Never having met a burrito joint I didn't want to visit at least once, I headed over to Quesada last night for my fill of rice, beans and flour tortilla. In truth, this is not the first time I've sampled Quesada's offerings. Back in the early days of this blog, I actually dismissed it as an underwhelming gastronomic experience, so I thought it was about time it deserved a second (and closer) look.

The thing with Quesada is it strikes me as one of those ventures started by an MBA grad who believes the key to a successful restaurant is to carefully measure the ingredients so the cost per burrito is relatively fixed. I don't disagree with this in principle, but when I'm paying $6.50 plus tax for the thing in the first place (versus $5.75 at Burrito Boyz up the street), don't scrape off some rice because you think it might be over the prescribed limit.

Despite my issues with Quesada's operations manual, I found the food to be a good-news story. They start off on the right track with fresh ingredients - they have better beans, salsa (4-5 varieties) and fillings (real guacamole) than the competition (Burrito Boyz and Big Fat Burrito ) even if they fall a bit short with the main attraction. Their chicken isn't quite as tasty and the vegetarian option has been sitting in the ingredient bin a tad too long.

Like the other guys, they do the "Toronto style" and toast the burrito. Not sure why this practice is so widespread. Maybe I should just chalk this up to the whole Quiznos thing. I would have preferred it steamed - more like a Mission Burrito - but I guess that's just personal preference.

Quesada Mexican Grill, 234 Wellington Street W. 416.644.0876