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Last night, I went to the soft opening at the new location in Metairie. I must say I was very impressed!

For those of you that haven't heard of Izzo's...it's a build your own burrito type place...much like Chipotle.

Even though the place was packed and was nothing short of a mad house, the staff was fast, efficient and friendly.

Now the important stuff...the food....

Hubby and I each had a burrito and shared some nachos.

What stood out most to me was the quality and freshness of the ingredients. And they are not stingy at all with the ingredients either.

Some stand outs for me as far as ingredients were....

Ranch chipotle dressing (I could literally drink this stuff!)
Pork - The best meat by far. VERY tender and juicy. I could've eaten a plate of it by itself.
Cilantro - VERY fresh and they are not stingy with it.
Steak - Good grill taste and tender, good amount of spice.
Rice - I'm not huge on rice, but I decided to put some on my burrito anyway. I wasn't sorry. Very flavorful and cooked perfectly.

Slight misses:

Red beans - My husband got red beans on his burrito instead of refried beans. He said that they were a little too smokey and seemed to overpower everything else.
Queso/Cheese sauce - Very good taste, but could've been a little thicker.

Although they were not charging last night for the soft opening, they still rang everything up to keep a running tab. Our bill for two huge stuffed burritos, an order of nachos and two drinks was just short of $25. I'd say it is a tremendous value for what you get.

is the service style similar to Felipe's?

I've never been to or heard of Felipe's. What's it like?

It opened today.

Operating under the assumption that it (hopefully) shouldn't take a fast food place with already-established locations 6 months to get its act together, we tried Izzo's out this past weekend. Parking's a little tight at lunch hour, and, if you enter the driveway nearest the front door on Kingman, watch out for the idiots who cut through from the back of Starbuck's without looking.

We opted for the medium, "super felony" size, which proved more than sufficient. Our burrista (I just made that up) appeared to have the process down pat, and was helpful in assisting newcomers to verbalize topping choices, as opposed to just pointing and grunting. We opted for the additional-cost pork and steak. Neither, however, seemed to live up the the menu hype about seasoning and preparation. Other than certain meats, only a few if any other things, like guacamole, seem to incur an upcharge. And, although I tried to put a variety of things I thought sounded good together on mine, the result was kind of bland. Perhaps it's intentional that nothing is overtly spicy. Wisely, we opted against the chips, as the "medium" size burritos weigh about two pounds each. We agreed that the upshot was that we were left full, but not necessarily satisfied. But we'd try it again.

LNS...
"burrista" -- most excellent!

I Googled it after-the-fact. Sadly, although an original thought at the time, it had apparently been coined before.

Low-N-Slow wrote:I Googled it after-the-fact. Sadly, although an original thought at the time, it had apparently been coined before.

Well I thought it was original. I thought it was one who makes a special coffee flavored burrito.