Qdoba

In a word: Quintessential chain Mexican.

The specs: #0530  
Address, hours & details via Isthmus; reviews at Yelp, Fried and Prejudice, dane101, Foodie, He Said She Said, listing at Eat Drink Madison; official web site; 

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Bill ate the chicken poblano pesto burrito.
JM ate the chicken quesadilla and nachos with a fountain drink.
John ate the chicken burrito.
Nichole ate chicken tacos.
The bill was about $30, or $7.50/person.
Bill and JM gave Qdoba an A-; John gave Qdoba a B+; Nichole gave Qdoba a B (see our grading rubric).

There aren't a lot of letters we can knock out in a week. Q is one of them and we did it, though not in six days in a row as we'd originally hoped. We invited folks along for the Quick Qs and it was really fun and ran the gamut.

It was an accident that we all ate chicken at Qdoba, but we figure that there weren't many culinary nooks and crannies to explore here. We hope you're not disappointed.

On the other hand, if it's been a while since you've tried Qdoba, you might find that your expectations could be exceeded, as was the case with Bill's visit. He hadn't been very impressed with their typical Tex-Mex/Mexican taco bar-type set-up the last time he visited, but this time he found the house special poblano pesto burrito very tasty:

The flavors blended well and the tomato-heavy pico de gallo lent a pleasant tangy quality. I did not find it too hot (spicy), but I tend towards the higher end of the spice tolerance range, so Your Mileage May Vary.

Nichole's three tacos were fine. She should have known better than to add lettuce, since that just chilled things down with minimal benefit. JM's chicken quesadilla was just plain too big; it was like wall-to-wall carpeting. And John decided that Qdoba, like Chipotle, is a good standby that doesn't make him feel nearly as bad after eating here as he thinks he should.

One notable thing about our visit was the exceptional service quality - this time it was very sharp and friendly, and we didn't even have to bus our table. We're not sure if these extra smiles are the norm or if they were due to the guy with the tie and clipboard a table over, but they were nice.

Comments

[Bryan K]

I don't get the massive amounts of white rice in these burritos. Why not just stuff them with bio-degradable packing foam from UPS - same taste and nutritional value. There should be a burrito purity law in the U.S., much like the German beer purity law. Only four ingredients are allowed inside the tortilla - meat, beans, avocado, and cilantro.

[Kyle]

It's the San Francisco burrito idiom. It's how they did it on Mission Street, and err body doin it with rice if they're doing it Mission-style. Ya heard.