Tag: Taco Bell

For the most part, I like fries about as much as any other typical fast food fan probably does. But, you know, even I have to begrudgingly admit that maybe it’s time to take a break from them and turn that fryer off for a few months.

Of course, just as I think that those beautiful bastards at Taco Bell’s research and development labs go and craft this new “Mexico on the Hudson” flavor for all the fry-eaters of the world to not only enjoy, but reflect on.

With the hard-charging heat of New York’s Buffalo sauce spilling forth on the stampeding herd of Taco Bell’s famous fries — and its companion burrito, natch — it’s such a tangy stroke of corporate genius you have to wonder why it hasn’t happened before, causing a culture clash that is far more related, like distant cousins, than previously thought.

Outright, the clear-cut “winner winner, Buffalo chicken dinner” is the fantastic Buffalo Chicken Nacho Fries. It comes with a nice portion of shredded chicken and the usual accouterments, such as pico de gallo, reduced fat sour cream, and nacho cheese sauce over Taco Bell’s seasoned fries. But it’s the liberal dowsing of Buffalo sauce that gives the platter a mostly loving kick in the metaphorical junk.

It was definitely a bit of culinary violence that the Bell needed, especially before its fries became a little too staid for their own good —- something I’m sure we all can agree on. That being said, the next time I order these, I’d love to add a squirt or two of the Spicy Ranch, perhaps for a bit of heated resistance.

With that said, the sauce isn’t as powerful in the Buffalo Chicken Nacho Fries Burrito, but that’s not to say it’s entirely bad either. It’s just…different.

While it could’ve been a fluke in my home Bell’s kitchen, my burrito, loaded with the same items as the fries but wrapped in a loose tortilla, must have had far less of the Buffalo sauce because it wasn’t as “in your face” as the fries.

It still works well though, with the scant Buffalo sauce instead enhancing the burrito and its taste instead of utterly dominating it. I can understand if people would disagree with me about this, but, especially after the stomach-enflaming fires of the fries, that was a somewhat cooling snack, a coda on the whole Buffalo sauce phenomenon.

Who knew it would be Taco Bell, of all places, to deliver it.

Purchased Price: $2.99 each
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Buffalo Chicken Nacho Fries – 490 calories, 32 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 1080 milligrams of sodium, 40 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 12 grams of protein. Buffalo Chicken Nacho Fries Burrito – 510 calories, 26 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 1190 milligrams of sodium, 53 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 4 grams of sugar, and 16 grams of protein.

The Taco Bell that’s closest to my house is a very special one: it always has the special test items that only very special people in very special cities get to taste, well before the less-special general public even hears about them. This month’s taste treat is the ultimately forbidding Taco Bell Forbidden Melt Taco.

It features an edible taco holder made from the storm clouds of a thousand children’s tears — actually, it’s just a fried blue corn tortilla shell. At first glance, it looks badly burnt and overcooked, but images can be deceiving. This taco shell, while nowhere near the genius of the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa, still makes a delicious enough mark on the ever-changing and always evolving Taco Bell menu.

But, to this hungry Chicano, what truly makes the Forbidden Melt even better is the titular “melted” part inside the taco shell. Beyond the zesty meat, cool reduced-fat sour cream, iceberg lettuce, and shards of cheese is what has to be a good ladle’s worth of Taco Bell’s patented nacho cheese, poured along the edible fault-line, definitely making it even more verboten.

The main problem — and this, sadly, is usually an issue with many Taco Bell products — is that while the molten cheese is a bright yellow cream dream come true, after a few minutes of sitting in the bag, the belly of this blue corn beast swells to a mostly soggy mess. The cheese sauce completely seeps through the specially-made taco shell.

The one tip I have to defeat this meat-loosening bulge? Take some time, try to relax, and enjoy the Taco Bell Forbidden Melt Taco fresh out of the fryer, while the outside is still a crispy lark and the inside a gooey mess. Instead of going through the drive-thru, how about setting up in the dining area, quietly learning to love this blue corn-based forbidden fruit Taco Bell menu item.

Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Unavailable.

Like the bright shimmer of hidden gold from the lost city of El Dorado, Taco Bell’s newest menu item is a shining beacon of simple ingenuity filtered through pure borderland knowhow. The Toasted Cheddar Chalupa is a revelation of fried bread and cheese, combined the way Quetzalcoatl intended.

When unwrapped from its thin paper sheath, the grease stains catching the light allows the chalupa shell to portray a certain kind of inalienable beauty. Taco Bell has turned this thick carb-heavy casing into a surprising work of edible art that feels right at home in my quivering hands.

The basis of the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa is the chalupa shell itself: an amazing feat of Tex-Mex handcraftiness. It’s a fried centerpiece that, now with the yellow bits of cheddar cheese clinging for additional flavor, is a treasured piece of corporate frybread that one could eat all day if they ever decided to stop living by the laws of common decency.

Seriously, if Taco Bell were to ever offer these chalupa shells by themselves, I would order a slick dozen fresh from the fryer, no problem. Call it sacrilege if you must, but I actually prefer them to the lauded Doritos Locos taco shells.

The typical Taco Bell fillings are all present and accounted for — temperate ground beef, cool lettuce, chopped tomatoes, stringy cheese, and reduced fat sour cream. They all seem to be spiritually created simply to mate graphically with this chalupa shell.

It was still crunchy even after an hour or two of sitting by itself on my dining room table. Even the best tacos the Bell has to offer can’t live up to that scrutiny.

More of this please, Taco Bell.

Purchased Price: $2.49
Size: N/A
Rating: 10 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 450 calories, 30 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 550 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 16 grams of protein.