The Taco Bell that’s closest to my house is a very special one: it always has the special test items that only very special people in very special cities get to taste, well before the less-special general public even hears about them. This month’s taste treat is the ultimately forbidding Taco Bell Forbidden Melt Taco.
It features an edible taco holder made from the storm clouds of a thousand children’s tears — actually, it’s just a fried blue corn tortilla shell. At first glance, it looks badly burnt and overcooked, but images can be deceiving. This taco shell, while nowhere near the genius of the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa, still makes a delicious enough mark on the ever-changing and always evolving Taco Bell menu.
But, to this hungry Chicano, what truly makes the Forbidden Melt even better is the titular “melted” part inside the taco shell. Beyond the zesty meat, cool reduced-fat sour cream, iceberg lettuce, and shards of cheese is what has to be a good ladle’s worth of Taco Bell’s patented nacho cheese, poured along the edible fault-line, definitely making it even more verboten.
The main problem — and this, sadly, is usually an issue with many Taco Bell products — is that while the molten cheese is a bright yellow cream dream come true, after a few minutes of sitting in the bag, the belly of this blue corn beast swells to a mostly soggy mess. The cheese sauce completely seeps through the specially-made taco shell.
The one tip I have to defeat this meat-loosening bulge? Take some time, try to relax, and enjoy the Taco Bell Forbidden Melt Taco fresh out of the fryer, while the outside is still a crispy lark and the inside a gooey mess. Instead of going through the drive-thru, how about setting up in the dining area, quietly learning to love this blue corn-based forbidden fruit Taco Bell menu item.
Purchased Price: $1.99
Size: N/A
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Unavailable.