604 Foodtography

I have been waiting FOREVER to post about Budgie’s Burritos for one reason. That one reason is this locally made commercial I found on Vimeo a few months ago.  It’s in French, but not to worry, there are subtitles. Of course, living in a bilingual country that Canada is, it’s not that hard to pick up on most of what is said. 

Budgie’s Burritos from Todd M Duym on Vimeo.

I thought the commercial was pretty slick, so I put it onto my go list. Funny though how I can forget about restaurants and never think about them when I’m out and about. Anyways, since Vanessa is now a Vegan, thinking of places to go eat is now a lot more focused.  I thought being a Vegetarian is hard enough, but being a Vegan is even worse. Originally we were supposed to go to Gorilla Food, as they serve raw vegan food, but they were closed when we got there.

Racking my brain for places to go, specifically vegetarian restaurants, I instantly thought of Foundation, since I had recently gone. However, I didn’t want to revisit them, not because the food wasn’t good, but because I just wanted to blog about something else. Thinking visually though, I remembered that Budgies is a short distance away from Foundation so we hopped on the bus & left downtown.

All their burritos are under $10, and come in two size, 10 inches or 12 inches. Looking over the menu, I wasn’t keen on trying out “tofurkey“, as I’ve had a bad experience with a vegetarian hotdog (it nearly made me throw up…) so I stuck with the familiar items. When you order, the person behind the counter writes it down with erasable markers on little squares which is then handed off to the burrito maker. For Vegans, they will substitute dairy for guacamole at no extra charge. On the little square, the guy wrote a nice big VEGAN on it with snazzy bordering.

The picture below, I’m going to chalk up to me being dumb. I was so hungry since I woke up, bussed downtown, found out the place was closed and ended up here. I just wanted to get a damn picture so I could start eating. It looked fine on the screen, didn’t bother to zoom in to see if it was sharp. I come home and download the pictures and it’s …..blurry. Sigh! Oh well. What I had was the Johnny-O (rice, beans, cheese, chipotle sour cream, guacamole, jalapenos, salsa, lettuce) $6.50 (10 inch).

For the price, I find it to be a very filling burrito. It may not win culinary awards, but you’re here to get stuffed, cheap. The absence of meat isn’t noticed, as there is plenty of substance within it. Unfortunately, the salsa seemed to be a little watery and therefore when I was halfway through, it started to get really soggy and was in danger of falling apart. I would also HIGHLY suggest you either get the spiciest salsa, or supplement it yourself with the hot sauces on their table. Without it, it can be a little.. bland.

Vanessa had the JameDog (garlic roasted potatoes, rice, beans, cheese, chipotle sour cream, salsa, lettuce), $7.50 (12 inch)

She thought it was really good for something without cheese and even though they replaced it with more guacamole, it didn’t feel like an overload. No complaints from her at all.

The downstairs is small yet the colorful pieces of artwork hanging on the walls lends itself to the kitschy room. The place also has a very distinct smell, I can’t accurately describe it though. It’s not unpleasant, but just different. Can hipsters be defined as a “smell”? If so, then it smelled like hipsters.