Taco Bell is currently making the same mistake that gets you in trouble playing Risk: dividing your army. Taco Bell undoubtedly owns the late-night fast-food crowd, and it doesn't seem to be hurting at lunch or dinner, either. But thrusting its big burrito into the already crowded breakfast scene is only a good idea if Taco Bell can produce morning eatables that offer customers something different, good and more affordable than they can get at Burger King, McDonald's or Subway.
Well, Taco Bell got the affordable part right, but not so much sexy with the rest. I went, I ordered, I ate...and afterward, I had to rinse out my eat-hole with a glass of stale Evan Williams to get the taste out and dull the pain of my shattered expectations. Here's a photo tour of Taco Bell's new breakfast items. No amount of Fire sauce could make me order any of this again.
Taco Bell's Cinnamon DelightsTeaming with Cinnabon, the sweet darling of mall shoppers, Taco Bell has created frosting-filled cinnamon bites that should be delicious -- but my order consisted of four small, chewy dough balls that tasted like corn tortilla grease with a snippet of greasy icing in the middle. The minute and a half I spent trying to choke one down is time I'll never get back.
Taco Bell's Sausage and Egg Wrap This scrambled egg, cheese and sausage wrap reminded me a lot of Internet dating: It looked so huge and tasty in the pictures, then in real life turned out to be the equivalent of the jobless, car-less guy who lives in his babymama's spare room and lost his hair and his charm sometime around 2001. The wrap was tiny and rather dry, the sausage was rubbery and the cheese was sparse. At least the eggs were probably real....I think.... Taco Bell's Sausage BurritoYou really have to put your talents to the test to fuck up a breakfast burrito, and apparently Taco Bell has massive amounts of talent. Dryer than a bean fart, with scanty amounts of filling -- including miniature lumps of protein that were probably sausage -- for just $.99. McDonald's at least manages to include some moisture in its version.
Taco Bell's Steak and Egg BurritoWe all remember the fruckus over Taco Bell beef being almost all meat but not quite. I'm not sure where its steak fits on the "actual meat -- really!" scale, but I'm comfortable staying in the dark on that, especially after trying this burrito. If steak and eggs are supposed to be prohibitively sloppy and salty enough to burn the roof of your mouth even though they're cold, then Taco Bell is doing a fine job with this.
Taco Bell's Egg and Bean BurritoOkay, so I complained about the breakfast burritos being dry, but this sopping monstrosity had enough humidity to keep a soybean field green for months. I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to cram scrambled eggs into a Taco Bell bean burrito (the bean filling's texture and consistency were questionable even before the eggs were added), but they should be pistol-whipped senseless with a Taco Bell sour cream gun for unleashing this horrendous swamp creation on the people of Earth.
Taco Bell's Grande Skillet BurritoI swear to Jesus that you probably won't find a skillet anywhere in Taco Bell that produced this burrito -- or any other Taco Bell item, for that matter. And if adding a hefty amount of fried Mexi-potatoes makes this burrito "grande," then me relaxing in a saltwater bath makes me a friggin' ham. It was dehydratingly arid, with those same dark, mysterious "sausage" nuggets strewn between layers of potato.
After a bite of my last Taco Bell breakfast item, I decided that this stuff is definitely dieter-friendly -- mostly because after this meal, I didn't want to eat anything again for at least 24 hours.
