Fast Food Review: "Premium" Chicken Tortadas at Taco Bell

Lent is over, and that means Taco Bell has run out of shrimp. Maybe the ocean called.

On the other hand, no fast food chain wants to taketh away without giveth-ing something in return, and what’s an ever-stereotyped chain to do? Why, rely on yet another new combination of their same five ingredients, of course! And, in typical Taco Bell fashion, combine the names of two existing Mexican dishes to create a newer, more nonsensical, more patentable version. Herein, the torta and the tostada combine to make...ta-da! The Tortada. Which is something like a torta, but not at all like a tostada, so whatever.

The big signs plastered across the window of my local Taco Bell use the word “premium,” and silly me, this got my hopes up. “Premium Chicken Tortada”? I thought maybe this was the dawn of some new ingredient called “premium chicken.” It isn’t. It is, rather, Taco Bell’s generic “all-white-meat chicken,” which may be a technically true term, but in fact refers to orange-tinted compressed bits that are as fake in shape as any McNugget.

Good God, I miss the Bell’s Spicy Chicken, shredded in pseudo-mole sauce. Discontinuing that was a MAJOR step back.

Anyway, there are two types of Tortada: a Bacon Ranch version, and a Salsa Roja version. As I don’t really like bacon OR ranch, you can guess which one I went for. Though it must be noted that the “ranch” in this case is Taco Bell’s own proprietary “Avocado Ranch,” more palatable to me and probably less palatable to my ranch-addicted girl.

Salsa Roja, of course, literally means “red sauce.” And that’s all it is.

Here’s the Taco Bell description: “A warm flour tortilla loaded with fire-grilled marinated all-white meat chicken, crisp shredded lettuce, fiesta salsa, flavorful salsa roja, and a blend of three cheeses – cheddar, pepper jack, and mozzarella, all grilled together hot and toasty.”

Let’s break that down, shall we?

Warm flour tortilla = MASSIVE tortilla folded over and over such that it takes up a lot of space, cooked until parts of it char so that you convey the illusion of a barbecue.

Fire-grilled, marinated all-white meat chicken = we’ve taken down that one already.

Fiesta salsa = Pico de Gallo. Can’t really screw that up.

Flavorful salsa roja = generic red sauce, of the kind used in the basic bean burritos. It works, but let’s not pretend it’s anything special. Del Taco is honest enough to simply call their version “red sauce.” Man up and do the same.

A blend of three cheeses = Really? I only noticed one in mine. This may be an aberration, or staff growing pains, but I saw and tasted only mozzarella...no pepper jack or cheddar. And they cut these things in half before serving, so you can see the inside. Low on cheese is not necessarily a bad thing, unless you advertise it otherwise.

So, the overall effect...moist enough, especially since the description didn’t mention lettuce, which is here. It comes in the same wrapper as quesadillas, theoretically designed to keep it warm. But is it really worth $3.29?

The answer is no. Not because it’s bad...it ain’t. But because you can do better. Order a MexiMelt with chicken instead of beef, and you get chicken, Pico de Gallo, and multiple cheeses melted in a flour tortilla for about half that. It is a wonderful thing. It is not advertised. But it’s there, and better than this silly new promo.

Of course, if you like bacon on your fake-Mexican food, you’re on your own. I don’t go there.

And for those of you hoping I’d review the KFC Double Down this week, fear not. I’m waiting for all the wanna-bes to have their say first...shit, even the New York Times tried to steal my game this week!

I have something special in mind for when I get to it. Hang in there, belly believers.

 

More LYT Fast Food Reviews may be found at this link