BURRITO BIZ: More operators are adapting the Chipotle restaurant model of fresh, madefor- you burritos, like Aramark’s Rio Grande burrito promotion, pictured here.

Photo: Aramark

Mexican cuisine is coming of age in America. We’re finally starting to get it—moving beyond the ubiquitous taco/nacho combos and reaching out to embrace more authentic Mexican fare, with its emphasis on the freshest regional ingredients available—often served to order.

A few years ago, most Americans, including foodservice professionals, might never have even heard such standard Mexican culinary terms as mole, chipotle or poblano. Credit the burgeoning Hispanic population—now the largest minority in this country—the explosion of Latino cultural influences from music and film to fashion and fine art and the success of Fresh/Mex restaurant chains like Chipotle and Baja Fresh for this increased awareness.

For onsite venues, bold flavors, colorful presentations and modest price points attract the customer while simple preparation methods and low food costs spell profits for the operator. FM spoke to a sampling of directors and chefs, from large contract accounts to small self-ops. They all echo the same basic sentiment: make it fresh, make it simple, make it real, and they will come....

Keeping it Real

They’re certainly coming to 9 Amigos Restaurant, Aramark’s showplace restaurant at Minute Maid Park, Houston, home of major league baseball’s Astros. On a good night, up to 1,200 customers file in for Chef Manuel Arredondo’s Southwestern Meatball Soup, a savory rich tomato and vegetable broth full of pork and beef meatballs with a hint of pasilla peppers.

They’re also coming for his Red Snapper Veracruzano—fresh red snapper marinated in achiote, pasilla peppers, garlic and citrus, topped with roasted red peppers and garlic sauce. And they’re coming for his Carne Asada Chimichurri Steak and his whimsically- named Three Amigos in a Blanket (three homemade tortillas filled with either grilled certified Angus beef or chicken, marinated in fresh herbs and garlic, and topped with fresh pico de gallo). A native of Guanajuato in central Mexico, Arredondo has observed the evolution of American acceptance/adaptation of Mexican cuisine with a mixture of pride and practicality.

HOME-RUN FARE: Aramark’s 9 Amigos restaurant at Houston’s Minute Maid Park (top left, patio) serves up some all-star Mexican cuisine under the direction of Chef Manuel Arredondo (right). Shrimp Nuevo Leon (below) is a heavy hitter—tempura-battered jumbo shrimp served with a raspberry chipotle pepper sauce. It’s served with jicama salad and julienned fried potatoes.

“I recently participated in a panel on Latin food at a conference attended by a large number of onsite operators from colleges and schools,” he says. “They wanted to see more of the authentic items, more regional dishes. The challenge is that ingredients can be harder to source, especially up north. But other things like homestyle tortillas are now readily available commercially. You don’t have to spend $10,000 on a tortilla maker or employ five workers in the back to make them by hand.”

Paul Carr, Aramark’s director of culinary program development, echos those thoughts. He brought his experience traveling in Mexico to bear in designing the contractor’s Club Fast-Track promotions. For example, Fiesta Fresh features four freshly-made fajitastyle burritos, called faji-tos, served up with seven creative salsas, including Papaya Peanut, Watermelon Jicama, Mango, Roasted Corn and Red Pepper and Red Pepper Pico de Gallo.

Thomason’s first cook, Monica Estrada, has prepared Mexican specialties like chicken mole and chile verde con carne for 15 years.

The Rio Grande Burrito promotion features what Carr describes as “Chipotle-style burritos” where all the elements are set out and the customer specifies his own 14-16-oz. burrito using a combination of protein, rice, beans and garnishes.

“Are we authentic?” ponders Carr. “We have authentic elements. Currently we’re investigating whether we want to bring moles (a complex, heavenly sauce but highly labor intensive—see glossary sidebar) into the mix. Can we pull it off from a skill set?

“For example, we learned European cooking techniques which are quite different from Mexican techniques. It’s very different balancing a European-style sauce, for example versus a Mexican-style sauce. If, when making a European-style sauce I make it a little too sweet, I can balance it with sour; if it’s a bit salty, I can tone it down with a root vegetable. But if my mole is too sweet, I have to balance it with more heat and then I risk it turning bitter, and once it goes bitter, it’s very difficult to get the sweetness back up. It’s just a whole different style. There is a prototype commercial mole out there, but I think we need a good one on the market to get over the hump.”

Also, Americans typically don’t think of seafood when they think of Mexican cuisine, and that’s a huge part of their cuisine. “It’s a learning curve and we’ll get there,” predicts Carr.

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