Yeah, you read that right.
Part of me wants to explain. Another part of me asks, what is there to explain? I’m LeBron James. Chipotle is the Cavs. Shah’s is the Heat. So I could very well be back one day – until I find my Lakers. Any takers?
Simply put, I’m too Chipotle’d out to carry on. I’ll always love it, but, as Sonny asked Calogero in A Bronx Tale of Mickey Mantle and the Yankees, has Chipotle ever loved me back?
The answer, my friend, is a receipt for $17.13 blowing in the wind.
This bananaland tally marks (1) a classic glass bottle of Coca- Cola, foolish me for nostalgic decision-making, and (2) a burrito bowl with nothing on it but guac and a dream to makeyou blow steam out your ears at the sight of your bank account.
You all already know the deal: inflation has killed the Chipotle Mexican Grill star. While the restaurant has hiked its prices astronomically- your local Shah’s Halal, on the other hand, is living a reality seemingly repellent of Joe Biden’s “let’s absolve student debt and reassign it to your gas wages” America. Their culinary modus operandi is a tacit, and opportune reminder as well: the affordable bowl for all to beat their happy drums to is Chipotle’s no longer.
New sheriff in town, thy name-tag reads ‘Shah’s.’
For the basic order formula at Shah’s, you go “chicken over rice” platter with black beans – there’s only black here, pinto be gone – and fajita veggies to start. Lettuce and tomato? No problemo. Lastly, that magic trifecta of sauces colored white, green and red hot. And if you want a can of Coke, you should get it, because it only adds an extra $2 onto your sub-$9 total.
Sub-$9.
What was in these sauces, though? No one knows. That’s part of the fun. Triple the mystery, triple the fun. Meanwhile, Chipotle shows you too much of what they are doing, and not as much of replicating that formula to precision like they did in the good old days.
Like The Beatles’ quadruple effort The White Album (1968), Chipotle is as delicious as it is depressing and is rampant with unevenness that points to break-up imminency.
You can’t even boycott them because they’re bloody everywhere. What’s more: they have Pavlovian conditioned you to get them at least once every week and a half like clockwork, because that’s all you’ve known since one came to your town a little over a decade ago. Considering all the good times you had there, it’s easier said than done to relinquish them
all in a rip of a band-aid burst without experiencing a respectable amount of melancholy. Ironic, as the worst experience Chipotle can possibly lend you will have you uttering the iconic chorus to the song of the same name Adam Sandler sang in The Wedding Singer after lyrically working through a palpable break-up of his own.
But this one’s much, much more serious, because this is real life.
How about when the cashier rewarded you a free burrito gift card for telling your buddy to stop filling up his water cup with the opposite of water when caught lemonade-handed? Or those rare occasions where the lettuce you selected perfectly layered atop the guac as to bury it beyond recognition, leading to a guac-less burrito ring-up’s worth of surreptitiously guac-positive contents?
Those days are gone. They’re just memories.
The days of $6.95, $7.68, and even $8.64 burritos are sadly gone too. Now, you need at least an Alexander Hamilton to get any appetite-quenching food item from the establishment.
A mass assemblage of additional Chipotle hacks spread viral until they were quickly kaputz, too. Wake up. Have some decorum when it comes to preserving the sanctity of covert guac ops.
At Shah’s, it’s never packed – and the opportunities are endless. At Hauppauge’s, in particular, it’s the natural spot to hit right after working out at Crunch Fitness on Veterans’ Memorial Highway, as The Messenger first reported in our scathing review of Wendy’s’ abominable Strawberry Frosty experiment over the summer.
Speaking of: wasn’t there a promise of more tester items on the way from Chipotle? At least on the East Coast, COVID indefinitely benched the rollout of even more limited-edition menu arrivals beyond the hit-or-miss list of: chorizo, carne asada, pollo asada and garlic guajillo steak.
The more cooks in the kitchen and commanders making up the chain, the more margin for error you invite- coloring us, the paying customer with the propensity to romanticize, insane. And these errors, they are a-plenty. Like Chuck Knoblauch at the end of his Yankees’ reign, Chipotle has a case of the yips.
Chipotle pico de gallo aftertaste will drive any self-respecting salivator of exotic cuisine away, slowly but surely– as well as satiate the outcry of “cilantro tastes like soap” truthers. Whereas, at Shah’s, their flavorfully all-consuming fury elevates, not sullies, all the other components in the meal.
No one says you must stop eating Chipotle – but I must. And that’s coming from its once-unofficial spokesman on the home front, wearing employee shirts on high school dates despite never having worked there. Back when Hauppauge only had one Chipotle.
Now, the town has two.
…and neither lets you digitally order hot sauce on a quesadilla. Call me Jack Nicholson meet-cuteing Diane Keaton, because something’s gotta give. That is the Message. Don’t Kill the Messenger.
