Today is March 31st, 2014. Four days ago, Taco Bell gave the world new hope by releasing its new breakfast menu. While many of these items have been seen in various test markets, they are now finally widely available. And if you only looked at Instagram, you would think it was the second coming of Kanye West. With the help of my roommates and girlfriend, I went ahead and ordered everything off the breakfast menu.
Waffle Taco
This is the flagship item for Taco Bell's breakfast. It can be seen on all the posters and advertisements. Not to mention it is completely running train on Instagram. Essentially you have a square waffle folded with eggs, cheese, and your choice of bacon or sausage. They even give you a container of "maple syrup" to put on top since it is, after all, a waffle. I expected this to be very middle of the road but it turned out to be so much worse. The sausage, eggs, and cheese are standard fast food fare and are fine. Then they put it on the most disgusting waffle I have ever had the misfortune of eating. It had the faintest hint of vanilla and has the texture of bread that has been microwaved 4 times. It was dense and chewy in all of the wrong kind of ways. Not to meniton you can literally squeeze the grease out of the waffle. It's shockingly bad; there is no way in hell I could eat 18 of these.
AM Crunch Wrap
Crunch Wrap Supreme is far and away my favorite item at Taco Bell. It has everything - it's gooey, crunchy, cheesy, salty, and all wrapped into one beautiful hexagon of tortilla. The AM Crunch Wrap comes in three forms, all have eggs, cheese, sauce and hash browns but you are given your choice of bacon, sausage, or steak. None of these even come close to the glory that is a Crunch Wrap Supreme. First thing you notice is how much smaller than the traditional Crunch Wrap Supreme it is; it's roughly half as big. Then you taste it and realize how truly disappointing it is. The major flaw is that the hash browns add no crunch. They are soggy and just taking up space in the tortilla. The eggs and cheese get lost in the other flavors surrounding the meat. That being said, the steak was surprisingly tasty, it had nice Taco Bell seasonings and paired well with the sauce. If I was forced to get something off the breakfast menu again, I think it would be the steak AM Crunch Wrap. Please note, I did say if I was forced. The soggy potato really prevents this from being something very solid.
Cinnabon Delights
These have been around for a minute. They are a collabo with Cinnabon and are deep fried cinnamon sugar balls filled with icing. Far and away1,these are the tastiest things on the entire breakfast menu. The fried dough is light and fluffy. The cinnamon and sugar is the right balance where it isn't overly spiced nor too sweet. And then there is the gooey cream cheese icing inside that is just insanity. It's the perfect balance of sweet and tart. And while these are my favorite item on the menu, it's hard to get this as a breakfast, it just reads too much like a dessert. But if you're into sweet items for breakfast, do not shy away from these. That is, unless you're not looking to gain infinite weight.
Sausage Flatbread Melt
This was the one item I was surprised by. Going into this review, I pretty much knew what everything was but I was pretty clueless on this one. It's a sausage patty topped with cheese and wrapped in a flatbread. And it pretty much tastes exactly like that. Tastes like a generic fast food sausage patty wrapped in a pita - cheese gets completely lost in the sausage flavor. Nothing special but not bad at all. For only a dollar, you could do a lot worse than this.
Breakfast Burrito
Breakfast burrito is pretty much what you expect. Flour tortilla wrapped around eggs, cheese, and your choice of steak, bacon, or sausage. This was the only item on the entire menu where I tasted egg and cheese. It almost made this thing inedible. The bacon is gross bacon bit-esque little slivers thrown throughout. The eggs and cheese are obviously standard powdered eggs and American cheese. I had a really hard time enjoying this mostly cause of my aversion to powdered eggs. But even if you love powdered eggs (I don't know who you are), the burrito is very bland. I think throwing the burrito on the press to crust it up like a Loaded Griller would have helped but probably still couldn't save this weak breakfast item.
AM Grilled Taco
The grilled taco is a tortilla folded over itself, with cheese, eggs, and your choice of sausage or bacon. The sausage comes in pellet form and tastes exactly like sausage pellets. I'm not sure why they are calling this a grilled taco, it reads to me more like a breakfast quesadilla. It tastes overwhelmingly of grilled tortilla and sausage. You don't even notice the cheese and the eggs. For a dollar you could do a lot worse but man is this thing boring.
Hash Brown Patty
Same thing you get at every fast food chain. Mine came out limp, soggy, and greasier than Irving Rosenfeld. Cannot recommend this, even for a dollar.
Overall, I just don't understand what Taco Bell was thinking. You have all of these ingredients laying around: beans, taco meat, sour cream, "fresh" tomatoes, limp lettuce, and the list goes on and none of these were used. How can you have a proper Taco Bell breakfast and not use any of their signature meat? None of these items feel remotely like a Taco Bell item and it's a massive bummer. The Taco Bell president recently did an AMA on Reddit and simply said America wasn't ready. I assure you, we're ready, and we want it now.
I wanted to love this but I really just can't. It's with a heavy heart I have to say, Taco Bell you really disappointed me. The vast majority of the items just don't taste good. I'm hoping with time they will come up with something but right now I would pass on pretty much every single item. There is a silver lining though, at least everything can be doused in their tasty hot sauce packets and you can get a Baja Blast with breakfast.
- It was recently pointed out to me that I use the expression far and away a fair amount. I've been trying to limit my usage but sometimes far and away is just perfect. ↩
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