This is a big one.

Taco Bell introduces new menu items: The good news for longtime Taco Bell lovers is it appears Taco Bell is moving away from fancy celebrity-chef endorsed fare and gimmicky cross-branded overrated hype drivers back toward its base, gimmicky uni-branded Taco Bell stuff. To start, there are two new dessert items and XXL Steak Nachos.

The new dessert offerings are churros and cookie sandwiches. The former may seem a bit redundant with the longstanding presence of Cinnamon Twists on the menu, and presumably the cinnamon sugar sprinkled atop the churros will be the same stuff used to coat the twists. I’ve never personally felt the need for a Taco Bell dessert beyond what’s already available on the menu, but maybe a softer version of the Cinnamon Twists will be useful for those nursing jaw injuries or something. And the cookie sandwich — misidentified by Advertising Age as containing vanilla ice cream but actually containing “vanilla cream filling” — appears to offer Taco Bell customers the opportunity to try that thing they’ve always kind of wanted to get from that cookie store at the mall but never had the opportunity or wherewithal to purchase.

The XXL Steak Nachos look to be a lot like other Taco Bell nachos, but larger. Even the photo on the Taco Bell website shows the toppings poorly distributed, which is a bit concerning:

Somewhat notably, the XXL Steak Nachos will be the first standard nachos on the menu to feature guacamole, continuing the trend set by XXL and Cantina items to incorporate more guacamole in Taco Bell stuff.

The more intriguing stuff comes later:

Then, in the coming weeks, Taco Bell will also announce some savory snack foods in the form of wraps. Dubbed “loaded grillers,” the savory snacks will essentially be nachos, chicken or a loaded baked potato, all wrapped in a tortilla.

It’s unclear how this mysterious chicken wrapped in a tortilla product will differ from Taco Bell’s numerous chicken burritos, and I’m skeptical that the baked-potato version won’t just be a re-imagining of the various fiesta-potato driven products that I never order. So I’ve got a lot riding on this nachos-in-a-wrap concept, and I feel pretty confident that Taco Bell won’t let me down.

Link via several people, first Catsmeat.

Taco Bell benevolence of the week: Part of tracking Taco Bell news means leafing through a hell of a lot of stories about crimes committed in Taco Bells. So it was refreshing to find this heartwarming story from Merced, Calif. today, about a woman who left her purse in Taco Bell only to have it returned free of charge by the Taco Bell’s heroic manager.

Peterson, who lives in Rocklin, said she and her family stopped at the Taco Bell on their way to visit family. She had just entered Roseville when she realized she left her purse on the back of a chair inside the Martin Luther King Jr. Way restaurant.

What would follow is a 130-mile journey for the yellow purse and a series of events over the next few days that would amaze Peterson and restore her faith in humanity.

Typically, my faith in humanity is restored during my visits to Taco Bell, not afterwards.

Public service announcement: Construction of a Taco Bell location at the corner of Livernois and Walton in Rochester Hills, Mich. has been delayed by bad soils discovered during surveying. The franchisees will spend the winter redesigning the proposed Taco Bell to adjust for the marl and processing the appropriate building permits with the city. Concerned citizens wondering why the Taco Bell’s owners will not instead pursue the larger lot on the same corner that once featured a Big Boy should know that the Big Boy lot was not made available to the Taco Bell franchisees, and that Taco Bell representative Bill Beckett believes the targeted spot is “a wonderful location for a Taco Bell.”