Oh Chipotle is here at last day!

The blessed day has arrived....Chipotle in Paris! I know, I know, I should be blogging about baguettes, cheese, coq au vin, etc etc but you know what? Sometimes you just want a bowl full of mexican flavor and as you can see here and here and here it's a growing trend in paris, albeit slowly and sometimes hit or miss. So imagine my glee when I walked past the 'ameri-corner' (andrew's name for a corner with McDo, Starbucks, subway, hardrock...) and saw the beauty that is the chipotle logo with an 'opening soon' sign. Opening soon, like most things time-wise in Paris, was a relative term. I believe I saw the sign in January. NO MATTER, the day has arrived and it was glorious.

In short: It was very, very good. Not an exact replica, but close enough.  Differences:

• They use a brown rice here, which is fine, but I really, really like the chipotle/lime/cilantro white rice in the US. I think the brown rice overpowers the lime.
• No fountain soda. This may not seem like a big deal, but fountain soda is hard to come by in the Paris and I was looking forward to a huge diet coke with lots of ice and a straw. Le. Sigh.

A few french-isms:

• They are a bit stingy with the serving probably to tone down the fatty american fast food stereotype. This is fine for me, but when I was talking to the guy about the rice (gently mentioning that I liked the white in the US better) he asked me if i wanted a bigger portion. I think he knew I was a regular and it wasn't up to snuff. I declined, as to not seem like a fatty :)
• They have 4 salsas instead of the normal 3...Normally the 'medium' is the corn salsa...but the 'regular' salsa here is medium and they've added a mild. My theory is that they know the french palate is sensitive and not used to spice so they needed a toned down option. Can't fool me chipotle! I went for the medium and it was perfection.
• The Price is high...but as I was watching people check out I realized why. The price here for a burrito is 9 euro, which admittedly is high in the US too-- I think it's a little over 8 with tax in the NYC (okay, yes, my name is Lindsay and I"m a chipotle-a-holic). Anywho, I think they've done some keen market research here....Basically, because of the previous socialist gov't and (and new gov't) employers are required to subsidize lunch (see previous post here). You can supply a cafeteria like Danone does, OR, they give you these meal tickets that are accepted pretty much everywhere. They are normally around 9 euro. DING DING DING. Most restaurants do not give change back, so pricing at 9 euro parisians can use their ticket up fully. So smart!
• There was a huge amount of seating in the restaurant and no place for the line. Remember when I blogged about McDo having lots of seating because French people sit and eat for like 2 hours a day? Chipotle (previously franchised by MacDo which is right next door) has seating in spades. HOWEVER, the line was out the door because they didn't plan the space properly. They need to get that figured out.

ANYWHO, to summarize I am very happy. And I will be return again and again and again yipeee.