The Waffle Taco

Let's get this out of the way. The Waffle Taco is not the most innovative breakfast food the world has ever seen. It is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is not the most incredible innovation since frozen waffles.

It is, however, excellent in its own right. More so, the Waffle Taco is a surprisingly strong offering for Taco Bell's first foray into the breakfast world.


Now we can back up and go through the story of my Waffle Taco experience. I hit up a local Taco Bell just before 9 a.m. on an overcast Thursday morning with the goal of picking up both a bacon and sausage Waffle Taco for comparison purposes. Before I saw the restaurant, I was a little worried about food shortages as the hungry hoards beat down Taco Bell's door on its first day of offering breakfast. But I didn't need to worry.

From the look of things, Taco Bell is going to have to hang in there to attract a breakfast crowd. Other than the staff, there were four people and me in the restaurant where I stopped. Two were reading the paper, one was waiting for food and the other appeared to be filling out an employment application. Things were a little slow.

Slow or not, my food arrived as ordered in my requested to-go bag. I picked up a cup of coffee in addition to the Waffle Tacos. Oddly enough, there were no advertised size choices for that coffee. I guess it's one-size-fits-all, for now at least.

The coffee led me to an interesting first impression of Taco Bell's breakfast: It's served in hefty containers. My coffee cup had a very solid paper feel, one that was much higher quality than competing fast food restaurants or gas stations. The rectangular boxes around the Waffle Taco were of similar durability, although they degraded a little upon sucking up some grease from their contents.

Speaking of those contents, I broke out the Waffle Tacos and compared them. The formula is simple. For the bacon variety, wrapped inside a curved waffle sit, in order, scrambled egg, bacon bits and melted cheese. My sausage Waffle Taco was much the same thing, only the order went waffle, sausage patty, eggs, cheese.

These are not Eggo waffles. They're not light or fluffy, and frankly, I don't think they're trying to be. They have a heft that I have no choice but to salute, it's so uncompromisingly fast food.

Taco Bell didn't screw up the egg. It didn't screw up the cheese. And it didn't screw up the sausage patty, although I've had better. Where the bell really shined, though, was the bacon bits. They had just a hint of spiciness that made the bacon Waffle Taco stand out from anything else that's widely available for breakfast at national chains.

Condiments were another standout point. I had two to choose from, syrup and picante sauce. Interestingly enough, I was handed the bag complete with syrup packets, but I had to pick up the picante sauce myself.

I tried the Waffle Tacos with syrup, with picante sauce and with both. All three combinations were better than expected. The best option, though was slathering on both syrup and sauce. Be audacious when eating a Waffle Taco. It just seems right, and it works.

Speaking of audacity, I'd be remiss not to mention Taco Bell's marketing campaign for its new breakfast menu. The restaurant found a bunch of people who were named Ronald McDonald and had them stump for bell breakfast in front of the camera. Even better, Taco Bell sent the following special message to me after I leaked a few preliminary thoughts about the Waffle Taco on Twitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjwp-6GXt50&feature=youtu.be

It's almost time to wrap up and rate this thing, but I need to share a few more thoughts first. The Waffle Taco is an incredible concept, one that captured the attention of more than a few people. In general, throwing breakfast foods together into a single meal is a good idea. See poutine, biscuits and gravy with eggs, and quiche for examples.

The Waffle Taco is not, however, a completely unique taste in fast food. I've had the combination of syrup, eggs, cheese and breakfast before in a McDonald's McGriddle.

And I do love the McGriddle. Yet it's not as good as the Waffle Taco. McGriddles are wrapped in paper, which smushes them together. The Waffle Taco is in a box that lets its ingredients breathe. Further, it's a fresh take that's served with separate syrup, rather than having the syrup baked in.

Waffle Tacos are also dirt cheap: $1.99. I bought two along with a cup of coffee and only paid $5.85 after taxes. Further, the meal didn't even upset my stomach too much. Sure, I felt like I'd had fast food for breakfast. I didn't feel like I'd had particularly low quality fast food, though.

Four sporks out of five. I'm not waffling on this one.

Maple Bacon chips

Good news: I'm back after an extended gastromalaise that kept me from reviewing anything for the better part of nine months.

Better news: Maple Bacon Kettle Brand Chips snapped me out of said extended malaise.

The best news: The kettle chips are just a warm-up for the new Mount Everest of cheap food reviewing, which comes out later this week. That would be Taco Bell's upcoming Waffle Taco, which I'm anticipating as eagerly as anything in my storied fast-food-reviewing history.

Taco Bell is scheduled to bring the Waffle Taco out Thursday, and I'll have something on it as soon as possible. In the meantime, let's talk about these Maple Bacon Kettle Brand Chips, which I decided to pick up last week when I learned March 14 was National Potato Chip Day.

This photo had to be cropped aggressively because my messy fingers found their way into the picture.

Kettle Brand chips have been on my radar for a while now. Not only did they seemingly manage to co-opt the copyright for the best name in potato chips, they're using it to roll out fascinating flavor after fascinating flavor. There's Spicy Thai, Sweet and Salty, and even Cheddar Beer.

Kettle's website says the company works to pioneer "bold, unique flavors that people really seem to love." It also says the company started selling chips out of a van, which really gets my motor going.

It was tough to decide whether to try Maple Bacon or Cheddar Beer, but one bite told me I'd made the right choice. Maple Bacon starts out with this sugary punch that never devolves into too much syrupy sweetness. Then the bacon undertones start to creep in. They grow stronger and stronger as you eat on, but that maple is just powerful enough to make sure the meat doesn't hog the scene.

This is a dangerous combination. There's no other way to put it. You could finish the entire bag in one sitting. I managed to stretch it to three, but only after exhausing far too much willpower.

Required willpower is one of the few drawbacks to these chips. Another is that they get your fingers messy. Good luck doing anything other than eat them while you're eating them.

Those aren't terrible drawbacks for potato chips, though. So I have some great news for Kettle Brand chips. Their Maple Bacon variety gets five out of five sporks.

And I'm ready for the Waffle Taco.

Bacon Habanero Ranch Quarter Pounder

It's all about the bun. And the habanero.

It pains me to tell you this, but McDonald's just finished a "buy one give one" promotion for some uber-fancy Quarter Pounders.

The pain, of course, is that I didn't tell you while the promotion was still going on. My apologies. It was for three days only, and I barely had the chance to slip in and take advantage of the deal myself. If there's a silver lining in all of this, it's that I have the chance to write about the new burgers.

This "buy one give one" idea is an interesting one. I'm not sure how to look at it. Was it an attempt to introduce more people to the new McDonald's food? An effort to combat overeating while still giving away free food?

If so, it wasn't effective. Because the recipient of my Quarter Pounder to give was ... me.

Technically, I purchased a Bacon and Cheese Quarter Pounder and gave myself a Bacon Habanero Ranch Quarter Pounder. We're going to spill our pixels on the latter today. The Bacon and Cheese version was fine -- red onion slices, American cheese, the now-ubiquitous applewood bacon. It was just nothing to blog home about. I've had burgers that taste exactly the same from half a dozen fast food joints.

That Bacon Habanero Ranch, though. That burger's something new. Something I don't remember seeing before. Habanero on a burger!

The searing and sweet taste of habanero seems to have been generally considered too bold for the popular American palette. While jalapenos have found their way into seemingly every restaurant on earth, their more intense orange brethren have been largely eschewed. It's been a shame, a shame I'm happy to see end.

I am, however, a little surprised to see McDonald's ending it. The house that Ronald built has never stood out to me as a risk-taker in the food wars. I guess they introduced apples in Happy Meals a few years back, but I don't think tossing in the most popular fruit in the country can be considered daring.

Habanero on a burger is a whole new story. Unsurprisingly, Mickey D's hedged its bets, watering down the intense spiciness of habaneros with a cooler ranch flavor. It's a tasty sauce, and I'm willing to forgive the timidity in light of the big step that is putting this pepper into fast food.

Outside of the habanero sauce, there's really only one thing worth talking about. Not the bacon. Not the white cheddar cheese. The bun.

At some point, McDonald's invested a great deal into upgrading the Quarter Pounder bun.

Remember when it had the approximate consistency of cotton candy? When it looked like it would dissolve when it got wet? Those days are over. The bun is larger, heartier and more satisfying. I haven't had the chance to check if classic Quarter Pounders wear their tried-and-true buns, but this one is magnificent in comparison.

This is a burger worth four sporks out of five. I'd buy it even if it wasn't free.

It's a nice day for a wide-ranging post-wedding post

Today we'll talk about some eateries in the state of the Golden Bear.

Jetting and driving across the country have their downsides.

The main one being that I haven't had a chance to post a new food review in weeks. I went through a minor life change -- marriage -- that had me first flying from Indiana to Syracuse for the ceremony. Then the new wife and I winged from Syracuse to San Francisco for a week that involved driving up to beautiful coastal Mendocino California. We flew back to Syracuse before proceeding to drive across Upstate New York, Ohio and Indiana in order to make it back to Bloomington, where we keep our home.

After that? Rest. Lots of rest.

If it sounds like a whirlwind way to end May and start June, it was. It was also a period of time that wasn't exactly conducive to taking my normally arduous food critiquing notes.

Fortunately I still have enough gray matter left to give a rundown of our trip's high culinary points. They're not going to be as detailed as my usual super-in-depth reviews, but they should be sufficient to give you a flavor of the last few weeks.

I should also mention that we hit restaurants that were all over the map, literally and figuratively. There was fast food. There was haute cuisine. There was a grocery store.

The details of the rehearsal dinner and wedding won't be making it into this post. I either wouldn't do them justice or would bore any of you who were there with too much detail. So we'll just hit the other high points of the last few weeks.


Final meal at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
A few hours before the wedding, my groomsmen and I convened in downtown Syracuse for a last supper at the famous barbecue joint. We sat at the bar and ordered a combination meal that included ribs, beef brisket, chicken, baked beans, cornbread and mac and cheese. We passed plates and bowls around for a real communal setting that was delicious. You couldn't ask for a better end to single life.

HRD Coffee Shop welcomes us to San Francisco
Acting on my best man's recommendation, my new wife and I stopped by HRD Coffee Shop on the morning of our first full day in California. They have coffee, but they also have some of the best-smelling Korean food I've encountered. We ended up getting a spicy pork Kimchi burrito. I won't spill too many pixels on the place, because it's been featured on Food Network and in a few other publications. Just know to get that burrito. It was the best thing I've eaten this year.

21st Amendment Brewery
We grabbed a lunch at this brewpub, which isn't too far from HRD Coffee Shop. Everything was good. The french fries rose above all else with an exceptional balance between crisp outside and soft inside.





Albion River Inn Restaurant
We did both breakfasts and dinner at the restaurant for this inn that hangs on the craggy shoreline of the Mendocino coast. The view while eating was spectacular, even when fog was rolling in off the ocean. The dinner matched it -- I had a piece of salmon cooked to perfection. Where I was really blown away was the breakfast, however. One day the breakfast special was a shrimp and cream cheese omelet, a concoction that sounds strange and tastes outstanding. The Thanksgiving Coffee Company, located up the coast in Fort Bragg, makes an Albion River Inn Blend. It's subtle and smooth and everything you want on vacation.

Whole Foods
On our way back down to San Francisco we stopped to grab coffee at Whole Foods. I gaped at the prices. I felt bad for a kid who knocked over a bottle of wine. It was OK.

In-N-Out Burger
This place was hopping, even though I got there at 9 p.m. to pick up a late dinner before retreating to our pre-flight hotel room. Sorry In-N-Out Burger, but that's my biggest impression of you. It was the end of my trip, I was tired, and I was blown away by how busy you were.