Taco Bell's EVEN NEWER Crunchwrap Sliders!

I hope you like semi-spicy, junk-food-laden Hot Pockets variations with contents that resemble vomit!

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo__X

Even when Taco Bell isn't that great, it's still fairly enjoyable. Granted, the products have a tendency to run together due to their textural and mouthfeel similarities - if you told me to describe the difference between a Sriracha Quesarito and a Daredevil Loaded Griller (any of those motherfuckers), I don't think I could - but who cares if everything on the menu is fairly indistinguishable? What matters is that the Bell, even at their lowest level, is still affordable, filling and gustatorily satisfying enough to warrant indiscriminate nom after indiscriminate nom. Their almost-monthly product variations may not be getting any points for originality, but they score plenty of points when it comes to consistency. 

When I first started working on this article, I totally forgot that I had already covered the first wave of Crunchwrap Sliders last year. As such, I assumed that I was ordering four all-new products, but in reality, just two of the Sliders you can pick up at the Bell in early 2016 are original items. So if you are wondering about the quality of the two returning offerings - which are modeled after breastaurant sampler menu favorites, thematically - do yourself a favor and click this link right ' chere.

The Sliders themselves are pretty interesting little menu offerings. They aren't quite burritos, but you can't really call them tostados, either. Instead, they remain in this weird fast food interphase, as if a quesadilla and an enchilada were locked inside the teleportation machine from The Fly. That they come in paper pouches more befitting bread sticks just adds to their offbeat uniqueness. 

Aesthetically, they ain't much to look at. They are just slightly toasted tortillas wrapped up in a pseudo-pentagon shape, with a whole bunch of weird shit sealed inside them. They are fairly bulky, though, and their misshapen forms - you ever try to wrap up chunks of chicken and Frito's without the end outcome looking bumpy? - give the Sliders a certain eccentric charm. 

As far as our new dining options are concerned, we've got two new items to chew on. First, let's take a gander at the Sriracha Chicken Crunchwrap Slider, why don't we?

You know, it is a good thing these products are wrapped up tight, because if anyone saw the internalized contents displayed all open-face-like, dry heaving would probably ensue. Make no mistake, this stuff is uglier than homemade soap; the blend of puréed chicken, corn chip fragments and neon orange sauce looks less like something you would eat than something someone has already digested and barfed right back up.

Alas, if you can overlook the fact the product looks like ginger sauce-soaked cat food dumped inside a tortilla, you'll discover a fairly enjoyable fast food offering that is actually quite a bit spicier than most Taco Bell selections. The chicken is a little watery and the Fritos really don't add much at all to the formula, but the sweet chili flavor definitely makes everything come together. It is an odd mishmash of  textures and shapes, to be sure, but all in all, it is not a bad little novelty burrito. 

So there is already a Beefy Cheesy Nacho Slider out there, but the SPICY BEEFY NACHO CRUNCHWRAP SLIDER ups the ante by, uh, making it spicy? Yes, yes it does, indeed. And not unlike its Sriracha Chicken cousin, this thing looks all sorts of disgusting inside the tortilla. Shit, I'm half-tempted to post an up close photo of an open sore or my latest bowel movement; I highly doubt anyone would be able to distinguish them from the utter grossness of what the foodstuff actually resembles. 

Fortunately, although the product may look like diarrhea spray squirted all over a soft taco shell, the product itself is pretty yummy. This is definitely one of the spiciest Taco Bell products to come out in a long time, with the molten-cheese-soaked beef and Fritos chunks doused in a savory, smoky, Jalapeño ranch dressing that I am pretty sure the company has never trotted out before. Sure, it is no Lava Sauce, but it definitely does the trick. Overall, this thing may be nothing more than just a slight tweaking of a pre-existing product, but hey; at least it is one hell of a re-tweaking, no? 

OK, so these newfangled Crunchwrap Sliders aren't exactly going to set the fast food world on fire. Yes, they are rather formulaic and hardly adventurous remixes, but when the end product is so sinfully delicious, who cares? Simply put, the two newest Sliders - despite looking like rolled up barf - are really, really tasty, and at just one dollar a pop, you can scarf down enough of them to give you gastrointestinal regret for less than it costs to buy a decent spiral-bound notebook. It's classic Bell, through and through; familiar, affordable, aesthetically revolting, probably unhealthy as hell and unquestionably delicious. 

When it comes to drive-thru dining, looks and originality are both vastly overrated. While other fast food giants try to church up their line-up with pretentious, overpriced "premium" offerings, the Bell continues to excel in economical, on-the-go nomming, with these latest Sliders demonstrative of the franchise's formulaic greatness. They may not be the prettiest or most creative foodstuffs out there, but ultimately? I reckon I'll vouch for such satisfying, cost-effective sameness over pricey, ostentatious "innovation" any day of the week.

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You Can Now Eat an Atlanta Falcons Sub at Publix.

Will the limited-time-only peach-flavored chicken sandwich make you want to 'rise up' or throw up?

By: Jimbo X

JimboXAmerican@gmail.com

@Jimbo__X

Although I am -- and have been -- an Oakland/Los Angeles/San Antonio(?) Raiders fan my entire life, my de facto "B-team" so to speak has always been the Atlanta Falcons. This is reasonable enough, I suppose, considering the fact that I've spent nearly three decades of my existence residing within the boundaries of the Peach State.

Atlanta Falcons fans are a peculiar breed, to be sure. In a city overrun with transplants, the Falcons are more or less viewed as nothing more than a way for all the neo-carpetbaggers to see their favorite teams from up north and out west live and in living color. Of course, there are indeed homegrown Falcons fans, but they are few and far between, and really, those people are much more inclined to be rabid Georgia Bulldogs fans, or a fan of one of the neighboring SEC squads. There seems to be this weird Boca Juniors/River Plate, Guadalara Chivas/America rivalry going on between UGA and all of Atlanta's teams (college or pro) in which the Southern metropolis (and its corresponding NFL franchise) embodies modern excess and "the selling out" of regional identity, while the quaint little college football powerhouse up in Athens embodies the true spirit of the proletariat, working class Southern man. 

So, who is the true Atlanta Falcons fan? Well, the true Atlanta Falcons fan is usually in his forties or fifties (although there are quite a few hardcore fans in their 20s. If you've ever seen Snow in tha Bluff, you'll know EXACTLY the types I'm talking about. By and large, he has white hair (or a receding hairline), and a beer belly, even though he's otherwise skinny. He either lives in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city proper (Castleberry, East Lake Meadows or, god help your mortal soul, Vine City or English Avenue) or one of the many indistinguishable, beaten down 'burbs just outside the city limits (places with names like Rockdale, Douglasville and Fayetteville.) He usually hates his job, he hates himself and he's behind on child support payments. If he doesn't have a truck, he used to, and he prefers getting his hair cut at this one no-name barber shop that he doesn't mind driving or MARTA-ing 20 miles out of his way to visit. And even then, he complains about the slow service when he gets there. 

The actual Atlanta Falcons fan is a weird goulash of desperate blue collar proletariat and unabashed Southern bigot, no matter what color he is. As much as he hates the racial other, he hates all of them damn neo-carpetbaggers even more. He especially hates anybody from New Orleans, if not because they are de facto representatives of the Saints, then because they still get federal incentives they don't qualify for and first dibs at public housing (which is fewer and further in between these days.) 

These are the kinds of people who still wear Michael Vick black and red jerseys in public and challenge people to fist fights at sports bars if they say anything bad about career drunk driver Jamal Anderson. That is, if they feel like walking that far. Or leaving the house. Which they don't, for the most part. 

But more than anything, this rare, rare bird of the Piedmont variety loves to eat grocery store deli product. Go ahead, find yourself a Falcons fan, and they'll talk your ear off about why Kroger's fried chicken is better than Wal-Mart's (it's the fried okra, it's always the fried okra) and why Target, for lack of a better word, sucks the big one (once again, it probably has something to do with the substandard fried okra.) 

That's why I wasn't surprised one iota when I waltzed into the local Publix and saw this thing sticking on the electronic sliding glass door entrance...

An NFL-flavored sandwich, you don't say? Clearly, this idea has some legs to it. As it turns out, Publix actually offers three more NFL-branded sammiches for the three Florida pro-football teams, which -- not unlike their play this season -- I can assume probably suck. 

It's a weird combination of ingredients, to be sure, but then again, this is the South, where we actually fuckin' sell and buy fried brownies. In public. And nobody says anything about it. Really, eating a sub smothered in peach jam and bacon is probably one of our saner local delicacies, now that I think about it a bit. 

For those of you doubting the sincerity of such an invention, well, there's the big, bold, barcoded truth that it ain't a fabrication. I guess you could call this thing a footlong, although I'm not quite sure how geometrically accurate that wording actually is. I mean, it's probably closer to 10 inches, and the meat itself tends to stop at the 8.5 inch marker. The 9 inch, if you are lucky and the sandwich artisan is feeling awfully generous that afternoon.

So, what all do you get with this NFC South-themed sub? Well, you get a pretty decent white roll, but as far as advertised ingredients, that's all I received. You know how uptop, the sign says you get maple-flavored chicken tenders? Well, the dude at my local store just grabbed a handful of fried chicken pieces from the rotisserie pit, crumbled them up and said "eh, good enough." This shit was about as maple-flavored as a Tijuana tostada, which, in case you weren't aware, isn't very maple-flavored at all. 

While my deli man completely deviated from the promotional formula, I reckon his ghetto-concoction was way better than anything that could have been mass produced, anyway. His idea of srirachi mayonnaise was literally slathering mayonnaise on the bun and then squirting some hot sauce on top of the white goop. And he used some damn peach preservative all right -- with a bottle of store-branded peach jam. 

Even the bacon was pure-D trailer park home cooking. The dude took a handful of that instant pork junk, slammed the plastic microwave door shut and nuked the shit for all of a minute and a half before pulling out a sizzling plate of bacon with salty white foam bubbling out of it like someone had just thrown the bacon Necronomicon into a furnace or something. As someone who grew up poor and fat in the American South, I can assure you this is just about the most authentic regional cuisine you're bound to find anywhere. 

Sure, the Falcons sub was a bit on the gross side, but there is no denying that it wasn't filling. It was nearly impossible to hold with one hand, and moving the sandwich just one centimeter out of whack caused three or four chicken tenders to fall out and/or a weird amalgam of mayonnaise, chili sauce and preservative-soaked peach jam to drip all over the floor. In short, it was the perfect foodstuff to symbolize the team and its oft-misunderstood fan base -- a big, bulky, unorthodox and salty tribute to the last of a dying breed of regional roustabouts and lifelong gentrification victims. 

If they ain't selling overpriced simulacrums of this limited-time-only delicacy when that newfangled Mercedes-Benz Stadium opens in 2017, I for one, will be pissed a plenty.

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Taco Bell’s all-new Sriracha Quesarito!

They’re pretty much the exact same products that have already been released, only this time, they are covered in a slimy coat of Asian chili sauce. So, does that addendum alone make the offerings worthy of your hard-earned dinero? 

Taco Bell, we need to talk.

My love for your hearty, affordable and probably-safe-for-human-consumption foodstuffs has nourished both my stomach and my soul over the last two and a half decades. You were there with me on my first date in high school and you kept me awake during final exams throughout my university years. I’m not 100 percent sure here, but I think my first word may have even been “enchirito.”

Over the years, I’ve covered almost every single weird-ass product you’ve released, from waffle tacos to nasty ass dollar menu burritos stuffed with chili and crumbled up French fries. Ever since the rousing success of the Doritos Locos Tacos -- in essence, the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” culture-unifying moment of my generation -- you’ve taken it upon yourself to mass market at least one high-concept fusion product every month. Sometimes, the results are a success, and other times, they are not. To be frank, I’m worried about you. It seems like you are no longer releasing menu items to sate the stomach of a starving, huddled America, but merely to pique the curiosity of the Buzzfeed crowd. Your drunken quest for publicity has driven you to that point of no return, effectively turning you into the Lindsay Lohan of the fast food industry -- only instead of showing your auburn-hued muff to TMZ, you’re test marketing Cap’n Crunch doughnut balls that not even the highest of the highest junior college kids could possibly find palatable.

Consider this an intervention, Bell. And also, a review of your all-new Sriracha Quesarito products, too.

A while back, Taco Bell decided to pull the fast food dick move of all fast food dick moves and actually manufacture and sell something called a “quesarito.” For those not in the know, the “quesarito” is the name of a mythical “off the menu” offering at number one competitor Chipotle’s chain of restaurants. It’s a move just as brazen as if Burger King were to start advertising a “McGangbang” sandwich on billboards and audaciously calling it a “McGangbang” sandwich to boot.

The half quesadilla, half burrito item -- which came in chicken, steak and shredded beef permutations -- was OK. Nothing too memorable, but nothing utterly regrettable either. Well, Taco Bell has decided to re-release a Criterion version of the products, only this time, there’s a new variable -- the inclusion of a massive dollop of Sriracha Sauce.

Now, to be fair, your overall enjoyment of this product really hinges on whether or not you consider the beloved sauce delectable or foul-tasting. Personally, I’m on the fence -- I enjoy it sometimes, but I most definitely would not consider it the type of fix-in that gels well with most varieties of food. Clearly, I don’t plan on dunking a Cadbury Screme Egg in a heaping bowl, nor do I plan on complementing it with a nice side of Yummy Mummy. It makes the new quesaritos polarizing by default, and I can hurry up and summarize it for you real quick here: if you like Sriracha Sauce, you might like these burrito abominations, and if not, it’s a pretty good bet you’re not going to like these things one iota.

Before we even get into the gustatory quality of the items, two things jumped out at me. First, how about that awesome multi-item foil wrapper, which literally lists about a half dozen products on it? For a company that makes billions a year, you kind of figured the Bell would have produced something a little bit ritzier for the new items. I mean, shit, they even made little specialized cardboard sleeve-thingies for their DLTS -- you know they have the budgeting for that kind of shit.

The big surprise, though, is when you actually open the products up. On the advertisements, the quesaritos come in what appears to be some kind of crimson red armband, but on my order at least, no such dressing was included. That really put a damper on my parade, because I sort of expected the items to be like the Doritos Locos Tacos, where instead of the gimmick flavor being on the inside, it’s actually built into the exterior shell. Alas, there is no such luck with the Sriracha Sauce Quesaritos, for they look about as plain Jane as, uh, whoever the original plain Jane was, I guess.

However, if variety is a requirement for you to get your drive-thru nom on, the new items do not disappoint. Not content with just ONE variation of Sriracha Quesarito, the Bell actually gives us THREE different products to chew on … both literally, and figuratively. But, yeah, mostly the part about being literally.

First up, we have the shredded chicken permutation. There’s really not too much to talk about here (and really, the other two products, to be blunt), because despite the presence of poultry chunks, cheese, rice and what appears to be sour cream, the only thing you can really taste is the chili sauce. It’s not a bad flavor, overall, just an extremely overpowering one that makes literally everything else in the tortilla completely flavorless. I mean, you get the texture of the chicken and rice, but the Sriracha sauce completely dominates your taste buds, like it was the color purple beating up all the other colors. If you like chicken … well, it really doesn’t matter, I guess, because with this product, you sure as hell can’t taste it.

With the steak Sriracha Quesarito, the actual interior contents are a little bit more distinguishable. As in, you can actually taste a little bit of the steak bits every now and then, but still, the chili sauce conquers all. The product is noticeably heavier than the other two offerings, which explains why it costs a couple of cents extra. Strangely enough, it also seemed to have sort of a lime-juicy tincture that the other two offerings did not. All in all, it’s an OK eat, but nothing to really drive out of your way for.

The third and final iteration is your standard just-add-hot-water shredded beef selection, and weirdly enough, this just so happens to be the yummiest of the trifecta. I can’t explain the fast food voodoo in action with this one, but the beef and chili sauce don’t seem to completely merge into a singularity of Sriracha-ness like with the other two products. Future generations, I can only imagine, will use that analogy to replace the old standard about oil and water not mixing. Since you get a nice, proportional taste and texture, it really does provide a pleasing mouthfeel experience, and of the three, this is the one I would advocate for if you had to make a split-second decision between the triumvirate.

As I was saying earlier, the foods are decent, but nothing to write home about, either. Then again, if for some reason you are actually writing letters to people nowadays, odds are, it wouldn’t be about something so banal as Taco Bell produce, but who am I to make assumptions?

I hate to say it, but I think this is a warning sign that Taco Bell may have hit their creative apex. I mean, the writing has been on the wall for quite awhile, but a product this bland and formulaic definitely gives fast foodies reason to be concerned. My suggestion for the company (actually, a subsidiary of Yum! Foods, but we don’t have to get into the technicalities) is to give it a break for awhile. Instead of cranking out the next generation of Fritos-flavored Doritos Loco Tacos burritos, how about going back to the drawing board and coming up with something truly innovative? I mean, shit, you really haven’t done much with the taco salad over the last 30 years, and it’s not like there’s a sizable subculture out there of folks clamoring for the return of the old “three olive” enchirito or anything. Hell, it might even be high-time to give the Bell Beefer another go at it. Heck, if BK can re-release the motherfucking Yumbo, I reckon these United States are probably ready for a Taco Bell hamburger.

Regardless, you are on a slippery slope, Bell. Today, it’s Sriracha Quesaritos and Starburst flavored freeze drinks, but tomorrow? You may have fallen so low as to have to offer edible coffee cups for people to give a shit about you.

Is that really what you want, amigos?

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