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First time in US? Fast Food choices for Indians, Pakistanis, and Sri Lankans.

I still remember my first experience with fast food in US. My seniors took me to a fast food place and I was so picky and said no to everything…I do not eat cheese and other stuff…they finally took me to Taco bell and got me Chicken Chalupas without cheese and sourcream…that was nice ! when I was back in India, I always had ethnic Indian food either at home, restaurants or at hostel. As I did not grow up in a metro city, I never even tasted any burgers, pizzas, or anything like today’s fancy fast food chains like Pizza Hut, KFC, etc. Bottom line, I had a hard time finding food in the first few months. Let me share some good fast food places that can help you adjust for the first few months in US until you get used to everything. I will write a small series on this, today I will write about Mexican food places.

Fast Food options for Spicy food eaters 🙂 Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans in USA

Well, I assume most of the ethnic food in subcontinent is spicy and we are very much used to eating that kind of food. It is hard for most of us to eat plain without any spices…Most of the times, it is hard to find spicy food in US, unless you go to Indian, Thai or Mexican restaurants.  The good thing is, they have salt and pepper everywhere, I sprinkle some salt and lot of pepper to make it spicy and eat J. …everyone has their own opinion about food, here are my choices of food.

Taco Bell : This is Mexican fast food place and it feels close to spicy. Tacobell

  • Chicken Chalupa – This was my first fast food in US ! I love it ! It is nothing but feels  like a Roti or Naan (Mexican version) and they put in chicken and other vegetables and cheese. If you do not like cheese and sour cream, you can just say No cheese and sour cream(like me). It is very good and felt like eating roti. All you have to do it put some taco bell hot sauce in it, it will be good ! Yum!
  • Chicken Burrito: This is also my favorite, they wrap chicken , Mexican spicy rice and beans in the tortilla( Think of it as Mexican Roti ). They put cheese, you can say No cheese if you do not like.
  • Chicken Quesadilla  : This  is nothing but putting chicken and cheese in between two tortillas and making it like a sandwich. As the cheese melts it makes like thick and nice. You can dip it in the Taco bell hot sauce and have it, it is good.
  • Vegetarian: For vegetarians, you can take the above three options but with Beans instead of chicken…There are tortilla chips that you can take too.

Chipotle : Chipotle is a Mexican food chain. The concept here is you have all the vegetables, meat and other stuff separate. You make it the way you want it. This is very popular chain of Mexican food places and not essentially a fast food, but more of a lunch and dinner place.

  • Chicken Burrito: First you pick the meat, chicken(you can have beef and pork too if you want), then you pick if you want beans, and there are few options of vegetables, the put in lemon rice in it, you have the  option to choose from a variety of hot sauce( like chutney), cheese, sour  cream (if you want)  and make it like a burrito ( tortilla wrap with all the stuff in it) . It is kind of hard to eat at first, you will learn how to eat it slowly. Carry a spoon to eat the spill overs.
  • Burrito Bowl: It is exactly like above, but there is no wrap of tortilla (roti). All the stuff is just put in a bowl and you can mix and eat like vegetable mixed rice. I like this…feels like lemon rice with all the vegetables.

Qdoba : Qdoba is exactly like Chipotle, but a Mexican food chain. The flavor is a little different. But you get exactly what you get in above and same concept of choosing food. Some states have Qdoba, some states only have chipotle. Apart from above, you can get below

Mexican Gumbo: it is nothing but all the mixed rice, vegetables and other stuff but they put it in a hot soup( it is like Rasam in India ). It feels just like mixing in rasam and eating. You can have either chicken or beans as you want. I really like this one.

In the upcoming articles I will write on other kinds of food places that will be good for new comers.

Can you think of any other good Mexican food chains? ( I will write other stuff in next articles)

Image Credit : http://www.flickr.com/photos/notahipster/4386813348/sizes/m/

   

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