Well, this restaurant visit was a real adventure. I think we drove around inside the Palladio Shopping Center in Folsom for at least a half hour before finding the Freebirds restaurant. The problem is simple, they show the address as 310 Palladio Parkway, but it is really on Via Felice.
We found that the easiest way to get there from Highway 50 is to take East Bidwell Street to Via Felice (first signal beyond Iron Point), turn left into the Palladio Center and it is there on your right, next to Chicago Fire Pizza and across the street from AT&T. Immediately beyond it, turn right into the covered parking, park and walk back.
Freebirds is relatively new to the Sacramento area, with restaurants in Roseville, Elk Grove, Natomas and Folsom. They also have a number of restaurants in southern California, along with several in Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Utah and more.
After our tour of the Palladio Center, Salazar and I finally made it around noon a few weeks ago and checked out the place and the menu.
It is a beautiful restaurant with long high tables and separate lower tables for two or four. The whole place is uniquely painted and decorated, and hanging from the ceiling is a Harley with the Statue of Liberty riding it. It is made to look like it came through the wall.
We decided to try two of their burritos and stepped up to the counter to have them made by the two gentlemen standing there (sort of like at Chipotle).
The first one was on a flour tortilla with carnitas (pork), pinto beans, guacamole, onions, jack cheese and one of the house salsas (pico de gallo). Our second one was on a wheat tortilla, with spicy dark meat chicken (really good), black beans, cilantro-lime rice, lime juice, corn, jack cheese, grilled veggies and a different house salsa made with tomatillos.
The burritos were wrapped in foil, so we asked for them to be cut in two, so we could share them.
We took our burritos over to the cashier, picked up a couple of soda cups and paid for everything, before finding a seat at the higher group table.
Cutting the burritos in two made them easy to eat because they were served on end, side by side making it possible to use a fork to eat them out of the tortilla.
Russ especially liked that because he doesn’t really like the tortilla part of the burrito unless it is put back into the grill and toasted after being made (he has since discovered the burrito in a bowl that many taquerias now serve).
They were both very good, especially the one with spicy dark meat chicken. Russ, who is not really a chicken fan mentioned a couple of times how good it was.
Freebirds serves three sizes of burritos: Hybird, Freebird and Monster. You and have them with grass-fed steak, slow-roasted pork carnitas, all-natural grilled chicken (breast or spicy dark meat) and vegetarian.
The have several types of tortillas to select from, two kinds of rice, three kinds of beans, two cheeses, six different sauces, – including a “death sauce” – lots of toppings and three different dressings to add to your burrito.
Other items on the menu include a burrito bowl, quesadilla, nachos, a Freedom salad (I forgot to ask why), soft taco, lite chicken bowl, BBQ classic burrito (that must be a Texas influence), the spicy chicken burrito and a kid’s burrito or quesadilla.
The add ons include guacamole, bacon and queso (I have never seen bacon at a Mexican restaurant before, nor BBQ sauce). You can also get chips with salsa, queso or guacamole, drinks and desserts.
I sampled all of their different salsas from their salsa bar and they were all good, even the BBQ one, and especially the hot ones.
The Folsom Freebirds is open Sunday-Thursday from 10:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.
If you need more information (or get lost looking for the restaurant) their phone number is (916) 984-6972. Save that number because they also do catering for events and parties.