20 • Thursday, December 23, 2021 • The Edge
Food for Thought … with Vicki Bennington
Buen provecho! Edwardsville’s Chipotle Mexican Grill is a friendly feeling lunch or dinner establishment with a wide selection of Mexican fare in what is known as a “fast-casual” restaurant. What is fast-casual? You might ask. Chipotle literature states it was founded in Vicki 1993 to bridge the gap Bennington between fast-food chains and more casual sit-down restaurants, so the idea isn’t new – though the term was never exactly a household word. But if you think about it, you know exactly what it means, and we all knew there was something different about it, even though we may not have known
the term. It’s somewhere in-between a fast-food restaurant and say, a café; someplace you wouldn’t mind eating in, but yet it provides convenient “on-thego” food, as well. One of the initiatives of the idea was to offer freshly prepared food with fresh quality ingredients, while keeping the turnaround “fast.” And of course, the resulting dishes should be delicious – they’ve got to be delicious. In my book, Chipotle ticks off all the boxes. My order was fast. It was definitely tasty. And by all accounts, the ingredients seemed to be quite fresh and of a high quality. So there you go. I started out with the obligatory – at least, I think it is – chips and guacamole – and were they the whole enchilada!
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Chipotle guacamole and chips.
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Seriously, the guac was very creamy, with a great flavor; the chips warm with just the right amount of crispness. Other dip choices to go with those scrumptious chips are fresh tomato salsa, tomatillo-red (or green) chili salsa, roasted chili-corn salsa or queso blanco (I don’t like this type of cheese dip myself, but I do like saying it), and for drinks, you can choose from several specialty soft drinks, like Mexican Coca-Cola or Sprite, Tractor organic black tea, San Pellegrino sparkling water or grapefruit izze juice, among others. For my entrée, I ordered a chicken
Photos by Vicki Bennington
quesadilla, which was an eight-inch flour tortilla stuffed with shredded chicken (or you could choose steak, barbacoa or sofrias (plant-based protein), or cheese. Then you can choose three sides brown rice, white rice, black or pinto beans, and one of the aforementioned “dips” or sauces. It was a large amount of food, and I have to say, it was very good. There are several other categories to choose from on the menu, and really, all sound good. The Lifestyle Bowl is one I’d like to try – some are labelled
