Taco Bell: Doritos Locos Taco

Taco Bell has seemingly been genetically engineered by the government to feed the sloppy drunk or pothead in all of us.  The food is cheap, it’s everywhere, and for some reason it ALWAYS sounds like a wonderful idea.  24 hours a day you could say “Hey Chris, Taco Bell?” and I would seriously consider it.  The other thing many of us know about Taco Bell is after the fact you usually wonder how good of an idea it was.  The idea almost never meets outcome.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still love it.  It’s still delicious.  That’s why we always go back.  That’s why Taco Bell is everywhere.  Sometimes there’s even enough lettuce that you might be able to lie to yourself that it’s not incredibly unhealthy.

Well guess what, you guys…Those days are dead.  We can no longer tell ourselves this lie because Taco Bell has done something revolutionary.  They went into their Taco Laboratory and their mad scientists went to work.  How do you one up a simple taco?  It’s really the perfect food, no matter where you get it.  It’s got a little bit of everything in it.  You have the grains in the tortilla, the lettuce and possibly tomatoes for veggies, the cheese for dairy.  And that meat, oh the meat.  There has been a lot of debate and even some lawsuits about Taco Bell meat over the past few years, but Lord knows what’s actually in it.  Whatever it is, the way it’s seasoned for some reason makes it amazing.  It’s not like any real Mexican food I’ve ever had, but that never stops me.

So how do you beat that?  They’ve tried over the years…There’s the soft taco, the tostada, they even took the tostada and WRAPPED IT in the soft taco creating some strange beast known as the Crunchwrap Supreme.  Honestly, go look at that thing.  It looks evil and delicious.  What The Bell has NOT done is add seasoning to the tortilla.  It’s always been a standard corn or flour tortilla (Unless we are talking about the Blackjack Taco with a black corn tortilla), never seasoned.

But it’s 2012 and Taco Bell is 50 years old this year, so it’s time to shake things up a bit.  So those mad taco scientists decided to do away with the regular tortilla and replace it with yet another awesome junk food.  Taco Bell made a taco shell out of a giant Nacho Cheese Dorito.  Think about that for a second, I will wait.

That’s right, Taco Bell and Doritos have teamed up for what must be a total windfall for the both of them and we all win because it’s at YOUR local Taco Bell this very second.  Should you run out to buy it, though?  Only one way to find out.

Look at that…The Doritos Locos Taco.  That image perfectly captures the essence of this thing; exactly what you expect from Taco Bell in a Doritos shell.  It would be amazing if they actually served it in a Doritos bag.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

They offer two varieties for this item, the standard taco (Beef, lettuce, and cheese) and the supreme version (all of the above with sour cream and tomatoes thrown in for good measure).  For this review I went for the supreme because if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right.  Let’s check it out.

Well there she is and I have to say…She looks pretty tasty.  Honestly from this angle it looks fairly similar to the image.  The layers aren’t as defined but I can’t say The Bell lies about this taco in any way.  Let’s look at it from a different angle.

There we go, a nice look at the inside of the taco.  I have to say it looks pretty well-filled, which makes me happy.  I’ve gotten tacos from Taco Bell before that seem to have definitely had their filling skimped on.  It’s nice that I don’t have that problem with this trip to the border.

It’s hard to explain the taste except to say that if you love Taco Bell and Doritos it probably tastes about how you expected.  It had all of the flavors of a Taco Bell taco, which I enjoy, but the sharp flavor of the Dorito tortilla added an awesome quality to it.  It definitely improves the flavor of the taco, however I feel I built it up too much in my mind.  I had convinced myself that it was the perfect marrying of foods to create a SUPER JUNK FOOD.  That’s really not the case.  Again, the idea just didn’t quite meet the outcome.  It’s great and all, but not something I’d go out of my way to get.  If I’m at Taco Bell and I see it I may get it again, however it doesn’t necessarily make Taco Bell a destination for me.

All of that said the flavor is still really good and if you haven’t tried it and you find yourself at Taco Bell you should definitely give it a shot.  I found myself wondering if this happens to be a hit will Taco Bell spin off other flavors of Doritos into tacos, like Cool Ranch or (of course) the Taco flavored chips.  I’d be curious to try those.

I did have a little problem with the packaging.  As you can see in the first image the taco is housed in a cardboard sleeve.  This is great in theory because I’m pretty sure the Doritos shell is even dustier than regular Doritos, meaning you’d get that nacho cheese dust all over your hands.  The problem is it’s perfectly contoured to the taco, making for some awkward bites, especially near the end.  If one end of the sleeve was instead flattened out a bit it would have made the whole thing easier and I probably wouldn’t have bitten into the cardboard.  But hey, nothing’s perfect.

So how do I rate the Doritos Locos Taco?

Rating: