Taco Bell, America’s #1 Drunk Food, Now Diving Into The Hangover Food Game With A Waffle Taco

Rob Fox12 years ago

The waffle taco. Wow. Honestly, I’m not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, I am a MASSIVE proponent of the McGriddle, the pancake sandwich McDonald’s rolled out years ago. The McGriddle inspired many other spinoffs, like Jack in the Box’s waffle sandwich. It was a glorious development in the fast food breakfast game. I’m still waiting for someone to bust out a French toast sandwich. Looking at you, Hardees/Carl’s Jr.

For me, there are few meals better than a sweet/savory breakfast combo, and if possible I’d like to get it all in my mouth at the same time, which, and I’m just cutting the commenters off at the pass here, is also what I say about penises (especially your dad’s). But really, I don’t care if I was at the fanciest of brunches; I’d roll my bacon and eggs up in a pancake and eat it like a burrito as old women clutched their handkerchiefs and gasped and I continued the conversation, mouth stuffed full of delicious breakfast, by asking, “Believe it or not, I am single. Tell me more about your granddaughter. I’d love to meet her after she graduates…high school.” That’s especially true if I were hungover. In fact, most of my breakfast eating occurs when hungover. It’s usually the only time I’m hungry in the morning, plus I need something other than booze and whatever garbage food I ate the night before (possibly Taco Bell) in my stomach.

That’s where I get worried about Taco Bell’s waffle taco. Do I really want to add to the digestive hurricane ravaging my insides by adding more Taco Bell to the mix? And while sober(ish)? What kind of nightmarish post-Katrina New Orleans landscape am I going to leave behind in some poor, unsuspecting toilet? It’s natural to take a pretty terrible number two the morning after drinking, not to shit out an exact replica of the 9th ward circa 2005. Throwing more Taco Bell down there is just adding fuel to the already raging, over-fueled fire.

Say what you will about McDonald’s breakfast, but it’s never given me any serious trouble, digestion wise. It’s not good for you, but it’s not going to make a General Sherman march through your intestines either, burning everything in its path and leaving your colon looking like 1865 Atlanta. The waffle taco, meanwhile, seems like a trap. For one, the “taco” is a deep fried waffle, which basically means you’re eating a breakfast wrapped in shitty funnel cake. I have no idea what to expect out of Taco Bell’s sausage, but their meat does not have an excellent track record in the “won’t give you diarrhea” department. The eggs, I assume, aren’t much better. I’m guessing Taco Bell bought up a bunch of weird, overdeveloped eggs with half grown chicks inside on the cheap, probably from somewhere that isn’t America, threw them in a giant factory blender to grind up all the beaks and legs, cooked them, then refrigerated and packaged them to be shipped out. At the restaurant, they’re probably reheated in a steamer. This is of course just continuing the tradition that all Taco Bell’s meat be made from stillborn animals.

Taco Bell’s waffle taco hasn’t made it to Austin yet. They’re only testing it out in Omaha, Nashville, and Fresno. If this bad boy does go national, you can be sure I’ll try it. The waffle taco is also serving as Taco Bell’s barometer on whether or not wheeling out an entire breakfast menu is worthwhile. I think it might be worth it for Taco Bell in the long run. As long as I live in Austin, or really any place with plenty of Mexicans and a solid Tex-Mex food culture, I won’t be eating Taco Bell’s breakfast. I live in the breakfast taco capital of the world, and it’s awesome, because breakfast tacos are awesome. But for someone in Shitsville, Kansas, Bumfuck, Ohio, or Boise, Idaho who doesn’t have easy, plentiful access to cheap and delicious breakfast tacos on every corner, Taco Bell would almost certainly be their most readily available source of breakfast tacos. As long as they’re better than that dogshit breakfast burrito McDonald’s rolls out, Taco Bell should be in business. All they have to do is be as quality as McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, but in taco form. That can’t be that hard, right?

Will a Taco Bell breakfast be good hangover food? No. Not at all. If you’re feeling even slightly ill in the morning, stay away. Any of their menu items will probably only bring you more pain and suffering. I’m assuming once they add my favorite breakfast meat of all, chorizo, to one of their future breakfast menu items, and if you choose to consume said Taco Bell chorizo, there’s a fair chance you might actually puke your own diarrhea. Still, Taco Bell breakfast tacos are better than no breakfast tacos at all…at least in some circumstances.

Final verdict: The waffle taco looks mediocre, but I’m going to try it, and a full Taco Bell breakfast menu will be a blessing for those living in a place without many Mexicans and/or hippies who like to cook Mexican food (Torchy’s Tacos, whatup).

[via Eater.com]