Budgie's Burritos

10'' Burrito

Restaurant: Budgie's Burritos
Cuisine: Vegetarian/Vegan/ Mexican
Last visited: August 14, 09

Area: Vancouver, BC
44 Kingsway
Price Range: $10 or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 2
Service: 3
Ambiance: 2
Overall: 2
Additional comments:

• Hole in the wall serving large vegetarian burritos at a cheap price
• Also on the menu: tacos, tortilla soup, quesadilla, nachos
• Store bought guacamole/sauces...apparently I am wrong, it IS all made in house! For me it wasn't as obvious, but I'm glad to hear all of it is made in house.
  
• Burritos are pretty bland and kind of mushy - needs hot sauce/Tobasco
  
• Open Mon-Sun 12pm-10pm
• $6.50 for 10'' and $ 7.50 for 12'' burrito
• Taco - $3
  
• Vegan options at no extra charge
• Eat in/Take-out
• Hipster staff and clientele
  

**Recommendation: Johnny - O Burrito (I didn't try it, but it's the most popular choice). Everyone orders burritos here. I wouldn't re-order the things I tried because they weren't that good.

For what it is - a hole in the wall eatery on Kingsway, Budgie's is not bad, but not great either. I think it's popular becuase it's cheap and filling, but the food is actually not great. Really casual, get your own water, order and pay at cashier, seat yourself kind of eatery.

I was expecting more because it's quite busy and I always hear people raving about how big the burritos are. Yes they do put quite a bit of stuffing, but it's definitely not something you can't replicate at home. Open a can of beans, over cook your rice a bit, grate some cheese, buy some store bought guacamole etc...and that's pretty much Budgie's, nothing special - just a fat vegetarian burrito. Everything was actually lacking in flavour and too mushy - my wrap broke because the sauces and everything made the burrito too wet. Just by looking at the pictures you can tell how mushy it was. I couldn't pick it up cause the sauces would leak out the bottom. Sometimes this can actually be good, but because the sauces are bland - it wasn't.

I may go again, but out of convenience...hands down The Foundation (also vegetarian) just down the street is better.

The staff was pretty cool though - instead of writing our names with our orders they were drawing pictures of us...just for that day though.

On the table:

• Blair Stanley Burrito 3/6
  
• Tofu in a roasted chipotle and red pepper sauce, rice, beans, cheese, salsa, lettuce
• This sounds like it would be really flavourful and spicy or smoky - but it wasn't any of the above. I needed to add Tobasco (available at the table) before every bite to give it flavour. It was good that way, I barely ever use Tobasco sauce unless something really needs flavour too. The tofu was the firm kind which gave the burrito texture and heartiness...otherwise I would have felt like I was eating a lot of mush.
• Henry Burrito 1/6
  
• Tofurkey sausage, rice, beans, cheese, sour cream, salsa, lettuce
• Don't get this. It really isn't good. The tofurkey tasted like cardboard and I almost took it out. It kind of looks like cardboard too (see picture) - it tastes pretty bad. I've had good tofu sausage before, but this was a really poor quality one...not sure what brand they're using, but they should really opt for something else. Has a weird after taste...needed lots of Tobasco...partly to add flavour and partly to mask the tofurkey taste.