Tag: Taco Bell

I think nachos were invented by someone who was either really high or really hungry. That is perhaps the reason why nachos look so good when you’re really high or really hungry.

Just like boob jobs, nachos come in different forms. I think someone’s momma once said, “Life is like a plate of nachos, you never know what you gonna get.”

Sometimes you get nachos with just cheese. Other times you get nachos with chili and cheese. Some nachos come with cheese and refried beans. Nachos can come with guacamole, sour cream, and/or salsa. Some nachos come in a tortilla chip sombrero you can wear outside to protect you from the sun.

Sometimes you get a whole bunch of chips and not a lot of other toppings, but that’s not nachos, that’s just chips somebody accidently spilled some stuff on.

(Editor’s Note: That last paragraph sounded like a Mitch Hedberg joke and I can imagine him saying it in my head, but I don’t think it’s one. I hope.)

Nachos may not be the prettiest food when you’re sober or not really hungry, but you have to admit they look much better than Tara Reid or Courtney Love in a bikini. Actually, nachos do a great job with satisfying one’s appetite, while seeing Reid or Love in a bikini makes one lose their appetite.

Just to let you know, I’m not high right now, but I do think that the new Taco Bell Zesty Nachos are a metaphor for life. It comes with tortilla chips, seasoned beef, zesty nacho cheese sauce, tomatoes and sour cream. Each of those ingredient represents a part of every individual.

The tortilla chips represents one’s mind. Much like tortilla chips, the mind can easily crack, but also like tortilla chips, your mind can hold a lot. A single tortilla chip has the power to hold seasoned beef, cheese, tomatoes and sour cream, while your mind can hold memories, online passwords, lame knock knock jokes, dialogue from Star Wars movies and horrifying images of celebrities in bikinis.

The seasoned beef is like the muscles on your body, because the beef is technically muscle from a cow. The zesty nacho cheese sauce is like your soul, because when you pass on your soul will still be around and when you pass gas the nacho cheese sauce smell will still be around. The tomatoes represent your heart, because just like your heart, tomatoes are red as well. Finally, the sour cream is your experiences. Your bad experiences are the sour part, while your good experiences are the creamy part.

All that stuff put together makes you and who you are, and unless you’re an asshole, it’s a good thing.

Okay, those last few paragraphs sounded like I was high, but I was not. I think I’m just hungry, because one of these Taco Bell Zesty Nachos wasn’t enough to fill me up. I’ll admit that it was good and for a buck and a half I shouldn’t expect much, although for the rest of the United States, it costs only 99 cents.

Despite having the meal-like nutritional values of 470 calories, 32 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 40 mg cholesterol, 730 mg of sodium, 34 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber and 10 grams of protein, I think the Taco Bell Zesty Nachos make a much better snack than a meal.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Daniel for letting me know about the Taco Bell Zesty Nachos. Thanks to him, I think my trans fat intake is about to go up.)

Item: Taco Bell Zesty Nachos
Price: $1.49 (99 cents for the rest of the country)
Purchased at: Taco Bell
Rating: 4 out of 5
Pros: Tasty. Kind of cheap for me, but really cheap for the rest of the United States. Makes a great snack. Nachos are a metaphor for life. The human mind.
Cons: Small serving size and not filling, but kind of worth it for the price I paid. Messy. 1.5 grams of trans fat. Tara Reid or Courtney Love in a bikini. Nachos without a bunch of toppings. Being an asshole. Taco Bell prices on this rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

You just don’t mess with a classic, like Metallica’s The Black Album, Kevin Smith’s low-budget film Clerks, Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy, or Taco Bell’s original Crunchwrap Supreme.

Unfortunately, Taco Bell did mess with the classic Crunchwrap Supreme and created the Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme, which contains spicy shredded chicken, sour cream, lettuce and tomatoes, a tostada shell, and nacho cheese sauce all wrapped up in a grilled flour tortilla.

It sounds good, but in reality it’s like if George Lucas did the following things to the original Star Wars trilogy:

1. Had a hairless Chewbacca that mooed
2. Lando Calrissian always had a Colt 45 in his hand
3. Princess Leia’s gold bikini in Return of the Jedi was instead a gold Victorian dress
4. Made Greedo shoot first at Han Solo in the cantina scene

In other words, the Taco Bell Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme just wasn’t right and doesn’t come close to being as good as the original.

It’s like Taco Bell took Metallica’s The Black Album cut off all of its long hair, turned the devil horns hand sign into the letter “I” in sign language, and added a cover of Reel Big Fish’s cover of a-ha’s Take On Me as a bonus track.

Basically, the only thing different between the original Crunchwrap Supreme and the Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme is the instead of ground beef, it’s got the shredded spicy chicken. But unfortunately, that seemingly minor tweak turned out to be something as dramatic as replacing the picture of normal, jheri curl, plastic surgery-less Michael Jackson on the cover of his Thriller album with a picture of a scary, pale, nostril-less women, like Michael Jackson.

If the shredded spicy chicken was actually spicy, it might’ve been much better. Sure, adding Taco Bell’s Fire sauce would’ve turned up the heat, but doing so wouldn’t have made it — as Taco Bell likes to say — good to go, because it’s hard to put taco sauce on something while driving, playing World of Warcraft, or playing air guitar to Metallica’s album Master of Puppets.

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to Impulsive Buy reader Brie for suggesting the Taco Bell Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme.)

Item: Taco Bell Spicy Chicken Crunchwrap Supreme
Price: $2.89
Purchased at: Taco Bell
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Stays warm in thermal pouch thingy, instead of heat-escaping box. 4 grams of farty dietary fiber. 18 grams of muscle building protein. The Black Album and any Metallica albums before it.
Cons: Not as good as original Crunchwrap Supreme. Not very spicy. The music at the Taco Bell website. 3.5 grams of trans fat. 1,300 milligrams of sodium. Any Metallica album after The Black Album.

Come on, Taco Bell! Can’t you do better than this?

Can’t you come up with something better than the Steak Nachos BellGrande?

You’ve come up with some great ideas, but Steak Nachos BellGrande just isn’t a fun name to say.

GORDITA!!!

Look how fun it was to say Gordita.

CHALUPA!!!

Saying Chalupa was also frickin’ fun.

BEAN BURRRRITO!!!

Even saying Bean Burrito was fun, not just because I rolled the R’s and said it in a high-pitched, stereotypical, borderline offensive Hispanic accent, but also because of the alliteration.

Sure, I could roll the R in “BellGrande,” but it still wouldn’t sound very fun because there are too many words and syllables in the name and it also wouldn’t be fun to say, “Yo quiero Steak Nachos BellGrande” in my best Taco Bell commercial chihuahua voice, while ordering in the drive-thru lane.

It’s also not exciting to yell whenever I’m swinging at a pinata.

How about Mucho Nacho? Or Nacho Rancho? Or Steako Greato?

Even some of the ingredients in the Steak Nachos BellGrande have better names, like the carne asada steak and nacho cheese sauce. Okay, the tortilla chips, green onions, tomatoes, sour cream, and refried beans have plain names. But if you add the optional jalapenos, you not only add some heat to the Steak Nachos BellGrande, you also add another ingredient that’s fun to say and you can have fun with Taco Bell employees by asking for the jalapenos phonetically.

The Steak Nachos BellGrande was good. The steak was surprisingly tender and the optional jalapenos gave it a nice kick. However, I think what really made this product tasty was the nacho cheese sauce, which also made the Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme tasty and added a nice crayon orange to the dish.

However, with 770 calories, 41 grams of fat, 7 grams of trans fat, 1230 milligrams of sodium, and enough carbs to make Dr. Atkins weep in heaven, I don’t think I’ll be buying it again. Although, it does have a whopping 10 grams of dietary fiber.

Hey! Maybe it should be called Nacho PoopGrande?

Item: Taco Bell Steak Nachos BellGrande
Purchase Price: $3.59
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Steak was surprisingly tender. Nacho cheese sauce is frickin’ addicting. Optional jalapenos gave it some nice heat. Lots of dietary fiber. CHALUPA! GORDITA!
Cons: Boring name. High in bad trans fat and other things.

Oh man, I so badly wanted to chuck the Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme.

Not because it didn’t taste good, but because it looked like a discus and I wanted to set the Guinness World Record for longest Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme throw.

I also wanted to start a food fight in the middle of Taco Bell with some guy who was looking at me weird as I was practicing my discus throwing form.

Anyway, the Crunchwrap Supreme was around seven inches in diameter and three-fourths of an inch thick, which is roughly the size of a regulation Olympic women’s discus. Inside its soft flour tortilla was seasoned beef, nacho cheese sauce, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, and a crunchy tostada shell.

Not only are the nacho cheese sauce and sour cream the perfect ammo for messing people’s clothes in a food fight, they also make the Crunchwrap Supreme very tasty and, quite possibly, help me come closer to my goal of having my blood replaced with dairy products.

Perhaps the best thing about the Crunchwrap Supreme is the fact that, despite its size, you can eat it with only one hand and you don’t have to worry about it falling apart like other tacos, unless your hands are small like carny or you’re the notoriously clumsy pirate, Captain Stubsforlimbs.

Of course, being able to eat it with one hand has many advantages.

For example, you can drive and eat it at the same time, flip channels with a remote control and eat at the same time, slip a ten dollar bill under a stripper’s g-string and eat at the same time, and masturbate to a continuous loop of Victoria’s Secret television ads and eat at the same time.

In other words, it’s the perfect food to multitask with.

You don’t need to worry dipping it into something, like those who dated Paris Hilton. Also, you don’t need to worry about things falling out, like Tara Reid does all the time.

Item: Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme
Purchase Price: $2.49
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Tasty. Nice size. Can eat with one hand. The perfect multitasking food. Makes the perfect food to fling in a food fight.
Cons: Hard to add taco sauce, but it really didn’t need it.

Sometimes I buy a product to please the Television Advertising Gods in hopes that they stop playing the DAMN annoying commercial that promotes the product.

This was the case with the new Taco Bell Zesty Chicken Border Bowl.

The commercial goes something like this:

Some guy and his cute girlfriend come up to the register. The guy asks the person at the register if it’s true that the employees won’t make a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl, until they order it. The person working the register says yes.

Then the guy jerks around with the Taco Bell employees by not completing their order for the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl. This goes on for a while, until the cute girlfriend interrupts him and finishes the order.

Why is it that some cute and smart women end up with assholes?

Anyway, in hopes of putting a stop to this commercial, I purchased a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl with it’s grilled, marinated all-white-meat chicken; cool, crisp lettuce; fiesta salsa; hot steaming rice; and warm beans. It also came with a dressing, which apparently gives it its zest.

I decided to taste the dressing first to find out if it was going to be another McDonald’s buffalo sauce.

Well the dressing tasted like crap, but I thought the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl wouldn’t be a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl without the zest, so I added it.

To my surprise, mixing it with the Border Bowl made it taste pretty good.

I guess it’s kind of like how fertilizer smells and tastes like crap, but when added to a flower garden, it makes the garden look beautiful.

You might be wondering how this is possible. Well let’s just chalk it up as one of those mysteries that may never get solved because most people don’t care, like whether or not Creed was a Christian rock band.

Despite sacrificing a Zesty Chicken Border Bowl, I still see the DAMN commercial.

It’s a good thing the Zesty Chicken Border Bowl is tasty, because it looks like I’m going to have to eat a few more to please the Television Advertising Gods.

Item: Taco Bell Zesty Chicken Border Bowl
Purchase Price: $3.79
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: A meal in a bowl. Border Bowl tastes good with dressing.
Cons: Damn annoying commercial. Dressing tastes like crap without Border Bowl. Didn’t please Television Advertising Gods.