LYT's Fast Food Review: Baja Fresh Burritos

I am convinced that there are three reasons, and three alone, for the success of Baja Fresh as a chain.

Location, location, location.

I mean, it could be just a fluke of the areas I inhabit, but most every time I encounter a Baja Fresh, it is the only cheap/fast-food place along some sort of corporate corridor. If you have a job in that area, and don’t want to drive to lunch or eat at some place where you’re morally obliged to tip the waiter, Baja is your only choice. I’ve been one of those workers. I know others. Almost nobody would eat at Baja Fresh if there were a La Salsa, El Pollo Loco, or even a Del Taco nearby. The deep, dark secret of Baja Fresh is that it’s pretty much crap, but their presentation keeps people from admitting it.

I do not say this lightly. I recently had occasion to cover the Los Angeles Film Festival (if you didn’t already know this, Geekweek readers, please type “LYT at LAFF” into our search engine, and read every article you find. I’d appreciate it.). Prior to the festival, a handful of its movies were screened at the SAG theater on Wilshire, opposite the corporate offices of Variety and E! on Wilshire Blvd. Guess what the only fast food chain in walkable distance was. Yeah, I know there are food trucks, but most of them were usually gone by the time I emerged, bleary-eyed, into the light at around 3 p.m.

So I tried a different Baja burrito every day, for three days, just to be fair. I won’t make that mistake again.

Baja1

They lured me in with their presentation, like they always do. Something called the “BFF Burrito,” which varies wildly depending upon which kind of dead animal you’d like inside of it, is the current promotion, and when you say langostino lobster, well...I think of Rubio’s, and their langostino burrito, which in my book is the Dom Perignon of fast food burritos.

Rubio’s made their langostino burrito seasonal, so as to keep their supply of the good stuff affordable. That season when it’s available, BTW, is winter. Baja Fresh has them right now, and boy, do they taste frozen-for-fortnights. Watery and flavorless, these langostino just get in the way, and their pale color, as opposed to the vibrant red striping they oughta have, is a big clue that this ain’t right. Baja Frozen.

But with that said, this burrito at least features some avocado to make the food a li’l slippery and soft. It’s no Rubio’s guacamole, but it’s a good ingredient. As far as the alleged “lime rice,” it was white and soft, but of citrus flavor, I detected none.

Baja2

The “lime rice” in the fire-grilled chicken BFF was totally different, but not so much lime-y as black bean-y. The chicken itself was the usual overly dry, sometimes underly cooked Baja bland blend, and as for 6-chiles salsa, I can say only that it neither moistened nor kicked my tastebuds six ways. Still, at least the meat wasn’t watery from freezing.

On my final day, I went for the nacho burrito. Surely this could not be screwed up, because nachos rule. Oh, how wrong I was.

See, when you make a burrito and call it “nacho,” you do have some obligation to include cheese. And indeed, the tiny handful within felt obligatory. Baja’s website sez this contains: “Chicken, Jack & Cheddar cheese, black or pinto beans, rice, smoky Queso Fundido, jalapenos, and Salsa Crema.”

I did detect the jalapenos and the chicken. A vague stretch of cheese at the very bottom of the burrito. But no salsa crema nor queso fundido. This so-called nacho burrito was DRY. The only thing remotely “nacho” about it was the little corn tortilla strips in there. If Taco Bell did a nacho burrito, you know this would not happen (although I’m starting to wonder about the Bell, with their new Doritos combos – selling fake nacho-flavored chips at a joint that’s supposed to make actual nachos has a queasy feeling to it).

Normally, if I ordered something called a nacho burrito and got something this dry and annoying, I’d imagine I just caught an employee on a bad day. But three bad burritos in three days, y’know...there’s probably some kind of appropriate metaphor to be had in a sport, like maybe baseball; I just can’t quite think of what it might be.

If you must eat at Baja Fresh, stick to the vegetarian burrito. They’re generous with the cheese in that, and while they may screw up most meat they touch, they have yet to find a way to ruin vegetables.

More LYT Fast Food Reviews may be found at this link

More on Geekweek

Comments

Sign in to comment with your TypePad, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Yahoo or OpenID.