, my God. It's so funny.

And I would see there would be like 50 Burger Ream storefront signs all around L.A. Yeah. And none of them were open. Yeah, it was so weird. And I don't know anyone that's ever had Burger Ream. I get the Instagram sponsored ads for them. Yeah. And then, yeah, it turns out they were really scamming people.

There was another one that was an In-N-Out knockoff called, God, something like that. By the Wayburger? No, no, no. That's, I know, God, what are you? I don't know. I'm sorry. No, no, I know the one you're talking about. It's like Jake's Wayback Burger.

I don't know. I don't know. But no, this is called like Cali Burger. And it was a, they threatened to sue me because I wrote an article called, I called them an In-N-Out knockoff. Oh, no. I called them a Chinese In-N-Out knockoff because they were started in Shanghai. And they basically took the model of like, well, they don't, In-N-Out's not going to

expand internationally. So we're going to open up a fake In-N-Out. Yeah. And they even called their stuff animal style. And they got sued by In-N-Out. Makes sense. Because they have IP. I would sue them too if I was In-N-Out.

Of course. I mean, they were really ripping off In-N-Out. I would have called it monster style. They ended up calling it like beast style or something. Yeah, same page, same page. But I mean, I tried them and they were just simply not good. But anyway, so Chipotle starts expanding very quickly. And I remember the first time I went to Chipotle, I was like 13 years old in 2005. And I was blown away. I was blown away with how good and fresh the food was. Yeah, it opened up on Beverly Drive. We would walk from Beverly High to Beverly Drive

and we would have Chipotle. And it was so much fun because, let me tell you a little hack. You guys are ready for a little Chipotle hack? I'm going to give you guys a little Chipotle hack. So you ask for a soft taco, but you say, can you put it in a burrito bowl for me? And then you get one soft taco

and then they just pile that stuff on. They go for it. Wait, what does this hack achieve? Let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you. What does Wait, what does this have to do? Let me tell you. What does this achieve? What's the end game? Let me tell you. Because, you know, if it's just on like a little piece of paper.

This is going to make sense, I swear. If it's just on a piece of paper, they're not as generous. They're not as inclined to put more because it's just like, you know, the little taco. But whenever it's in the burrito bowl, they'll be a little bit more generous and put a little bit more corn. It's okay if the corn falls off you know in the bowl. It doesn't matter. So basically you get a burrito bowl for $2. And I used to do that when I was like 13 and then they caught on and then they would just look at us and be like you can't do that. And we're like

okay no problem. That was part of the magic of Chipotle right? But I love Chipotle. It was so customizable right? And it's the model It was like Subway. Exactly. It's the model that Subway started. The whole you know no happy always Burger King. I was like Subway. It was Subway. It's the model that Subway started, the whole, you know, no, have it always, Burger King. Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.

Yeah. But it has that whole Subway, you know, eat fresh, build your own model. Build your own. Except, again, Subway, the times caught up with them and people don't want, you know, meats that are microwaved out of a bag. Yeah. No one wants to eat a sub sandwich anymore. No.

Subs aren't sexy. No. Well, I mean, now, but at least you have people doing them better now with jersey mics and other companies and so this is chipotle is a natural evolution where it was like we want to see chicken being grilled fresh yeah and chopped up we want to see the guacamole being made in front of us we want to be able to customize our things and you know um have food that feels quote-unquote healthy and wholesome and all this and it did but to me it also really delivered on flavor like the cilantro and lime and the rice and the rice is well salted. The beans are well seasoned. The chicken, the marinade, Chipotle's chicken is still very good. And when I make chicken

at home for tacos and burritos, like I'm seasoning it like Chipotle, you know? And so they had a moment where they were absolutely fantastic. But then like over time, I just, I got more undercooked rice. I got raw chicken. I got I've gotten raw chicken before the burrito rolling capabilities of Chipotle employees. God bless them. They're trying. But they just roll them into little pregnant diaper squares. Yeah. And all that comes from is, you know, expanding too fast, not being able to train your employees. And then they've had the typical corporate downfalls. Right. Of like CEO greed. They had two CEOs that were both making an absurd amount of money and eventually both stepped down. There were wage theft violations. Oh, wow. There was the 2015 E. coli outbreaks.

Oh, gosh. The E. coli breakout. That was crazy. That was absolutely crazy. And they still, the crazy thing is they were never able to trace it. Oh, my gosh. They don't know what it came from.

Which again, if you're a big corporation who doesn't have the right things in place, you can't trace it. So scary. And so it was this thing where Chipotle launched this new model where everything was very fresh. But the reason fast food restaurants don't make things fresh is because you can't control it, right? Yes. You don't have eyes on every single employee grilling every piece of steak, washing their hands in between that, and then tossing the lettuce. So there's a reason that McDonald's has everything prepackaged.

Subway has everything prepackaged. For Chipotle to get as big as it did, they basically needed to turn into a traditional fast food restaurant, which is what they swore to never do. Yeah, but you know, you have to compromise in order to succeed sometimes. That's how it goes. It's true. Yeah, they had to kind of, you know, change their model a little bit so they could expand.

Yeah, and that's true. Yeah. They had to kind of, you know, change their model a little bit so they could expand. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened in like, it's, I mean, God, I'm still very happy on Chipotle day at work. Right. Of course. Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, if it's just, you know, whenever you're a business owner, you kind of have to make the calls to, you know, compromise, not like your vision or your morals, but sometimes you have to make compromises to be successful and to create more success for the people around you yeah and that's what they did and i don't i don't knock them for it no i don't it's hard it's i don't knock them for it but also if my burrito is not as good as it was 10 years ago i'm not going to go there as often you know i guess i know it's it's it's tough it. It's basically like, how do you scale and adjust for the fact that I'm probably going

to lose 10% of returning customers because their burritos simply aren't as good, but I'm probably going to acquire 15% new people because we're on every freaking block. Exactly. That's probably how Starbucks thinks too. It's like, what's it called? Profit and loss? Gain and loss? Something.

Something like that. I don't know. This is like a business management course. Well, let's talk about the food, though. I like the food. But, I mean, one of the knocks, obviously, is that, I mean, there's the whole cultural appropriation conversation of Steve Ells from Colorado. Yeah. Doesn't exactly have roots within the Mexican community.

And is, I mean, one, they were using straight like Mesoamerican, um, like imagery. Yeah. And the OG Chipotle is that, I mean, they would have these like Aztec Olmec looking sculptures. I remember they were really cool. It was really cool. And 13 year old me was super enticed by that. Yeah.

It was really interesting. And I remember thinking this is like, this is like authentic Mexican cuisine. Uh, I never thought that. I always knew that it was a court, like an easily digestible Mexican restaurant for the masses. I always knew that going, even when I was a 13-year-old kid. It's hella whitewashed. It's hella whitewashed. Do you know that the music at Chipotle, there's a guy that's like the music guy at Chipotle,

and that was like my dream job for like five minutes. I was like, I want to be the Chipotle music person because I would literally Shazam so many songs at Chipotle because the music makes me want to stay here and hang out here with my friends. Again, they're game changing. They did stuff like that. I actually know someone who was, he was an ethnomusicology major at UCLA. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Shout out to Julian. We used to, we worked at the catering company together at UCLA, but he actually got into that industry because he was kind of like, well, I don't know if I want to be a professional musician. So he started working for this company that's what they did they took these big corporations and curated playlists for them to communicate the vibe they wanted and chipotle was the king of that right yes it's like chipotle and like urban outfitters i mean they're in the same echelon like chipotle became a lifestyle brand it did it sure did yeah yeah it was like

remember there was like videos of like a person that would eat Chipotle every single day. Yeah. There was like YouTube videos and like vines and stuff. Like this is my 17th day eating Chipotle. And like, it was totally fine. It was totally normal. I mean, I used to say if there was one restaurant I could eat for the rest of my life, it would be Chipotle. I don't believe that's the case anymore.

No, it's El Pollo Loco. It's El Pollo Loco now, which is great. We finally come full circle. A linear shift. Yeah. Yeah. Because like Chipotle, once they they started you know expanding fast sacrificing a little bit of quality i was like okay well el pollo loco already went through this

yeah and now i dig on that yeah also el pollo loco is authentic mexican food not for for whatever that means to you it is dude el pollo loco is from mexico i can't remember where they started but it started in mexico el pollo loco started in mexico and and then the original El Pollo Loco in LA is on, gosh, Alvarado Street in like a kind of like Koreatown, historic Filipino town area. Yeah. And so El Pollo Loco is like, you know, they're making legit pollo al carbón. They do tamales every Christmas. You know, I have like, El Pollo Loco to me is the perfect fast food restaurant. And I mean, another thing about El Pollo Loco is it's important for me if you're eating something every single day. Like, you want it to be healthy.

You don't want it to make you feel bad. Sure. In El Pollo Loco, you just get delicious grilled chicken. You can get the little side salad and black beans. It's really good. And it's just freaking delicious. El Pollo Loco is underrated. El Pollo Loco is underrated.

I agree with you. Agreed. I don't think Chipotle is overrated, though, because they're delivering on their promises. Like, it's fresh. It's delicious. It's good. Yeah, it's not authentic Mexican cuisine, but that corn sauce is the best thing I put in my mouth when I was, like, 12 years old. It's freaking delicious. Also, I don't know if I've had a better guacamole than Chipotle's, which is a very strange thing to say. No, it's delicious.

It is. I wouldn't change anything about it. Again, when I make guac at home, I'm modeling it after chipotle. The chips with the lime and the salt on it. Wow, what a game changer. That salsa rojo? Yeah, that's a good salsa. Me encanta salsa rojo.

Es muy delicioso. Yo quiero... How do you say recipe? Receta? Receta, yeah. Yo quiero receta, por favor. I love it. That's another thing. Like, if you were to eat their salsas blind and not

know they're associated with Chipotle, they're freaking good. They're so good. They are good. They're like salsa, like, they're like salsa quemada, the, uh, what do they call it? They've changed the names over the years. Now they call it, like, medium tomatillo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Salsa or whatever. But, I mean, it's fantastic. They season their food really well, especially, you know, compared to someone like, God bless El Pollo Loco.

El Pollo Loco's avocado salsa. Oh my God, that avocado salsa is bomb. Drink it like shots. That's a bomb sauce. But like, think about their tomato salsa. It's like the mealiest white tomatoes that are just mashed up with a little bit of salt. Yeah, no, no, no. It's not good. So Chip tomatoes that are just mashed up a little bit of salt. It's not good. So Chipotle, they do deliver on the flavor of their food. I believe. I think they've had a lot of quality loss. And also with regards to the fact that they're now just turning

into a traditional fast food restaurant, like the proof to me is in the queso. Oh, I was going to say, how do you feel about the queso? I was just about to ask you. Okay, so the queso to me is the perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with Chipotle's model. True. In essence, right? Because Chipotle's whole thing is they don't use artificial flavors, colors, ingredients, yada, yada. They went GMO free, which I think is a very cool move back in 2016. So, I mean, for a company that uses a lot of corn products, they don't use GMO corn, which is very tough to do in America.

But again, they still carry Coca-Cola products. They have a massive contract with it, which, of course, is loaded with GMOs. And I don't have anything. But their food isn't. Their food isn't. Which is important. It's important. I don't have anything against GMOs.

I don't believe it causes cancer or anything like that. But just the fact that they were able to at least get off of this massive, you know, farm contract and show other companies that could do that, that's a very cool thing they did. However, their whole no artificial ingredients thing, queso, the whole point of it. It's the whole point of it, right? Yeah, I think they're just trying to knock on,

you know, they're trying to get that Qdoba. They're trying to get that Freebird style, you know, the California queso burrito situation. There is cultural capital in the term queso. Yeah. And so they tried to make that, but the heart of queso is in processed ingredients. Otherwise you're just making, you're making a Mornay sauce. Can I tell you what it is?

They also would get mad at you when you would ask them to put the cheese on the burrito and then grill it. You know what I mean? Yeah. They're not with the quesarito life so i think their fix was like let me just put melted cheese in there i think that was their mentality too like i'm tired of the way that my line is set up is my cheese is at the end also why is there cheese at the end of all the things to put at the end why are you putting the cheese on the end chipotle you need to move it over to the meats but that's. Why is it there? That's another little microcosm of all the problems though, right? So their whole thing was like, you love customizing this. That's why you're at Chipotle because you can customize anything you want. And yeah, if there's no one in line, then sure, we'll do the quesarito for you.

But then Chipotle got popular and suddenly you couldn't customize it if it messed with their workflow. But why wouldn't you just, as a business owner, as a corporate entity, know that if you moved the cheese bin just a foot over that way, you would make so much more money. Because what about tacos? What about tacos? What about tacos? The cheese goes on top of a taco. You talk about they serve crispy shell American style hard tacos, right? Okay, they don't need to go on the top.

Which are actually pretty fire. I don't like their crispy. I don't like crispy. No, I don't like it. The only crispy tacos I like are from Tito's Tacos. Tito's. Because the only thing better than a Tito's Taco is indigestion. But let me, no, but like you could still put the cheese on, you know what you could do?

Let me tell you, you could put the cheese in a little to-go packet and then the person can put it on themselves. Or they could have two basins, two cheese basins. Oh, but God, then god then i mean then what you have to cut the queso base like what basin do you cut do you make the sour cream basin smaller then you're changing out that sour cream 15 minutes sooner than you would no you know what you would do you would put the sour cream in a little squeeze bottle and then you would make life easier and then you could see i'm just but then you need another cold basin for that sour

cream that's what i'm saying though they are they optimize too much to the point where you can't get what you want no i'm telling i to optimize chip They optimize too much to the point where you can't get what you want. No, I'm telling Chipotle, listen to me. There is a way you can succeed and keep your customer retention high while also keeping your bins low. Okay?

You just make a little corner. It's so easy. You know the queso? Get rid of the queso. Get rid of that. Frickin' whatever you put in the queso. They're on their second formulation of queso, by the way. Yeah, don't do that. Please don't do that. Stop with the queso.

Just remove that from your menu. Just take the cheese. Put it where the queso is. Remove the heat. Put cold on it. There you go. I just made you $15 million. I will send you my information very soon.

There's this really infamous story of, I think it's like American Airlines. They cut one- An olive? Yeah. They had, they served like a nice salad or something to first class and they went from serving two olives to one and it saved them like $200,000 over the course of a year, which we know all went to like executive bonuses, but that's, yeah, I mean, that's how these operate at scale, right? You make one small decision and it increases profits for one key investor. I am telling you, the cheese man, got to say thank you. But again, the thing that I want to talk about that's very important is, do you think it's overrated? Do you think it's underrated?

How has this conversation changed your viewpoint? Do you think it's changed your viewpoint at all? This conversation, it's made me more appreciative for the work that chipotle put in to sort of change the game so i'm thinking of places like have you been to kava grill yes once and i hated kava bro i love kava kava i mean or sweet green right i love sweet green i love sweet green too so sweet green is doing a lot of things off of the back of Chipotle, of what Chipotle put in, right? Of being transparent with sourcing, right?

I mean, sure. I mean, whenever I think of these places, it's just like, it's like this 800 degrees model. It's the subway model. Like whenever I'm looking at these places that you're mentioning. Well, so I mean, when you say the 800 degrees model, 800 degrees, God, who are they started by? 800 degrees was a pizza place, by the way, for people that don't know. So 800 degrees was a pizza place by the way for people

that don't know so 800 degrees was a pizza place that essentially did the chihuahua model you walk down an assembly line which again is the subway model and you point the ingredients you want your pizza they fired it in an 800 degree oven for like 90 seconds i really love it i loved it whenever like you we went to westwood when we were like in college like that was like the place you would go after you would go to the frats yeah but i went with my mom like a year ago and it was horrific. Yeah. But they expanded, right? There's an 800 degrees in Dubai now.

That's cool. And it's, yeah, it's pretty cool. But that's how quality slips. You expand quickly. Now 800 degrees had to try and pivot to, I think Dwayne Wade invested in it. What are these basketball players doing investing in these pizza places? Fast cash pizza. I don't know. But now they pivoted to like a rotisserie places pizza i don't know but now they

pivoted to like a rotisserie restaurant because they they couldn't handle it and they couldn't scale that model 800 degrees is a rotisserie restaurant yeah yeah they straight up yeah what i mean they got those big ovens you throw chickens in them you know is that real uh yeah i don't know if it's like a full remodel or whatever but i mean chipotle right chipotle even tried to take the magic that they had and expand into other models. There was something called Shop House, which was like Southeast Asian Chipotle. Yeah, there was one. There was one in Westwood. I think there was one on Third Street Promenade. There was. And I really love Shop House. I thought they did a really good job. Never had it.

But once the coronavirus outbreak hit Chipotle, no, sorry, once the norovirus and E. coli outbreaks hit Chipotle. Don't get the two mixed up. They basically realized that they'd spread themselves too thin. And so they closed down. Chipotle had their own pizza place called Pizzeria Locale. They had their own burger place called like Tasty Burger. They had their own rice bowl place called Shop House. Yeah. All these places. They failed? Yeah. Chipotle just, they tried, they spread themselves so thin on all these other concepts trying to change the world. But it still made me realize that like without Chipotle, I don't think you would have had Sweetgreen. I don't think you would have had Kava. These places that realize that people want flavorful, fresh food, and they want to know

where the food is coming from and they don't want to spend fine dining prices on it. And so I, I, I respect Chipotle for what they changed the game. I think at some point they were perfectly rated. I believe now they are just a normal fast food restaurant that serves perfectly good office lunch catering um but now i mean they're they're just a normal fast food restaurant that is less good than el pollo loco i mean i don't think it's less good than el pollo loco oh come on that avocados you drench the the chicken so nice and grilled and charred no you're not gonna get me to say that it's just get me to say that. It's just two different, I don't know, it's just two different vibes for me. Like when I go to Chipotle, it takes me back to the good old days of like high school and like trying cool foods for the first time.

Like, oh, what's barbacoa? I've never had barbacoa before. Delicious. Oh, my gosh. That's another weird thing, though, is they use like Mexican terminology for certain things. That's not correct. That's not correct, right? So they're barbacoa, I mean, like barbacoa can mean a lot of things,

but it's typically made with either a whole cow's head or a whole lamb with barbacoa de borrego. But they just use it for like spicy shredded beef. Ditto for their carnitas, right? It's not cooked in lard. It's just, it's pulled pork. They're calling it carnitas. Their carne asada is really gross.

And that is what I was getting to because they've had, do you know what, I mean, obviously you know what carne asada means in Spanish grilled meat they had grilled steak for years that is carne asada their steak is good well it was good

have you had it in the last three years? yeah I ordered it do you know it's sous vide now? so because of the E.coli outbreak that they couldn't trace they thought it might have come for their beef. So they were like, all right, no more fresh beef. We're sous-viding it in a factory to get it basically pasteurized.

And then they're sending it out to places to cook. So you're getting this weird like half braised sous-vide steak that's almost dry now. And then they institute carne asada, trying to, I guess, you know, I don't know, like Mexicanify themselves a little bit. I hate it. And they just put a bunch of cumin and lime, which is like. Liquid smoke, maybe? Yeah.

I hate it. I hate it. And they're in these like long strips, which is very strange. They're long. How? I think one time I measured it and it was like the size of like, was this a forearm? Yeah. Size of my forearm.

How do they get steak that long? I don't know. It makes no sense. It's not my forearm. How did they get steak that long? I don't know. It makes no sense. It's the cows. And so, I mean, at this point, I mean, Chipotle, it's your run of the mill fast food restaurant that I still do really enjoy. I just think at this point, the fact that they've become this weird cult lifestyle brand that is so inundated with the like youth creator community and all the gold platinum Chipotle

cards, I do think it's overrated. But I still, I have love in my heart for the nostalgia of what Chipotle used to be. I'm still going to stand by my note. I think it's still quite perfectly rated. And that is your prerogative. It's my prerogative. All right, Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the Twitterverse.

It's time for a segment we call Opinions Are Like Casserole. A little pitchy today, are we, Nicole? No. That was perfectly on pitch for me. All right, first up,

we got at this dude draws. Guacamole is amazing and flavorful, but avocado alone is just grass butter but yeah you're saying like that like it's a bad thing yeah that's a good thing i want grass butter i grass butter sounds i bet if you go to a restaurant that is fancy and they say grass

butter for like 28 and like a little baguette on the side you would buy it you would buy grass butter they did avocado butter avocado butter they did avocado butter at some like fancy restaurant in la some like tasting menu place. And everyone was like, whoa. And I was like, did they just whip avocado butter? They do seaweed butter with French breakfast radishes at Petit Trois. And that is a delight of a dish. But yeah, eating an avocado without salt is like kissing a man without a mustache.

That's what I've always said. I'm sorry. One more time? That's what Profesora Gonzalez i'm sorry one more time that's what that's what uh profesora gonzalez my spanish teacher in college i don't know what you said kissing sorry sorry eating avocado without salt is like kissing a man without a mustache yeah yeah sometimes i like kissing men without mustaches sometimes it gets a little annoying avocado is so fatty that like yeah i mean it

It loves salt and acid But that said I do love leaning into Just like the vegetal Fatty sweetness of avocado In like a dessert Just some Some condensed milk

On avocado In like a hollow hollow Or something Well I don't do that I will just eat Half of an avocado On its own Yeah

Because I enjoy it Put a little salt A little bit of vinegar on there And it's a treat B Gauge Fitness says Take any risotto style dish and replace the rice with oats. You've improved it. You've improved it, eh?

Let me think about that. So I make a mushroom risotto and then I put oats in it. Savory oatmeal. Sounds pretty good. I take rice pudding, which is what? A risotto? 100%. No, rice pudding is not a risotto.

Rice pudding is risotto. Arroz con leche, I guess, is kind of a risotto. Arroz con leche. I guess it's kind of okay i don't know i take and i use oats yeah that's pretty good that's oatmeal that's oatmeal which is a delight yeah i love oatmeal have it often uh let's think of another dish that has rice uh risotto style what's a risotto style dish i think most risotto style dishes are called risotto oh okay yeah okay cool uh okay yeah that's yeah i mean i don't think it improves it i think it changes it but Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Cool. Risotto con funghi. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it improves it.

I think it changes it, but it's your prerogative to decide if it's improved or not. My prerogative. Yeah, I'm just going to keep thinking that the whole time. I'd flip this theorem around and say that the opposite is more true, that take any oat-based dish, replace it with rice, and that's better. I made a lot of rice meal for breakfast and i really make a brown rice porridge like essentially like a congee yeah um which is or what is the arroz caldo in uh the philippines yeah um yeah i ate a lot of rice porridges and i think i prefer it to oats i like oats in the morning more than rice in the morning i'm like imagine i have to like fake chew to imagine i just saw you chewing yeah i was chew to imagine the flavor of oats. I just saw you chewing. Yeah,

I was trying to imagine the texture of biting through oats. I cook the living daylights out of my oats, so my oats are like gum. Like, it's like eating gum.

Well, people, I think people don't understand the difference between like, oatmeal and oats. Because a lot of people, like,

oatmeal to me, right? Think about corn versus cornmeal. Yeah, no, no, no,

there's different forms of, there's rolled oats, there's quick oats, there's steel cut oats, there's a bunch of different No, no, no. There's different forms of it. There's rolled oats. There's quick oats. Steel cut oats. There's steel cut oats. There's a bunch of different oats, but oatmeal is just oats plus a liquid. I disagree. I think it's ground oats.

Well, think about corn versus cornmeal. Is it? Think about corn versus cornmeal, right? No. Oatmeal literally means it's oats that have been ground into a powder and then turned into a porridge. But like- So people are just cooking these whole oats calling it oatmeal and I get pissed off

because I'm like, I want mush. I'm here for the mush. What? Wait, I'm upset now. I need to look at some packets. Oatmeal is ground oats. I need to go to Sprouts and look at the packaging. Think about the Quaker like packet oatmeal though.

Yeah, yeah. That stuff's just powder. There's like a whole oat in each one. There's like a oat. No, there's like three oats. Yeah, if you add up the pieces you get like three oats but like josh i think you just like blew my mind and i didn't want that to happen so thanks so i like rice meal like pureeing my race all right at soapy i don't know if this counts but old wives tales about food should be kept alive what are there any old wives tales about food that you do?

No, I'm trying to think. And I don't know if there's any, oh, like blooming saffron with like ice water versus hot water. I really don't see it being any different. Are you supposed to bloom it in ice water? Yeah, some people bloom it in ice water. Also, I like to grind my saffron with sugar

because the abrasiveness of the sugar helps with the breakdown of the saffron. But I don't really see any difference if it's with hot water or cold water. At the end of the day, it's just water. But I've never seen a difference in the way that I've done it. One that I really, really like and that I think is incredibly sexist that we should no longer keep. It's not a Persian one.

It's an Italian one that says, women that are on their menstrual cycles cannot make tomato sauce. Did you know that? Women on their menstrual cycles are not allowed to help making tomato sauce or like help doing the tomato sauce process. Nicole, I don't know much about the female body. Is it a

pH balance thing? I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but it's an old wives tale, an Italian old wives tale. Is it because bears will come attached? I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I just think it's whack. Whenever the old wives tales have roots in like sexism or racism, we should not adhere to them. But if it sauce one but certain things like um i remember like my my best friend deep's mom was telling me how to cook pabaji which is one of my favorite indian dishes um it's this like lovely you know very like a hard spiced like potato dish uh and

she was like boiled potatoes whole and i was like well can i just cube them up and she was like no and i was like why and she was like i never did it that way my mom never did that way just cook potatoes whole and i was like well i'm gonna try it dicing up the potatoes and just boiling it's gonna be quicker um and then you know you quickly realize that when you boil a potato whole it steams very evenly from the inside correct protective layer correct and so there's more you know i guess it's not an old wives tale but that was one of the things that made me realize like when some people say stuff and they make real good food you should just listen to the thing they say yeah there's there's a reason they do it that way totally that's kind of like love translated in When some people say stuff and they make real good food, you should just listen to the thing they say.

Yeah. There's a reason they do it that way. Totally. That's kind of like love translated in cooking. But things like you got to cook the octopus with the wine cork in there. That's like a weird one like that. But I do think keeping some of these alive. Yeah.

It's not just old wives tales, right? It's tradition. It's tradition. Yeah. That's what an old wives tale is. Keep culinary traditions alive. Agreed. Next up we have.

You got to stir your mayonnaise and ketchup together with a fork The spoon is gonna create curds in the mayonnaise Why not a whisk? Josh always gets mad at me whenever I use a whisk To whisk my eggs up No whenever you use a fork I would get mad Yeah yeah when I would use a fork you would get mad You're like it's not a fish I'm like it's whipping up at the same time

Okay Not Another Hipster says Asian fish sauce is far superior to Worcestershire sauce all day long. They're different, but like as a generality, yeah, a lot of recipes. I'm clapping for you. I'm clapping. A lot of recipes where people say to add Worcestershire, what they really mean is add fish sauce. Like what it should be is fish sauce. I love fish sauce and I sneak it into so many things and people always say,

what is that? That's good. I've never had my pasta taste this way. And I don't tell them what it is because if I tell them, a lot of the times people are very turned off by the idea of fish sauce. Normalize fish sauce in every single dish because it's a huge umami booster, flavor enhancer. Yesterday, I just made like a simple, we ate pretty heavy in the kitchen yesterday, Nicole. Oh my God, you made me a grilled cheese that made me shudder internally. It was delicious. I've never seen you react this really to a food

and that made me so happy. That's crazy. But anyways, I went home and I was like, I need a nice piece of fish and some salad. But I just loaded my salad dressing up as a simple like kind of, you know, chivey, dilly, buttermilk dressing, and I just dumped fish sauce in it as

the seasoning, and it was lovely. But Worcestershire, I mean, you get the acid, the fruitiness. It doesn't really do it for me, though. Yeah, it doesn't really do it for me that much, either. I'm trying to defend it as a sauce that, you know, but they don't really, Worcestershire doesn't need defending. Lee and Perrin's, they're gonna be fine. Yeah, I mean, it has its place.

But fish sauce is, like, the best. Asian fish sauce. Bomb diggity. At So Gandalf, chicken koubideh over regular koubideh, but barg over all. No, Nicole, do you want to jump in on this one first? So koubideh in Farsi, koubideh actually means to, like, break down. So, like, koubideh means, like, you brokebideh actually means to like break down. So like koubideh means like you broke it down. So it's like ground meat and barak doesn't have a translation,

but it's like whole pieces of filet mignon. And like it's cut really thin and skewered. And so chicken ground meat kebab versus regular, which is beef or lamb. I don't eat lamb kebab ever. I never eat lamb, never ever. Yeah, but I do agree. I love chicken k lamb kebab ever. I never eat lamb. Never, ever. Yeah, but I do agree. I love chicken koo-ee-da. It's the bomb.

I love it. I prefer it to regular koo-ee-da too. Really? I love it. The way that these people season their chicken. The spice comes through more in chicken koo-ee-da. Oh my God. I will agree with that.

It's gorgeous. It's just so succulent and it's so perfectly cooked. The beef can sometimes dry out because of the salt they add. But, like, it's really good. I agree. Barg over all is, like, the best. That is a good point, actually, about the way that, because when you salt the beef like that, it does, it gives you almost that, like, that sujuk. I'm mixing cultures here.

But it gives you that hard texture. Like a sausage. Not a snap, but, like, it has that certain, like, sturdiness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the proteins almost, like, seem to harden. Totally. And, yeah, chicken, it has that certain like sturdiness. Yeah. Yeah. The proteins almost like seem to harden. Totally.

And yeah, chicken, it comes through better in there. But jujit kebab overall. Come on. Girl, Nicole, you taught me that. Jujit kebab means Cornish hen. And Cornish hen kebab is one of the best ways to eat Persian food in my opinion. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Steven Shepard says, is cauliflower a better substitute for grains or meats?

Oh, that's funny. I get what they're asking. What are they asking? They're basically saying because people have turned cauliflower into so many things it never wanted to be. Oh, like cauliflower steak versus cauliflower rice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You know, I'm going to say it's a better substitute for meat.

Interesting. Why? Because it is. Like, I don't know i feel like it absorbs the flavors of meat like things better than than the texture of a grain like whenever i'm eating a cauliflower bite smothered in buffalo sauce that is more reminiscent of a chicken wing more so than me eating a a spoonful of white rice versus a spoonful of cauliflower rice. I think we need to, I love cauliflower. I've always loved cauliflower since I was a kid. It's like broccoli with a less offensive flavor.

I mean, I also love broccoli. But I've always loved cauliflower. I eat it all the time. I always have heads of it. I just, I roast the hell out of it and then I dip it in the sauce. I will rice it sometimes just because I enjoy eating it with a spoon and it'll absorb flavors. Occasionally I'll do a whole roast cauliflower head dressed up with some like tahini, a bunch of like fresh herbs, some pomegranate seeds.

David's mom does that. And it is, she cooks the living daylights out of it. And it's beautiful. She's a really good cook. Her cauliflower head, like the whole roasted cauliflower is the best i've ever had but my problem with this is the framing of it right like is it a better substitute don't think of food in terms of substitutes i know we've been raised to believe that a meal is like starch plus meat plus x you know but i mean eat a cauliflower steak for the sake of eating a delicious vegetable that is

cauliflower steak eat cauliflower rice for the sake of eating a, you know, delicious way to prepare a vegetable. Um, it's tough to like get out of these sort of boxes of thinking that like, and I know this has a lot connected to diet culture as well. Um, but I mean, cauliflower, just cauliflower, you can cut it and hack it in different ways. Do it however you enjoy it, but it's still just cauliflower. It ain't a grain. It ain't a meat. It's just a delicious vegetable that you've made for yourself. And on that note, thank you for listening to a hot dog is a sandwich. If you wanna hear more from us here in the Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday.

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See y'all next time. See ya! Bye! That's my propaganda.