Just because I’m in Buffalo doesn’t mean it’s not Taco Bell Tuesday.

At OC Weekly, Michelle Woo explains that Taco Bell’s new Cantina Menu tastes nothing like Taco Bell. My first instinct would be to say that means it sucks, but Woo is upbeat about it. Woo writes:

For Cantina Bell, Garcia got rid of the guacamole gun (the one that shoots out globs of green stuff and can probably double as a lethal weapon) and ditched sour cream all together. (It’s never been a part of Latin American cuisine, anyway, save for those pesky pochos) Garcia grew up eating tons of cilantro and wanted to incorporate it in a major way, so Taco Bell set up cilantro fields across the country to keep up with the demand. In total, she introduced eight new ingredients to the permanent Taco Bell menu, which is a big deal considering it seems that the restaurant previously had like four.

There’s a lot there. First, just because Taco Bell is serving better guacamole doesn’t mean it shouldn’t get fired out of a gun. C’mon now. If they want to incorporate guacamole with big chunks of avocado, I support it wholeheartedly — traditional Taco Bell guacamole wasn’t anything notable. But there’s just nothing efficient or awesome about ladling it on to a burrito with a spoon. Taco Bell has awesome condiment guns for just this purpose. You just need a higher caliber guacamole rifle.

Second: “Cilantro fields across the country to keep up with demand.” Taco Bell was going to buy up all the world’s cilantro so they planted some instead.

Third: Eight new ingredients to the permanent menu. That’s huge. What’s going to be important is whether those ingredients cross over to the non-Cantina, regular-ass Taco Bell menu we’ve come to love. That “vibrant fire-roasted corn salsa” sounds pretty delicious. Can I get that on a Volcano Taco or what?

Major League Baseball has announced the rosters for this year’s Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game. Notably absent? Anyone I’d describe as a “Taco Bell All-Star Legend.” I know Gidget the Chihuahua and Glen Bell can’t make it, but can they really not find any Taco Bell Legend or Taco Bell Celebrity better than Jon Hamm and some guy from Glee? What are Hamm’s Taco Bell credentials?

Any Taco Bell All-Star Legend roster needs Justin Verlander on it. Also, what’re the guys from Club Chalupa doing that’s so important they can’t give it a go in the outfield? Charles Barkley? The guy who did that “It’s all about the Roosevelts” rap? Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon?

William Grimes writes, “The meat filling just lay there like ballast, but the lettuce was fresh and crisp and the grated Cheddar had an assertive tang. In other words, for what it is, the Doritos Locos taco is pretty good.”

Here’s my thing: I’m casting a broad net here, and Grimes typically writes good, accessible stuff for the Times, but I think this and all other “serious” food criticism about Taco Bell would strongly benefit from a little background about the author’s history with Mexican-inspired fast food. In other words, when was the last time Grimes ate Taco Bell?

Because it strikes me that any food critic who hasn’t been to a Taco Bell since his teenage years — and has since, perhaps, come to judge the place — would be struck upon first bite by how delicious the food is and assume that Taco Bell is doing something new and different. But meanwhile Taco Bell has been awesome all along.

Which is to say: Hey New York Times, call me if you ever need a Taco Bell review in the future. I’ve got you covered. Trust me, I’ve done my research.

Link via Brad Z.

Happy Taco Bell Tuesday everyone!

An entertaining Reddit thread yesterday sparked some discussion around the Internet: What wine pairs best with a Crunchwrap Supreme?

I’m all for the coming of the Franchise Wars and the long-awaited elevation of Taco Bell to haute cuisine, obviously, but I’m ill-fit to weigh in on this one. I’m not a big drinker and when I do drink, I rarely drink wine. Sometimes I’ll partake to be social, and people will start talking about the earthy bouquet and such, but it always just sort of tastes like wine to me. Some wines go down smoother than others, I’ll amount, but outside of a few choice bourbons, I find most alcoholic beverages primarily a means to an end.

(For that matter: I have no taste for craft beer either. For some reason there’s a huge overlap between baseball-blogger types and craft-beer enthusiasts, enough so that people hear you blog about baseball and just sort of assume you’ve got all sorts of considered opinions about craft beer. I like the beers that taste the least like beer. And if I’m at a bar where I can’t readily identify any of the available beers, I’m lost. I usually point to something someone else is drinking that looks light and say, “I’ll have that one.”)

All that said, I suspect Taco Bell pairs best with a cold 40-ounce of Olde English 800, or at least it sure seemed to back in the days when I more regularly enjoyed malt liquor and late-night Taco Bell. And I don’t think my appreciation for Taco Bell then had much to do with the flavor combinations and the way the Olde E sat on the palate. That predated the existence of the Crunchwrap Supreme, though.

The good news is that if you are a wine drinker and do hope to sit down with a Crunchwrap Supreme and a well-paired glass, wine-guy Gary Vaynerchuk has you covered:

In more pressing news, Taco Bell is testing two new versions of the Doritos Locos Taco: the long-anticipated Cool Ranch and the heretofore unheard-of-by-me Flamas flavor. FoodBeast has tried them both.

The Flamas flavor is apparently a combination of hot chili and citrus, which would sound way better to me if I hadn’t recently sampled a bag of Chile-Limon Doritos Dynamita while in Phoenix. Dynamita apparently means traditional Doritos rolled up into a taquito shape, vaguely resembling dynamite*. Unfortunately, the flavor sucked. It tasted like nuclear fallout soaked in artificial lime flavor. I don’t know for sure that Flamas is the same, but since the combination sounds suspiciously similar, I will proceed with skepticism when the flavor comes to my local Taco Bell.

The Cool Ranch sounds a lot more intriguing. I don’t see how the flavor will overcome the saltiness and dryness issues that plagues the Nacho Cheese version of the Doritos Locos Tacos, but since everyone knows Cool Ranch Doritos are better than Nacho Cheese Doritos, it looks to be an upgrade over the original. Plus I suspect the flavor, tangy as it is, is less redundant with the seasoned beef stuff.

I’d also be down for checking out that Sweet and Spicy Thai Chili Doritos as a Doritos Locos Taco, for what it’s worth. Asian-inspired/Mexican-inspired fusion. Are you listening, Taco Bell? It’s me, Ted.

*- You may remember that the term “taco” is believed to come from Mexican mining communities, named after a form of dynamite.

For some reason, some jackass flyered up Bethel, Alaska heralding triumphant and altogether false news of a forthcoming Taco Bell. Gawker has the story.

Via John.

As part of the more-regular-features initiative that (thus far unsuccessfully) brought you Wikipedia Wednesday, I’m hoping to make every Tuesday “Taco Bell Tuesday,” featuring at least a post about the latest from my Taco Bell Google alert. Maybe this will continue. No promises.

Most of the news today focuses on the upcoming launch of the Cantina Menu, Taco Bell’s effort to compete in the Chipotle/Qdoba/Baja Fresh space.

At iradiophilly.com, iradioal makes a strong point: This does seem like the first salvo in the Franchise Wars, no? Demolition Man was set in 2032, so Taco Bell has 20 years to realize the prophesy. No word on when we start replacing toilet paper with seashells.

Taco Bell invited select bloggers and journalists to taste the new Cantina Menu at the Empire State Building last week. Gothamist provided a funny but judgy review. Also, and more importantly, WTF? Seriously, Taco Bell? After all I’ve done for you? What has Gothamist done for your brand before this? Answer me that. Search the site for Taco Bell and it’s all pink slime and Hazmat suits and LOLTacoBell stuff. I HAVE A TACO BELL TAB. I understand they get 50 times my traffic or whatever. But last I checked you can’t put a metric on love. AND ART.

Next, in a feature that will likely frequently get link-love here if Taco Bell Tuesday continues, the OC Register’s Taco Bell Crime of the Week reports on a scheme to sneak marijuana into an Indiana jail using Taco Bell as a front. A prison guard got caught wrapping up weed and Suboxone in Taco Bell wrappers and bringing them to work in his lunchbox. Presumably it was a bit disappointing for his clientele every time they bought the weed and it didn’t come with Taco Bell. No access to Taco Bell has to be like the 14th or 15th worst thing about being in jail.

Finally, there’s a new Taco Bell commercial featuring a wedding party in a limo that stops by Taco Bell for Fourthmeal. We did that at my wedding, except it was more of a late lunch, in the gap between the ceremony and the reception. It was my wife’s idea, too, and a really good way to make me feel good about the marriage from its first hour.

Here is Mets’ Minor League righty Collin McHugh, the organization’s best Twitterer:

McHugh, if you’re not familiar, has a 2.60 ERA with 153 strikeouts and 48 walks in 155 2/3 innings at Double-A over the second half of 2011 and the first part of 2012. He’ll turn 25 later this month and he’s not considered a big prospect by prospecting types, but he has been good at every level he’s played at since the Mets drafted him in the 18th round in 2008. He should probably start Google-mapping Buffalo-area Taco Bells.

Hat tip to Zach and Catsmeat for the heads up.

New “Cantina Menu” coming soon: After a successful test in a couple of markets, Taco Bell will roll out its new Cantina menu nationwide on July 5. Though items on the menu are less than $5, it appears aimed to compete with the Chipotle/Qdoba/Baja Fresh outlets, serving bowls and burritos “made with premium ingredients.”

Color me skeptical. I’ll certainly try it, but I go to Taco Bell for Taco Bell and Chipotle for Chipotle. They’re very different places, both delicious.

This does seem like one step toward Franchise-War domination, though, so that’s pretty exciting. I’d be more excited if the Cantina menu items came with ground beef, though I suppose that’d be defeating the purpose.

And most interestingly:

The Beefy Crunch Burrito movement is a thing: Come with me down the Internet Taco Bell rabbit-hole. I noticed that a commenter I’d never seen before posted on my review of the Beefy Nacho Burrito a couple of weeks ago, expressing disappointment that it’s similar to but not the same as the Beefy Crunch Burrito. I checked his profile and found that it linked to a Facebook page dedicated to bringing back said Beefy Crunch Burrito.

Now there are lots of Facebook pages and minor Internet movements to bring back various defunct fast-food items (if anyone wants to fire one up for the Pepper Jack Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy’s, btw, I’m on board). Most of them make a couple of posts then move on. Not the Beefy Crunch Burrito movement, though. The Facebook page is amazingly active, with multiple new posts almost every day.

I emailed the commenter, Richard Axton, to find that he is the administrator of the Facebook page and shepherd of the 3 Million Fans to bring back the Beefy Crunch Burrito. He’s also an extremely nice dude with a lot of insight into the inner workings of Taco Bell.

He knows, for example, that creating a Beefy Crunch Burrito required Taco Bell employees to weigh out exactly 0.6 ounces of Flamin’ Hot Fritos for each burrito, which were bagged and rationed before burrito construction. As he pointed out (and as every loyal Taco Bell eater knows), weighing out ingredients is not part of the typical Taco Bell workflow. Sometimes you get more stuff in there than other times. Not the case, apparently, with the Fritos in the Beefy Crunch Burrito.

Also, and in massively awesome news, in December, Taco Bell flew Richard to Taco Bell headquarters and let him build his own Beefy Crunch Burrito in the test kitchen.  He got to use the sour cream gun! FoodBeast was there as well and wrote up the experience.

Just to reiterate: Taco Bell actually flies online Taco Bell fans to Taco Bell headquarters and gives them access to the Taco Bell test kitchen. HELLO TACO BELL I’M HERE IT’S TED.

How about this, Taco Bell? I promise you if you get me and Mark Sanchez in the test kitchen together and videotape it, once you edit out all the fawning you’ll wind up with the greatest Taco Bell commercial since Gidget the Chihuahua passed on.

Richard also gets to participate in Taco Bell insider conference calls and such. He owns the domain names http://www.beefycrunch.com, http://www.beefycrunchburrito.com and http://www.beefycrunchmovement.com, among others. There’s also — no joke — a Beefy Crunch Burrito hotline at 1-855-BEEFYCRUNCH. I just called it and it’s good. In short, you should like the Facebook page: This man is clearly a hero.

I’ve said my piece on the Doritos Locos Taco: It’s not bad, but it’s not anywhere close to the best thing on the Taco Bell menu and is, in fact, rather underwhelming.

But it turns out the gimmick paid off in a massive way, as the Doritos Locos Taco stands as the most successful new Taco Bell product ever. Obviously the curiosity had something to do with it. Also, I bet lots of people who don’t want to admit they love Taco Bell are always looking for an excuse to eat Taco Bell so they were like, “Oh, haha, we should totally try that new Doritos Locos Taco, can you believe that thing?”

Meanwhile, real Taco Bell fans know it’s the Cheesy Gordita Crunch or GTFO. I do need to try the Cheesy Gordita Crunch with the Doritos Locos Taco inside, which some Taco Bells will apparently make for you. Our man Catsmeat, who passed along this article, pulled it off and reported good things.

But if they’re willing to make one with a Doritos Locos Taco inside, they also must be willing to make one with a Volcano Taco inside, right? And there’s just no way that wouldn’t be much better.

If I made separate posts out of all the Taco Bell developments I haven’t covered in the last week, there’d be no room for anything else in this blog. There’s still some more to come (possibly tomorrow), but here are several Taco Bell items of note.

– Taco Bell experiments with Mountain Dew A.M.: Mountain Dew A.M., it turns out, is Mountain Dew mixed with orange juice. That sounds like something I might have found completely awesome when I was 7, or, alternately, like something I would have created myself (at that same age) if I had access to a soda fountain and some orange juice.

At 31, though, a Mountain Dew-O.J. hybrid just doesn’t sound very appealing. Or even mildly appealing. I don’t drink many sugary beverages though, so I’m probably not the target Mountain Dew audience. Also, as the linked post points out, “Dewdriver” and “Morning Dew” are much better names for the same thing.

Maybe it’s so you get caffeine in your Taco Bell orange juice? I’d rather have coffee, though. Back when I worked at the deli — before I drank coffee, I guess — I used to sometimes empty a can of Red Bull over ice in one of those big styrofoam deli cups and fill up the rest with unsweetened Iced Tea. The tea made the Red Bull more tolerable and the Red Bull made my hangover more tolerable.

Via Greg.

– Make your own Crunchwrap Supreme: Sarah Sprague passed along this recipe for a homemade Crunchwrap Supreme. If you lack access to Taco Bell this is probably extraordinarily useful.

– Taco tantrum happens: A man named Michael Smith in Huber Heights, Ohio, got so mad that his local Taco Bell forgot one of the tacos he ordered that he drove back to the drive-thru, exchanged words with employees, then drove his truck into the building. I like to imagine he was like, “I’ll show you a drive-thru!” Or something like that.

Alex, who passed this along, asked what my worst-ever reaction to a screwed-up Taco Bell order is. I’m not sure I have many, except, you know, driving back and telling them they screwed up my order. And I don’t even do that very often. All things considered, I’m a pretty mild-mannered guy about stuff like that, and the last thing I want to do is piss off the people who provide me Taco Bell. After too many screwed-up orders I stopped going to one of the three Taco Bells near my parents’ house, but that’s pretty much my only recourse.

In my years of Taco Bell-eating, I’ve really only seen one massive overreaction at the drive-thru. I detailed that here.

– I eat Firstmeal: Some of you may accuse me of burying the lead here, but I prefer to think of this post as swelling toward a climactic moment, like a Broadway play or something. Only this one’s anti-climactic because so is Firstmeal.

It turns out Phoenix is a Firstmeal location, so before we left that city for the Grand Canyon, I tried the Bacon and Egg Burrito, the Johnsonville Sausage and Egg Wrap, a Cinnabon Delight and a piece of hash brown. I figured the Johnsonville Sausage and Egg Wrap for a breakfast version of the Crunchwrap Supreme, but it is much smaller:

The Bacon and Egg Burrito seemed to feature the same underwhelming Taco Bell bacon we’ve encountered before, with some not particularly notable fast-food eggs and cheese. Once I added Fire Sauce it tasted like Fire Sauce, but that was pretty decidedly the best thing in there.

The Johnsonville deal was, honestly, a pretty poor advertisement for Johnsonville. The sausage patty inside was grey and rubbery. Uninspiring. I suppose it was wrapped up like a Crunchwrap Supreme to fit the full, round sausage patty, but it definitely could have benefited from a taco shell or some Crunchy Red Strips in there.

Actually, that goes for everything I tried at Taco Bell breakfast: Less breakfast, more Taco Bell. The only thing that distinguished it from any other fast food place’s breakfast is that many of the items are served in tortillas. None of them are even served in tacos! Plus, you’ve got all that Lava Sauce sitting right there and there’s just no way you’re going to convince me that’s not awesome on breakfast foods. Now put it on a Volcano Breakfast Burrito.

Hopefully that’s part of Phase 2.

The Cinnabon things are pretty delicious as they are filled with Cinnabon goo. The hash brown was notably good by fast-food hash brown standards.

Look here:

That is the forthcoming Beefy Nacho Burrito from Taco Bell, and from here it looks promising. Inside are ground beef, nacho cheese, sour cream and a brand-new Taco Bell ingredient they’re calling Queso Strips. Per this description, it sounds like they’re “queso-seasoned” tortilla strips, obviously carrying on the tradition of the Crunchy Red Strips and the Flamin’ Hot Fritos that were on the similarly named Beefy Crunch Burrito a couple of years ago — adding crunch to a portable burrito.

The above-photographed burrito isn’t burdened with the rice that hampered the Beefy Crunch Burrito. That’s good. Taco Bell rice isn’t particularly special and generally seems like a waste of valuable stomach space that can be filled with better Taco Bell stuff.

It does seem a little curious that after the massive hype around the Doritos Locos Taco, not to mention the aforementioned Fritos collaboration in the Beefy Crunch Burrito, Taco Bell would create a new “queso-seasoned” tortilla strip in house instead of partnering up with Frito Lay again. But I’ll take that to mean they needed to craft them just right and didn’t trust a third-party vendor with their specifications.

Also, I hope the emergence of the Queso Strips doesn’t spell doom for the Crunchy Red Strips. And furthermore, doesn’t queso just mean cheese? But they’re not strips of cheese, they’re cheese-flavored strips. Taco Bell rules.

This has been a long-time source of some shame for me, but I really haven’t visited a Taco Bell since childhood. Last night, I was staring at a late-night dilemma out in suburban Long Island where I continually pushed off grabbing something for dinner until my only options were fast food. I thought this would be a good time to foray back into Taco Bell, as I don’t really care much for your McD’s, KFC, etc. of the world. However, when I got there, I realized I had LITERALLY no idea what to get. I was holding up the drive-thru line for an awkward amount of time as I stumbled through the entirety of the menu until finally I gave up, knowing that I was not likely to come to any true consensus in my mind and just grabbed a 3 Taco Supreme combo meal.

It was satisfying, but I couldn’t help feel like I left something out on the table there. As I know you are the expert on all things TB, and feeling completely unfulfilled by my this effort and knowing that I NEED to make another trip soon to scratch the itch that now exists, can you give me a Top 3 “Go-to” items on that menu to either narrow my choices down to next time I get on that line, or simply order all 3 to sample, when I get there again (likely tonight, lets be honest)?

– Bill (but not the same Bill from before), via email.

OK, it all depends on where you’re planning on eating it. If you’re going to sit in the dining room (perhaps because you’re at the Rockville Centre, N.Y. Taco Bell and abiding by the town’s draconian anti-late-night-drive-thru law) or take it home, there’s one set of recommendations. If you’re going to eat it in the car as roughly 97% of all the world’s Taco Bell is consumed, there’s another.

Note: I don’t get these same things every time, or every time I’m driving or anything like that. But I do almost exclusively order ground-beef items at Taco Bell. Sorry, but the chicken doesn’t do it for me. If it’s your thing, great, and feel free to swap in chicken items where they correspond to those below.

Dining room only:

1) Volcano Taco: For me, the rare opportunity to eat Taco Bell while sitting means I am certainly getting a Volcano Taco, the best new menu item of the last five years. Sometimes I even get Volcano Tacos while driving and just deal with the inevitable Lava sauce stains on my shirt and jeans. They’re that good. They’re built like regular crunchy tacos, but they come in a red shell — which is novel — and they’re swimming in cheesy, fiery hot Lava sauce, which is incredible.

2) Baja Beef Gordita: I’m not even sure if the Baja Gorditas are technically on the menu anymore, but I’ve never had a Taco Bell employee balk at the order. Gorditas from Taco Bell, you may know, are Taco Bell stuff in pillowy, pita-like flatbread. Baja means it comes with Pepper Jack sauce instead of “Supreme,” which everyone knows is Taco Bell Spanish for “with Sour Cream.” It’s sort of floppy and messy, so driving while eating it is only for seasoned experts. I usually order mine with no tomatoes, as is the case with all the tomato-bearing items listed here.

For mobile users:

1) Crunchwrap Supreme: To date the only Taco Bell menu item that has inspired me to write poetry, the Crunchwrap Supreme is basically all of the Taco Bell stuff — lettuce, beef, nacho cheese, sour cream, and crunchy tortilla — wrapped up into one soft tortilla and grilled. It’s the ideal way to cram all the best Taco Bell flavors into one package, keep it crunchy and make it portable, and it’s among the greatest innovations in the post-Glen Bell-era of Mexican-inspired fast food.

2) MexiMelt: A MexiMelt is like a soft taco, only there’s no lettuce, they use the melty tri-color cheese that’s in some items, and they seal it all up so it’s perfect for driving. Also, the name “MexiMelt” will never not be funny to me. Taco Bell!

All situations:

Cheesy Gordita Crunch: The Cheesy Gordita Crunch is my favorite thing to order at Taco Bell. It’s an awesome carb bomb featuring a gordita shell affixed to a crunchy taco shell by melted cheese, filled with ground beef and covered with the Pepper Jack sauce. And it’s a feat of engineering: The taco-shell skeleton provides support for the soft flesh of gordita on the outside, so it has the strength the gordita lacks but doesn’t crumble like a crunchy taco when you bite into it. Sometimes it’s not on the menu but they’ll always make it for you.