The New Taco Bell Boss Wraps ... REVIEWED!

Are you man enough to chow down on two of the biggest honkin' burritos ever mass-manufactured by a fast food company? NO YOU ARE NOT. Maybe.

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@Jimbo__X

LIKE A BOSS. I don't even know what that means, nor do I even know where the phrase originates from, to be honest. Sure, I could hit up the Urban Dictionary, but you know what? After putting down two of the largest Taco Bell products released in recent memory, I don't feel like doing shit. Except not moving and letting the cheese coagulate in my arteries. 

Indeed, it's been quite some time since I last did a review of Taco Bell produce. Is it just me, or does the Bell seem to be cutting back on the sheer volume of novelty foodstuffs being churned out? That, and it seems like they are pushing these experimental items for a longer duration of time - I swear, they were hawking those damn "Daredevil" Loaded Grillers that look and taste nearly identical for at least three months. 

Which brings us to the newfangled Boss Wraps. I suppose the best way to describe them would be like crunch wraps, except WAY bigger and with way more stuff jammed inside 'em. As in, a whole dadgum hard shell tortilla, just hanging out inside the flour tortilla exterior shell like some sort of Tex-Mex stowaway. 

As you can see from the above photo, these things are big and bulky. With the naked eye, you can pick up all of the chunky bulges of steak and if you have a really keen eye for fast food Mexican, you might even be able to spot the subterranean sour cream pool on the right-hand wrap.

These being grilled steak offerings, of course, they are a bit pricier than the average Taco Bell selection. The two permutations of Boss Wrap cost five smackers plus taxes, but considering their overall girth - and the high quotient of interior stuffings - that's a fairly reasonable price. And as a man who can eat a LOT of Taco Bell, let me be the first to tell you - two of these sumbitches in one sitting are MORE than enough to fill you up.

As for your options, you've got two paths to choose from. On one end, you've got the Fully Loaded Boss Wrap, which is one of the few Taco Bell items to include a guacamole as a primary ingredient. The other is the Steak and Potato Boss Wrap, which contains ... well, if you can't figure this one out, I'd reckon that's an automatic drug test. 

Let's begin with the Fully Loaded variation, shall we? As the name suggests, it has quite a bit of material wedged inside it, including:

• Guac (as stated before, a real rarity for the franchise)
• Sour cream
• Three cheese Mexican blend
• Diced tomatoes (they say it's pico, but it's not really pico)
• Lettuce (I think it's an Iceberg double blend) 
• A nice chipotle sauce (which doesn't really show up in the photo)
• Steak (a shocker, I know)
• A motherfucking hard shell tortilla (sorry, I have a hard time getting over that)

It actually took me way longer than it should have to figure out the "proper" way to eat this thing. You see, you don't nibble on it longways like a crunch wrap, you have to literally roll this bastard up like a newspaper and chew on it as if you were eating a XXL burrito. Considering the size of this beast, that's not exactly the most intuitive feeling in the world; and yes, you know shit starts flowing out of it as soon as you take the first bite. That said, it was nonetheless a yummy product, with the three sauces - guac, sour cream and proprietary chipotle - all coalescing into a remarkable confluence of flavors (chuacour cream, I nicknamed it.) As for the rest of the mix? The steak is adequately juicy and chewy, but it's most certainly not the high-quality fajita beef you'd get at a "real" Mexican eatery. The cheeses kind of tasted different (but not really) and - pardon the redundancy - fuck having that hard shell tortilla in there for no reason. 

And here's the Fully Loaded Boss Wrap's running mate, the Steak and Potato Boss Wrap. Gustatorily, this one actually tastes quite a bit different from its cohort, and for good reason: it, uh, has different stuff in it, I guess. As far as the ingredients go, here is a quick rundown:

• Sour cream
• Three cheese Mexican blend
• Little tater tot thingies
• Pieces of bacon (which are probably just pieces of Bacon Bits they keep in the back)
• Steak 
• A fuckin' great ranch chipotle sauce I could probably drink as a standalone beverage (more on that later)
• Once again, an utterly needless hard shell tortilla

Now this one, I really liked. Granted, it is a bit of a pell-mell assortment of ingredients, and yes, at first sight, it looks more like the contents of a slop bucket poured inside a tortilla than something you would actually want to eat, but believe it or not, all of it somehow comes together as a particularly zesty fast food offering. There is a nice mouth-feel to the product, with the crispy tots, crunchy pork bits and chewy steak pieces providing a nice confluence of tastes and textures. Here, the hard shell tortilla actually makes some degree of sense, and it completes the other materials quite well. However, the thing really putting this variation over the top has to be the stellar chipotle ranch sauce, which is arguably the best semi-liquid additive Taco Bell has ever produced - yes, even better than the much-ballyhooed Volcano Sauce. All in all, this is just a top-notch, super-filling offering - although, in my humblest o' opinions, the thing would have been even better with shredded chicken instead of shredded steak. Oh well - guess we will just have to wait for the inevitable redux in six months' time, no?

So there you have it, folks. The Boss Wraps are pretty solid, if not a tad overpriced, menu additions to the venerated Taco Bell line-up, that while hardly creative, are at least fairly tasty and filling. If you can only afford one, I'd definitely vouch for the Steak and Potato mix, if only for that superb ranch dressing filling (no hard feelings against the guacamole loaded one, but the hard shell tortilla just ain't gelling there at all.) It's not the best Taco Bell product to come along this year, but it is certainly above-grade; let's just hope its "success" doesn't goad the Bell into hiking up prices for future limited-time-only offerings ... or wedging more hard shell tortillas inside things that don't need them whatsoever.

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Taco Bell's All New TACO BISCUITS!

Surely, it has to be a better menu item than the waffle taco, right?

It's been a while since I last wrote about Taco Bell. Alas, that's what happens when the best you can give the general public are quesadillas masquerading as nachos ... come on guys, we all know we're having the wool pulled over our eyes on that one. 

Of course, there are a few new additions to the Taco Bell breakfast menu, and I recently woke up before noon for a change to try a few of them. Anchoring the new wave of morning-time products is the "Taco Biscuit," which is ... well, pretty much exactly what it sounds like, I guess. The Bell is offering a pretty lengthy set of permutations of the item; you can get one with egg and cheese, sausage and egg, and sausage and cheese only, or you can spring another dollar and get the two marquee variations, the egg, cheese AND bacon biscuit taco and the egg, cheese AND sausage biscuit taco. Obviously, if we're going to cover these products in-depth, we have to try the deluxe edition; I know the readers here at IIIA expect absolutely nothing less in terms of semi-sincere fast food journalism. And as an added bonus (as opposed to one of those rare subtracted bonuses), I even plunked down some change for a newer-ish Crunchwrap product, which is we all know by now, is among the greatest delicacies ever presented by a national food chain. And I am being 100 percent honest about that, I think. 

So first up, we've got our sausage, egg and cheese taco biscuit. In case you were wondering, we are indeed working with a legitimate flour biscuit base here, although it may appear as if the animal byproduct contents are housed inside a chalupa tortilla. 

I am not really sure how the product fares compared to your standard Egg McMuffin, since I haven't really tried a fast food biscuit in like, 10 or so years. I don't know if it is my mind working against me or the product itself is that starchy, but I really had a bit of difficulty swallowing the dough. It was super duper salty, which is something you really don't expect from a Taco Bell product. After a few chews, I was able to gulp it down sans incident, but just to be on the safe side? If you plan on eating one of these things, I HIGHLY suggest having a beverage nearby. 

The other taco biscuit, strangely enough, did not look anything like its menu stablemate. Here, the cheese seemed to almost seal the taco biscuit shut like an envelope, with the yellowy-egg contents flowing from the sides of the item like a set of yolky jug handles.

Strangely enough, the bacon, egg and cheese taco biscuit was something of a misnomer, since the contents therein were actually much closer to being bacon bits than legitimate bacon strips. Even weirder, the bacon bits were literally buried underneath the eggs, residing in this shadowy, subcutaneous cavern near the bottom of the biscuit. From a logistical standpoint, the problem here should be obvious -- every time you tilt the taco biscuit to take a bite, half the goddamn bacon rolls out the other side. Granted, it's not exactly a problem that's unsolvable (if you pinch the corners of the biscuit shut, nowhere near as much salted pork flows out), but it's still a bit of a nuisance, especially for a breakfast item meant to be eaten on the go. 

As decent as the Taco Biscuits where, however, if you stop by any Taco Bell in the morning and don't walk away with some kind of Crunchwrap permutation, you've failed life and hard. Seeing as how I've already tried out the gravy sausage and California avocado blends, I decided to try out the only A.M. Crunchwrap offering that, up to this point, I haven't wrapped my lips and bicuspids around; the steak, egg and cheese variation.

As expected, the stuff was just dynamite. Never in a million years what I have thought smashing a hashbrown inside a tortilla and marinating the inside with chipotle sauce would've led to a superlative fast food offering, but paint me all shades of wrong, folks. Really, this concept has no boundaries; I am convinced you could chunk Spam and pineapple rings inside one of these things and it would still taste marvelous. Needless to say, the steak, egg and cheese 'Wrap was an utter delight, and in my humblest o' opinions, worlds better than either of the taco biscuits I tried. It's no skin off the proverbial tits of the biscuits, though; they were quite good for what they were, but frankly, outside of the weird shape, they weren't anything you couldn't pick up at a gas station. This Crunchwrap though? There's only one place in the freaking world you can get one of those, and I reckon it's some of the best money you'll spend on any kind of breakfast offering, fast food or otherwise. That kind of begs the question, however: why isn't Taco Bell selling these babies all day long? I await your response, Bell ... me and everybody else in America. 

SPECIAL HAPPY GOOD TIME BONUS EXTRA ADDITIONAL MATERIAL!

TACO BELL'S NEW DIABLO SAUCE!

One of my biggest complaints about Taco Bell has always been the sauce selections. Not only did they take away that really savory, smoky salsa that used to come in a purple packet, the so-called "fire sauce" the establishment has been touting as its "hottest" condiment is one of the most pitifully weak offerings of its kind at any restaurant. At least the guys at Huddle House leave a bottle of Tapatio to sprinkle on your omelets -- at the Bell, we are afforded no such luxuries.

While Del Taco tends to lose the overall food quality battle, they've no doubt trumped Taco Bell in terms of sauces for years now. Well, much to my jubilant surprise, I recently learned that T.B. has begun offering an all new "Diablo Sauce," and fellas, it does NOT disappoint. The packaging alone is just bad-ass, a pitch black packet with about two dozen scorching hell fires emblazoned upon it. Before you even open this sucker up, you just know it's going to tear your tongue a new asshole. You know, if tongues actually had assholes and stuff. 

It's kind of hard to describe the overall taste and texture of the sauce, but I assure you it is nothing at all like the puny "fire sauce" offering. In addition to have a spicy kick that at least equals Del Taco's hottest salsa, the newfangled Diablo Sauce is also a lot smokier and chunkier, with a nice, meaty flavor that really adds some texture to your burrito. Not only is it hot as hell, it's also flavorful as hell, and it really gels quite well with a whole host of Bell offerings. I'm not quite sure if it is a regional-only item or something that's gone nationwide, but the next time you're near a Taco Bell, feel free to waltz on in there and ask the manager if he or she has a couple of packets in yet. And then, when their back is turned, stuff about 20 of the motherfuckers into your pockets ... remember, the unspoken social code considers condiments public amenities, and are therefore free to all. 

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Taco Bell's All New Quesarito!

Is it a burrito, or a quesadilla, or simply a rolled up slice of heaven?

It's clear that Taco Bell views Chipotle as a major threat to the U.S.-ified Tex Mex fast food chain hierarchy. First, there was their line of gourmet tacos and burritos that looked and tasted suspiciously identical to Chipotle's much ballyhooed rolled up and bowled foodstuffs. Then, there was the Bell's announcement that it was going to open up its own line of higher-scale fast food eateries, whose MO sounds pretty much identical to Chipotle. And now, taking this rivalry to almost Bloods vs. Crips proportions, Taco Bell has fired what may very well be the fast food taco chain equivalent of the shelling of Fort Sumter: they've actually went and MASS MARKETED the competitor's off-the-menu urban legend!

The Quesarito, historically, has been known as a "secret" item that select Chipotle chains across the U.S. offered to customers who were in the know about furtive fast food offerings. Basically, a "quesarito" was a standard quesadilla, melted cheese and all, wrapped 360 degrees around a burrito. Sure, it sounds gross at first, but after a while, the inherent deliciousness of the concept strikes you. It may very well be the most ingenious way of making people fatter since the advent of the fried brownie, in my humblest of opinions.

I've tried ordering a quesarito a few times at various Chipotle stores, but always to no avail. With T-Bell riding high off their super-awesome breakfast menu blitzkrieg, I suppose they figured now was a good time to continue the offensive strategy, this time by defictionalizing their number one competitor's most mythical menu item!

Indeed, the items are EXACTLY what you'd expect them to be. They're semi-gourmet burritos -- topped off by your choice of meat -- blanketed by a thick, gooey tortilla wearing molten cheese like warpaint. I'm guessing the universe as a whole is split, 50-50, on whether or not that's the most salivating idea ever, or the absolute freaking grossest.

Currently, the Bell is offering three variations of the Quesarito. We'll take a look at the steak permutation first -- primarily, because that was the first one I opened up.

As you can see for yourself, we've got quite the medley of flavors going on here. There's cheddar cheese, some wild rice, some sour cream and a smidge of chipotle sauce, alongside the sinewy chunks of dead steer. Of the three variations, this was probably the least bold in terms of flavor; for fast food adventurers who don't like any surprises, this is probably your best bet heading into the Great Quesarito-Off of 2014.

Next up is the beef version. As expected, it was extremely greasy, even on the outside of the tortilla. Of the three, it definitely felt the lightest.

I'd have to say this was my least favorite of the trio. For one, it didn't feel as if there was anywhere near as much rice chunked into the 'rito,  and the overall cheese and sour cream quotient felt pretty low, too. Nobody will ever hail Taco Bell for having the best ground beef in the world, so however you feel about it in normal Bell offerings will probably swing your overall impression of this item.

The shredded chicken Quesarito was definitely the heaviest of the three permutations, and smelled the weirdest, too. It almost smelled like Texas Pete, but then again, I guess anytime you combine poultry with chipotle sauce, that shit's going to end up smelling like hot sauce, no matter what.

This one was probably my favorite, because there appeared to be way more sour cream and sauce tossed into the goulash. I've never been a big fan of chicken, but this one certainly outdid both the steak and beef versions. The nacho cheese also seemed to gel the best with this one: overall, I'd say this is probably the best way to experience the Quesarito...that is, until the Bell inevitably wheels out their special Doritos Locos Tacos Quesarito. With chunks of grounded up waffle taco in it.

All in all, I thought Taco Bell's stab at Quesaritoes wasn't half-bad. They probably won't become anybody's favorite menu item, and their longevity as an offering is definitely suspect, but as a quick meal, circa July 2014? These things will do you quite well, especially if you are already fat, really sweaty, and not just giving a damn about most things anymore. Which, I know, is pretty much everybody reading this right now.

The big question now, I reckon, is obvious: will Chipotle strike back by trotting out THEIR version of the much-requested old school Taco Bell enchirito this autumn?

Stay tuned, fast food Tex-Mex enthusiasts: things are starting to get very interesting around these parts...

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