It’s a Wrap
It’s hot. It’s new. It’s an upscale twist on the lowly burrito …
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Wrapido
Is the roar of a blender like a balm to your ears? Is blaring rock music more soothing to you than a lullaby? Then you’ll never want to leave this bright, hopping student joint just north of the UT campus. Since it opened in December, three hundred to four hundred customers a day have passed through 32-year-old Daryl Kunik’s place to sink their teeth into the likes of the rotund Thai chicken wrap. The grilled chicken is hot (it was also burned when I tried it); the cucumber, purple and green cabbage, and carrots are cold; and the spicy peanut sauce gives a nifty slow burn. By contrast, the too-sweet barbecued-steak wrap, laden (and leaden) with garlic mashed potatoes, needs a conceptual overhaul.
3023 Guadalupe, 512-476-9727.
COLLEGE STATION
Freebirds World Burrito
If you don’t fancy the replica of Captain America’s famous Harley from Easy Rider crashing through the “Berlin Wall” at the campus location of Freebirds, drive across town. There you can dine under the gaze of the Statue of Liberty with a burrito in her hand. The oldest, biggest, and most whimsical wrap outfit in Texas began seven years ago as a branch of Freebirds in Santa Barbara, California, but the two local operations are now Texas-owned. Today the proprietor, 35-year-old native Californian Pierre Dubé, serves more than 1,500 customers a day at his two locations. The burritos are fresh and savory (I saw an actual bay leaf floating in the pot of black beans), but the choices are limited. There are four flavors of tortillas but only two meats (steak and chicken) and two fillers (rice and various beans). What helps is a multitude of homemade salsas and garnishes, such as pico de gallo and freshly pickled jalapeños.
319 University Drive, 409-846-9298, and 2050 Texas Avenue, 409-695-0151.
DALLAS
Eureka!
Who would have guessed that yup-oidal North Dallas would be ahead of the curve on any trend? Fortysomething owner Joanne Levy’s gourmet-to-go deli and restaurant anticipated the wrap craze from the day it opened four years ago. Today it goes its own way, serving chilled “wrappers” made with lavosh, the Middle Eastern flat bread that is usually served toasted but here is soft. I took a counter seat in the stark white space trimmed with interior purple awnings to try three versions. The peppered turkey wrapper had accents of herbed ricotta, an irresistible ginger pear chutney (not nearly enough), and real leaf lettuce. Folks, this is my kind of wrap: strongly flavored, crisp, and not swamped with starch. The Southwestern grilled chicken came through with black-bean spread (again, skimpy), roasted red peppers, and a sprinkle of low-fat mozzarella. As for the “veggie” taco wrapper, it could have been livelier and definitely needed more chipotle spread. But you can’t fault the nutritional stats on any of these, with 350 to 533 calories and a piddling three to eight grams of fat each.
4011 Villanova, southeast corner of Northwest Highway and Preston Road, 214-369-7767.
FORT WORTH
Gourmet Burrito
This lilliputian spot has been hot to promote wraps in the prairieland between Dallas and Fort Worth since it opened in December 1995. Most of the five hundred customers a day at 32-year-old Ann Hale’s place order their burritos to go; a few perch at the counter in the simple red-and-black storefront in a shopping center south of DFW Airport. The wraps here are mostly Tex-Mex, with daily whims like a Philly-cheese-steak burrito. Two of the three offerings I tried seemed a lot like a No. 2 dinner rolled into a flour tortilla. In the chicken-bacon club, for instance, the chicken was overpowered by the Spanish rice, black beans or excellent pintos, tomato, green sauce, and bacon. The liberally salsa-ed vegetarian tasted similar, with the additions of grilled onion and red bell pepper. Best of the lot was the chicken Caesar, a crisp rolled-up salad (even if it did, quite improperly, have tomatoes in it).
14200 Trinity, at Texas Highway 360, technically in Fort Worth but closer to Arlington and Irving, 817-545-6900.
HOUSTON
Mission Burritos
Wendy Jones never dreamed she’d be in the burrito biz (“I thought they were yucky”), but a wrap-crazed friend and future investor who’d spent time in California was so insistent that Jones finally tried one and thought, “Wow, wait a minute. This might be neat to do.” Nine months after opening, five hundred to six hundred customers a day come for the 32-year-old owner’s excellent rolls, and she is already enlarging her breezily informal place with the oak-shaded deck out front. Most visitors don’t bother to dress up (well, maybe a change of gardening togs or fresh green spray on the hair). They stroll through supervising Tex-Mex orders like the great Muy Awesome Chicken (charcoal-grilled chicken with avocado, roasted-tomato salsa, the usual rice and beans, and a cilantro-onion mix on a plain flour tortilla). Equally fine: the QueMas Salad burrito, a special, with greens, roasted corn, cheeses, jícama, and a choice of dressings including blue cheese vinaigrette.
2245 W. Alabama, 713-529-0535.
Wraps International Gourmet Burritos
“Strong. Our sales have been strong since we opened five months ago”: That’s all close-mouthed co-owner Mark Rice will say about his numbers, but when the noontime line is out the door, you figure the 32-year-old lawyer and accountant is not fibbing—just paranoid about the competition. Wraps is probably the most California-esque wrap place in Texas and definitely one of the most polished. It has a chef (Javier Mondragon), a decorator (Kirksey and Partners, of La Griglia and Grotto fame), and plans to waltz across Texas. If you spend a little time in this jazzy space, with its royal blue and buttercup-yellow walls and angular, Memphis-like detailing, you’ll believe it could happen. To my taste, the ancho snapper (garlicky marinated fish, coconut-tinged jasmine rice, ginger cabbage slaw, guacamole, and a slam-dunk ancho-cinnamon sauce) shows Wraps at its best. The top-selling chicken pesto can grow monotonous about halfway through, but the spicy-sweet Thai chicken on a spinach tortilla gets a thumbs-up.
Meyerland Plaza shopping center, on Beechnut just west of Loop 610, 281-681-1100.
SAN ANTONIO
Habanero’s Grill
At this northside joint, you can lounge on the deck and have a ’rita with your ’rito. You can also observe your white or whole-wheat tortilla being freshly pressed as you walk down the serving line—an experience as strangely engrossing as watching your car go through the car wash. Partners Steve Kraft, 36, and John Kindred, 28, have a lot of good ideas going at their nine-month-old enterprise, starting with a bouncy, multi-wall mural that features a cowboy lassoing the Tower of the Americas with a one-eyed rattlesnake. More than 250 customers a day show up to customize their own burritos from an impressive five meats (including carne guisada) and accompaniments. My chicken Fajita-rito with sautéed red peppers and rice was most agreeable, especially slathered with roasted-tomato sauce from the salsa bar. But my favorite was the vegetarian Pepper-rito, with grilled poblanos, chunky potatoes, and more. Tip: Get the onions grilled in Cholula sauce on everything.
West Avenue at Embassy Oak, 210-499-0099.
WRAP.COM
Burritos in cyberspace.
THREATENED BY THE INSIDIOUS advance of wraps, lovers of traditional burritos have mounted a counterattack on the World Wide Web. Browse here for burrito essays, poems, fan pages, humor, and general ranting. Trying to find a serious Web page on burritos is a little like trying to find a serious one on Twinkies or Spam—next to impossible.
Burrito.com
Definitely the funniest of the bunch. (Gold star awarded for the dancing burrito graphics.) “Rito,” your tour guide, leads you through cooking tips, nutritional information, and a hilarious “slide show” photo history of the burrito. For the real fun, though, check out the burrito poetry contest—you could win a month’s supply of the tubular treats. (burrito.com is no longer a valid web address)
Burrito Page
These folks have assembled “Landmark Texts of Burritology” from burrito literature new and old (can you say “John Steinbeck”?). Some of the sections are useful only if you live in California, like the “’Rito Rap” history of that state, but the site has plenty of other links and games. “Burrito-Analysis” lets you pick your favorite toppings and then defines your personality based on what you choose. (www.infobahn.com/pages/rito.html)
Anti-Wrap Page
A philosophical controversy wages here over the inherent superiority and primacy of burritos over wraps. Brought to you by the Burrito Page, Anti-Wrap vows to boycott the Johnny-come-latelies. Its slogan: “No patronage until you start calling them ‘Burritos’!” (www.infobahn.com/pages/anti-wrap.html) World’s Largest Burrito Catch this one on an empty stomach. Jeff Luszcz’s homepage gives 26 pictures of the making and consumption of what he claims was the world’s largest burrito. (www.luszcz.com/burrito.html)
The First Innocent Inanimate Object: The Burrito
Is it performance art? Who knows? But if you’ve ever wondered what a Taco Bell bean burrito would look like if you shot it with a hollow-point bullet (and recorded the devastation in slow motion), this page is for you. (www.5sigma.com/joseph/inan/burrito.html is no longer a valid web address). KATY VINE
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