Why I'm Mad at Guy Fieri (or My Visit to Chino Bandito)

Every year, during Thanksgiving time, my family travels to Arizona. When traveling to another city, I always look forward to visiting a new restaurant. Usually, that’s not the case when I visit AZ. We have a tradition of sorts. The day before Thanksgiving, we have Ruby Tuesday (mainly because I insist), Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and pizza the day after. However, that all changed after I saw an episode of Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins. Guy highlighted a little place in Phoenix called Chino Bandito. It’s Mexican/Chinese fusion. Um, hello? WHAT? Anyway, it looked really interesting and I had to taste that food.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to visit their new Chandler location. Prior to my visit, I heard a lot about their unique ordering system. Since it was our first visit, we were treated to a tutorial. In short, all of the entrees were available with rice, in a quesadilla, or in a burrito. During our tutorial, we mentioned that we were not in a hurry, so we were able to partake in a tasting.

We started with a sample of their black beans. I really like black beans. However, I found the Chino Bandito version incredibly salty. Frankly, it was inedible. Next, we were offered the emerald chicken. It was sautéed chicken with garlic and ginger. It was simple, but not memorable. The same could be said of the carnitas and jerk chicken. The jerk fried rice was so spicy that it totally killed my taste buds. It took several sips of whatever and a couple of minutes for me to resume tasting. The last sample was jade chicken. They were lightly fried chicken pieces in a delicious, spicy sweet red sauce. Of all of the samples, this was the one standout.

Since I was ordering for a few people, it was my opportunity to sample several items. My final order was chile rellano quesadilla, jade burrito, pork fried rice, refried beans, and jerk fried chicken. The chile rellano quesadilla was extremely disappointing. After two bites, I was done. The fry was both soggy and hard. It was disgusting. The jade burrito, while tasty, was also disappointing. I spent a great deal of time thinking about the possible makeup of a Chino Bandito burrito. No one was more surprised then I to find that a Chino Bandito burrito consisted of the entrée wrapped in a tortilla. No rice, no beans. No lettuce. No tomato.No imagination.

However, I did enjoy the pork fried rice and the refried beans. Overall, I was extremely disappointed by my visit to Chino Bandito. This was clearly a case of the interesting concept and disappointing execution.