Doritos Locos Tacos at Taco Bell

After the hullabaloo that was made out of Marilyn Hagerty’s Olive Garden review, I thought to myself, “What would make a crazier restaurant review than Olive Garden?” Fortunately, while I was driving home tonight the answer was shining at me from the side of the road. In a mash-up that should turn out a whole lot better than that comic book where Indy was supposed to meet Chewie and Han, Taco Bell has just introduced the Doritos Locos Tacos! When I saw the signs beckoning me into the hallowed halls of the FourthMeal, I yanked my car across four lanes of traffic into the Taco Bell parking lot. A lovely young woman wearing a giant foam Doritos Locos Tacos hat took my order, and handed over the powdery, cheesy goodness. (My apologies for not snapping a picture of the hat. She was quite bashful. Orange County Register’s article has a picture of the hat for reference)

Without further ado, here’s my review of the new Doritos Locos Tacos at Taco Bell. As the slogan says, the Doritos Locos Tacos is “Taco Bell on the inside, Doritos on the outside.” And, to no surprise, there is nothing new inside of the taco. It is just a standard Crunchy Taco Supreme: just good ole’ diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and cheddar cheese on top of sour cream and seasoned ground beef. The flavor of the much anticipated Doritos shell is surprisingly mediocre. The shell did not have nearly as strong a flavor as I expected it would. It seems that they are using a lot less of the “flavor dust” on the shells than they do on the chips. Also, the texture of the Doritos shell is much softer than regular Doritos chips or even Taco Bell’s normal hard taco shells. Isn’t a taco shell supposed to break when you bite into it? It was crispy, but my teeth just sank into it when I took a bite. Also, my taco became soggy from the sour cream and meat in the less than 5 minutes it took me to find somewhere to park. The Doritos Locos Tacos came wrapped in paper and packaged in card stock packaging shaped like a taco. I found this out the hard way when I tried to eat mine in the car while I was driving; it was quite a surprise when I bit into cardboard! This is most likely to prevent “Doritos fingers” and to help it keep its shape, which I appreciated after the initial surprise.

In summary, the Doritos Locos Taco wasn’t bad, but unfortunately, it wasn’t good enough to make me want to buy it again. Although this seemed like the perfect combination of two brands’ iconic products, it turned out to about as boring as that episode of The Simpsons when Jay Sherman of “The Critic” judges a film festival in Springfield. Perhaps if Taco Bell and Doritos improve the hardness, or crispiness, of the shell and consider adding more of that yummy “flavor dust” I would consider trying it again. Until then, I’ll stick with the Cheesy Gordita Crunch.