El Diablo

The owner and crew behind the counter were admittedly nervous and visibly shaky while building my late morning burrito, which was probably the second or third burrito sale of El Diablo's April 9 opening day in Wilmington's Trolley Square Shopping Center, but the new, independently owned California-style burrito shop managed to wrap up a winner.

In place of what used to be a dry cleaners is now a cute and sleek little burrito shop with less than 20 seats and a small assembly line counter where you place your order for one of the five specialty burritos: grilled steak, grilled chicken, citrus braised pork, serrano braised pork ribs, or vegetarian. Three large salads are also available, and in the coming weeks El Diablo will introduce tacos and quesadillas to the permanent menu.Now, you either love big-ass rice and bean burritos or you don't. I happen to love them, but my major complaint at most places is lack of punch and zest with the flavors of the standard ingredients. I had no complaints at El Diablo! The toppings are fresh and tasty: hearty marinated mushrooms, tangy corn salsa, two kinds of pico (regular and hot), salsa verde, avocado poblano sauce, romesco sauce, three types of hot peppers, and pickled onion to name a few. It is your own fault if you walk away from El Diablo with a bland burrito. The vegetarian burrito comes with marinated mushrooms, cilantro-spiked rice, black beans, corn salsa, pickled peppers, pepper jack cheese, and pico de gallo. These ingredients are just suggestions, so feel free to eliminate some or add some of the other ingredients available. I decided to up my flavor quotient with the addition of pickled onions, cilantro, and avocado poblano sauce.

The citrus braised pork and serrano braised pork ribs offered at El Diablo are an upgrade from the usual meats at most burrito shops, but you'll pay $8.75 for these fancy meat burritos. On the lower end, the vegetarian burrito only comes in at $6.75.

I was going to knock El Diablo for not offering a non-bean vegetarian protein, but the marinated mushrooms had lots of flavor and was beyond generously portioned. Not sure if the generous portion of mushrooms was an opening day oversight, though.

El Diablo should do well in Trolley Square, where twenty and thirty-somethings gather to bar hop on the weekend. And during the week, the location is only a hop, skip and jump from the thousands of hungry downtown business workers. Because of licensing, El Diablo unfortunately can't stay open past midnight, but if the owner sets up a cart outside to cater to the after-hours bar crowd like I overheard him talking about, they should do very well.

Here's wishing you the best of luck, El Diablo. Hopefully your opening day jitters are a thing of the past, and you're rolling fat, foil-wrapped burritos like it ain't no thang.

Weird note: at one point, I was the lone female out of the twenty customers in El Diablo. Men must love burritos. Or Wilmington has a shortage of women.

El Diablo
13A Trolley Square, Wilmington, DE 19806
Mon-Wed, 11am-9pm
Thurs-Sat, 11am-10pm
Sun, noon-7pm

Burrito Bandido

After my lackluster lunch date with Qdoba's rice and bean burrito, I figured I'd bump Burrito Bandido in Wilmington towards the top of my list, since I've heard good things about this (mostly) authentic Mexican restaurant that happens to do an off-the-menu big-ass rice and bean burrito (not authentic).

Oh, how I wish all restaurants, regardless of their size, would make a website so I could check out their menu before traveling to god knows what ugly neighborhood they reside in (MenuPages doesn't cover every city). If Burrito Bandido had a website, I would have known that there was nothing vegetarian, save a cheese quesadilla, on the menu. But, really, I kinda knew that was coming, as most authentic Mexican restaurants are all about the meat.What $5 will get you: one rice and bean burrito with two salsas.

And just so you know, Buritto Bandido's beans and rice contain lard and meat juice. I, of course, didn't think to ask about the presence of lard or meat juice in my off-the-menu rice and bean burrito until after I had arrived at home with my take-out and taken a bite into what would have been an otherwise fine, but not rockin', rice and bean burrito. Whoo, the beans had enough sodium to sub as a salt lick.

And, don't worry, this lard-in-bean/chicken-stock-in-rice thing happens all the time to me unbeknownst, and it doesn't make me sick or flinch. I don't like it, but it ain't no thang.

But...the people who work at Burrito Bandido are really friendly, the bright building is quite a cheery site in it's wasteland-of-Wilmington location, and meat-eaters say great things about their food. So get on it, Wilmington!

And here's their muy cute, single-fold, business card-sized menu. You're welcome.
Burrito Bandido
227 N. Maryland Ave., Wilmington, DE 19804
302-652-5749
Mon.-Thurs. 10am-10pm; Fri.-Sun. 9am-11pm

Qdoba

O, hai! It's winter, so I'm virtually jobless until spring, so, if you haven't noticed, have more time to explore lunch-time eats in Wilmington.

Big dining news in Wilmington! The California-style burrito chain, Qdoba, recently opened in downtown. Now, before you jump down my throat for reviewing a chain restaurant, let the person who has never eaten at a chain restaurant cast the first biscotti. [long pause] That's what I thought.

Personally, I've been waiting a long time for Qdoba to open (it teased us for, like, ever), and from the looks of what I saw when I visited, a bunch of downtown workers have, too. Wilmington's downtown dining scene is getting better, but is still lacking some basics that most large and medium-sized cities take for granted.

As a big-time rice eater, I crave big-ass, rice and bean burritos, so welcome Qdoba to downtown. I've only visited Qdoba once, about four years ago, and my only memory of the experience was of a disappointingly bland burrito.

There's a basic rice and bean burrito, a 3-cheese burrito, and a grilled veggie burrito for me to choose from. I like mine basic (rice, beans, salsa, cheese, and guac), but, remembering the blandness, added the poblano pesto sauce (additional charge) to my burrito.Large, but not overwhelming.

Qdoba does not have a salsa bar for you to load up on salsa, onions, and cilantro to augment your burrito. They have bottles of hot sauce, but that's all.

The burritos are barely wrapped. Ideally, you want a generous, snug wrap of foil around that baby to hold everything in.

The poblano pesto is supposed to be made of roasted poblanos, cilantro, almonds, garlic, and pine nuts, but, really, tasted of nothing more than a green salsa, and had a watery consistency. It did add a little heat and garlic, though.

The burrito maker forgot the guac.

The cilantro lime rice served in the burritos sounds enticing, and, even though it's studded with tons of cilantro, didn't taste like much. Were my taste buds on vacation that day? And the every-grain-of-rice-separated instant rice at Qdoba is one of my pet peeves. There is something very unsatisfying about rice grains that are separated. Rice grains should stick together! (Or, at least, that's how I like them.)Just like my experience at Qdoba, I find most big-ass burrito chains soulless and unimpressive (non-chains, not necessarily), but just can't resist rice and beans in a steamed tortilla every once in a while.

Is there a big-ass burrito chain out there that kicks ass for you? Note the word "chain" in that question.

Qdoba
837 N. Market St., Wilmington, DE 19801
302-397-8851