Taco Bell recently expanded its menu to include breakfast food in an effort to compete with other fast-food joints such as McDonald’s and Burger King. The Crunchwrap, an already popular Taco Bell item, has been repurposed as a breakfast burrito.
My salsa packet issued a challenge: “Dare to do the undone.”
I vowed to rise to that challenge. I would do the undone. I would try breakfast food from Taco Bell.
Thursday morning, Taco Bell restaurants across the country opened their doors (and drive-thru windows) at 7 a.m. for the first time, daring Americans to start their days by “thinking outside the bun.”
After seeing the comical advertising campaign featuring a slew of men all named Ronald McDonald eating Taco Bell’s breakfast and claiming it was better than breakfast at McDonald’s, I knew I had to give my guilty pleasure fast-food joint a chance to succeed at the most important meal of the day.
The taco giant’s biggest challenger is the Egg McMuffin, the longtime best-selling breakfast champion. Of course, menu items such as breakfast burritos are not a stretch for the faux-Mexican fast-food giant. Even Burger King and Sonic offer them. How else could Taco Bell compete with the heavyweights in the fast-food breakfast world?
It took seven years of trial and error, but now the two contenders enter the ring: the Waffle Taco and the A.M. Crunchwrap.
Though it’s gotten mostly positive reviews, I couldn’t bring myself to try the Waffle Taco. As a kid, I eagerly gobbled up McDonald’s’ freak breakfast concoction, the McGriddles, which I would get with eggs and sausage on maple syrup-infused pancake-like buns. Now, I’m not sure I could stomach the salty meat products and greasy eggs on a syrupy-sweet waffle. I wanted to make sure my first Taco Bell breakfast stayed down, after all.
So an A.M. Crunchwrap it was. Monday morning, I rolled into the drive-thru and ordered a bacon Crunchwrap and a small side order of Cinnabon Delights.
The scent of the Cinnabon Delights filled my apartment as soon as I pulled them out of the bag. I know you’re not supposed to start a meal with dessert, but I couldn’t help but try one of the Delights first. They aren’t a new menu item, but after growing up on Burger King’s unyieldingly sticky Cinnabon Minibon Rolls, I had to determine which cinnamon treat was better for breakfast.
The Cinnabon Delights taste like a fusion of doughnut holes and churros. They have a satisfyingly crispy shell with a soft inside. The outer shell is coated in cinnamon and sugar, while the inside oozes icing. Though the icing was an unnatural color, the bites were just sweet enough without being sickening and not nearly as sticky as Burger King’s bites.
After satisfying my curiosity, it was time to move on to the main course. The first bite of my Crunchwrap was mostly tortilla but with a curious crunch: hash brown. While a normal Taco Bell Crunchwrap has a hard tortilla as a base for the meaty goodness, the breakfast version has a firm hash brown at the bottom.
The next bite was disappointing. Though the crumbly scrambled eggs and bacon chunks tasted like I’d expected them to, the shredded cheese inside hadn’t melted. Ew.
After microwaving the concoction for a few seconds, I kept eating. With the melted cheese oozing inside the wrap, eggs, bacon and hash brown meshed together in their tortilla prison. The bacon and hash brown were very salty, but the mellowness of the eggs, cheese and tortilla helped round out the flavors.
In true Taco Bell fashion, the whole thing had a slight zest. In addition to the green salsa I dribbled on the Crunchwrap, there was a creamy sauce inside binding the whole thing together, something you definitely can’t get in a McMuffin.
Though it didn’t seem like the workers at Taco Bell were quite awake while preparing my breakfast, I was generally pleased with the experience. The Crunchwrap itself was filling enough, and the four Cinnabon Delights helped suppress my hunger until well into Happier Hour.
Will Taco Bell’s breakfast menu go the way of the company’s Chihuahua? Only time will tell. But for now, if you need a tasty morning pick-me-up that keeps you going for a long time, do the undone.
