El Gringo Burrito

In another city with less burrito joints I’d probably say this was pretty good. In Dublin, unfortunately, it just doesn’t really cut it. The food is super fresh but lacking in real flavour — but only by comparison to some other spots around the place. Their portions are decent, it’s reasonably priced (well — € 9.20 for a burrito bowl & a bottle of water).

Big portions! Wandered around looking for a quick bite to eat and a change from all of the pub fare I’ve been eating. Stumbled upon some fresh Mexican! The service was fast and friendly. I had a chicken burrito bowl that was quite large (larger than a bowl from Chipotle for those Americans trying to compare) and I couldn’t even finish it. The chicken was shredded, juicy and full of flavor. The only thing that I wasn’t thrilled about was the guacamole. It was very thin and watery and had no flavor and I had to pay extra for it.

Besides the actual burritos, the two things I like about this place is that it’s in the St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre and they accept PayPal. If you’re really in the mood for burritos but you’re with someone who isn’t too keen on them, you can go to the SSGSC food hall and have a burrito while you’re friend/​partner can choose other options. This place is also one of the first places in Ireland to accept PayPal and it’s nice to be able to pay with their smartphone app. As for the burritos, they use some super fresh ingredients and give their burritos a nice, light toasting before they serve them up. If you’re really hungry, you can order a big box of nachos with some chunky salsa. It would be very difficult to be hungry after a burrito and nachos from El Gringo.

Shopping mall food courts have a bad reputation in the states, this one does not fit the mold. The ingredients are readily in view right in front behind glass, and the quality shows. They have a choice of 10 or 12 inch tortillas, although for adults, the 10 is pretty small, in my opinion. They were out of 12s when I went back for a return visit recently, and I left hungry. Still not the type of rice I am used to from So Cal, but the coriander and lime rice is better than most places here in Dublin. The refried beans were good, I like them much better than whole beans. I like my salsa blended, more like a sauce for dipping, and the salsa choices here are all very chunky, more for piling on top of the chips, and for my side of chips and salsa, they put too much on the chips, the chips were soggy very quickly. I need to remember to ask for the salsa on the side in a cup or something. The medium salsa had a fair amount of fire for me, I would go with the hotter one next time. I asked for guacamole for the burrito, but they did not have any ready to serve at that time, disappointing. The common seating area upstairs has a view towards the Green. Overall, the burrito was good to above average, but not in the top of my favs.
Burrito Blow Out scale
Restaurant 4
Atmosphere 4
Service 3
Menu Variety 4
Value 4
Location 4
Burrito 4
Tortilla 3
Meat 4
Sauce 3
Spice Factor 4
Stay Togetherness 5
Presentation 4
Portion Size 4 (based on the 12 inch)
Dispersion 5

As a restaurant it’s not up to much because it’s really just a food court stand. Thankfully the burritos are pretty decent. At first, I was let down by the spice factor. I ordered the hottest one as is my way and found it pretty tame. In fact, the chips and salsa side seemed to be hotter and I only picked the smokey tomato salsa for that. It wasn’t until I got near the end that my burrito spice picked up. It would seem all the salsa went down to the bottom but it was a delicious second half.
My only real complaint about the burrito is the tortilla itself. It was pretty hard as it seemed baked. I prefer them softer. I suspect it was left longer in the toaster than intended while my side was being sorted out. There was some confusion over whether the free side offer was still being honoured or not.
As mall food goes, it’s better than most.

This was spot number six on the Burrito Blowout. We were met by the owners in the food court and advised on what to order and eat. It was a nice personal touch.
I had a pulled pork burrito. The fillings were all very tasty, the salsa was lovely, I know they like to let the flavour of the meet shine through but I found it a little bland. I’d really have preferred some more seasoning.
The salsa demo was good fun and I really enjoyed the beer tasting!

Sixth burrito on Unilocal’s quest for the best burrito in town.
El Gringo opened as a small burrito stand inside St. Stephen’s Green shopping centre, not my favourite place on Earth but I suppose it’s good in a way as they can get to a lot of clients on this location.
What it lacks in ambiance is made up for by the cheerfulness of the staff, the two ladies working there were very friendly with me and everybody queuing before me that afternoon.
I was a bit disappointed with the ingredient variety and some of them weren’t even offered to me while I was choosing what was going in my burrito.
On the other hand, I think that having two tortilla sizes (10″ and 12″) is a brilliant idea, the smaller one is perfect for me but obviously others will be more than happy to munch down a bigger burrito.
They have a very good check-​in offer going on, nachos con salsa and a medium drink. Their fresh tomato, lime and coriander sauce looked yummy and they have it in three levels of spicy, so I had the medium with the nachos and the hot with the burrito. It was as tasty as it looked, though the hot one wasn’t really… hot.
My burrito was very well rolled, tasted good enough and the hot tortilla was a nice touch (they put the rolled burrito for a few seconds in the press, looked odd when thay did it but it works out really well). The burrito held perfectly together but it started dripping a lot.
Final score of 3 stars, the burrito served scored slightly higher (3,4) than the restaurant (2,6), mostly because the place lacks some character. This is a recent business, so I hope they succeed and more people get to know their burritos :)

Stop #6 on the Burrito Blow Out took us to St. Stephen’s Green shopping centre, to test this new addition to Dublin’s burrito scene. It is set up as a sort of food kiosk on the 1^st floor of the shopping centre, around the corner from the escalator, and has a seating area on the balcony over the food court.
I ordered a beef burrito with the spiciest salsa available and made my way upstairs. There, we were welcomed by the owner of the place and the head chef, who served us a choice of beers to test with our burritos. I sat down with a cup of Negra Modelo and started on my burrito. It was good. Juicy meat, nice mix of ingredients, nothing wrong with it. Unfortunately, I had to have my guacamole inside the burrito rather than in a cup on the side as no cups were available.
While working through my burrito, and 3 further types of beer, we were served additional snacks: the chef was busy developing the menu and had come up with quesedillas filled with chorizo and cheese, topped with a yoghurt based sauce. They were delicious and all the platters were gone in no time. I wasn’t going to bring up my ‘this sauce is not spicey at all’ pet peeve in this review, but during our review session, I noticed that pretty much everybody remarked that it had no kick to it whatsoever. Ah. so it’s not just me. Salsa lacks kick– note that, people.
Towards the end of the meeting, the chef gave a salsa-​making demo and the owner did a little presentation about El Gringo now and for the future. He explained that they now had the 1 outlet (the one we were sitting in now) and planned to expand to 5 outlets in the Dublin area by Easter and about 15 units around the country by the end of the year. And in order to ensure consistency, he planned to set up a central kitchen where all the food would be produced and then distributed to the outlets.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Centrally prepared food. Aggressive expansion strategy. Be present everywhere. Yes, they are aiming to set up a Subway for burritos. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I like Subway. The good thing about Subway is that it is affordable, nice and it is the same wherever you go. It’s not the most exciting sandwich in the world, but it is a good and consistent product the world over.
And that is, in the end, the feeling I got from El Gringo. The food is good, no doubt about that. But the owners have a bunch of other restaurant businesses and are clearly trying to jump on the burrito bandwagon, just like nearly every pub in Dublin is all of a sudden presenting itself as ‘craft beer specialists’.
Will I go to El Gringo more often? If at some point I find myself in, say, Galway and craving a burrito, I might head for one of their outlets. While I’m in Dublin, I’m sticking with the independent places. Good, but not Great.

Ladies and Gentlemen a new contender has entered the ring !
Great new burrito place in what was the kylemore. The place has undergone a bit of a revamp but luckily you can still sit upstairs and people watch Grafton Street «would you look at the head on yer man !!» And now with the added bonus of free WIFI so you can tweet about the people watching ! #wouldyoulookattheheadonyerman
So the location is great and you get to benefit from all the facilities like the baby food area & other food options if not everyone is a burrito boss. It’s really child friendly which most burrito places are not. The staff were super duper nice and friendly and very helpful.
Most importantly the food was very good. I love that the burrito comes in two sizes and the ingredients were very fresh. Probably the freshest salsa I’ve seen in a burrito bar. My only negative was the heat factor. I had the hot salsa and sadly did not feel the burn !! I would call it mild at most.
But will definitely be back !!

Great food and great service, with really passionate owners.

Really fantastic new spot that’s just recently opened in the Food Village on the first floor in Stephen’s Green. If you haven’t been here since the Kylemore days, I’d advise you to check it out. It’s all got super fast wifi that’s open for anyone, the seating is all upstairs in really nice comfy leather seats, and it’s just generally quite a nice spot to chill in. There are also lots of new eateries planned, and some that are there right now, such as El Gringo.
There are lots of things that really appeal to me about this spot;
— They do two different sized burritos — 10 or 12 inch. I got the 10 and it was more than enough. I don’t think I’ve seen this anywhere else?
— They have a really tasty chunky salsa that I liked a lot. You then get a choice of either red or green jalapeños to go on top — again I don’t recall seeing red jalapeños anywhere. I actually got the smokey salsa which was really delicious and worth trying for something different.
— I got half and half, veg and chicken which was a great combo. The veg was really nicely cooked — crisp and crunchy and not too oily.
— You can pay with Paypal! You download an app which contains your photo, then touch your phone to the scanner, the staff member verifies it is you, and hey presto, cashless, pin-​less transactions.
— All of their food has been put together by their ex-​Gordon Ramsey, ex-​Chapter One, ex-​Many other reputable places, head chef. He is also a trained nutritionist and they have gone to great pains to ensure that all of the food is as healthy and low in fat as possible, whilst still retaining all the flavour.
— They have lots more plans of different types of burritos in the mix, from the Buddha Burrito (chile con lentil style) to the Three Little Pigs (pulled pork, chorizo and parma ham, helllll yeahhh)
*PRO TIP: Check in with your Unilocal app and get a free drink, nachos and salsa.
So, on the Burrito Blow Out scale:
Restaurant 4
Atmosphere 4
Service 4
Menu variety 4
Value 5
Location 5
Burrito 4
Tortilla 4
Meat 4
Sauce 3
Spice factor 3
Stay togetherness 3
Presentation 4
Portion Size 5
Dispersion of ingredients 4

And Stop number 6 of the Burrito Blow Out came, was tasted and became one of the winners to me.
The display of food was nice, clear and with lots to choose from. I went for the 12″ tortilla with chicken (marinated in lime and coriander), with mild salsa, some peppers, sour cream, cheese and guacamole.
To my surprise the burrito got toasted in the end which turned out to be very lovely– made it warmer again and crispy.
I loved the taste, it just got a bit messy in the end as it was very juicy. Also that you got your burrito on a tray and not a little basket like in many other places took a bit away from the experience. As it made it difficult to put the burrito down. I was very close to give 5 stars.
We also got to try Chorizo Mozzarella Quesadilla with a very tasty sauce — they were to die for.
But other than the tray and little mess I know I will come more often here. I love the effort they put into trying out new combinations and getting feedback from customers. And I also feel that the fool parlour in St. Stephen Green Shopping centre finally will get used to it’s potential.

El Gringo Burrito, another burrito bar in this part of Dublin city centre but this time it’s in the newly revamped food hall in St Stephens Green shopping centre, Green & Baker Food Hall.
I first opted for shredded chicken, then I spotted the beef chilli so changed to that. The toppings are generous here and they then toast the burrito after its wrapped. I liked that, it gave the wrap a crispiness to it and the cheese melted.
The overall burrito was only ok. The chilli sauce was bland. Their hottest salsa was more a medium salsa, a mild medium at that.
Then it began to drip, with about a third of it to go. I’m glad I had a tray under it, a very messy affair.
At the till I saw a Bopzy loyalty scanner… but there was no QR code to scan. The girl on the till said it was a plastic card that was needed to check in with. I explained that I wanted to check in using the Bopzy app, but she was not interested in what I was saying and stopped paying attention.
Edible but bland. With Burritos and Blues, Littles Ass Burritos, Pablo Picantes… I could go on. All are better than El Gringo Burrito.
Overall ³⁄₅. Passport ratings —
Restaurant: ³⁄₅
Atmosphere: ²⁄₅
Service: ³⁄₅
Menu variety: ³⁄₅
Value: ⁴⁄₅
Location: ⁴⁄₅
The Burrito: ³⁄₅
Tortilla: ⁴⁄₅
Meat: ²⁄₅
Sauce: ²⁄₅
Spice factor: ²⁄₅
Stay togetherness: ³⁄₅
Presentation: ⁴⁄₅
Portion size: ⁵⁄₅
Dispersion of ingredients: ⁴⁄₅