Like the bright shimmer of hidden gold from the lost city of El Dorado, Taco Bell’s newest menu item is a shining beacon of simple ingenuity filtered through pure borderland knowhow. The Toasted Cheddar Chalupa is a revelation of fried bread and cheese, combined the way Quetzalcoatl intended.
When unwrapped from its thin paper sheath, the grease stains catching the light allows the chalupa shell to portray a certain kind of inalienable beauty. Taco Bell has turned this thick carb-heavy casing into a surprising work of edible art that feels right at home in my quivering hands.
The basis of the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa is the chalupa shell itself: an amazing feat of Tex-Mex handcraftiness. It’s a fried centerpiece that, now with the yellow bits of cheddar cheese clinging for additional flavor, is a treasured piece of corporate frybread that one could eat all day if they ever decided to stop living by the laws of common decency.
Seriously, if Taco Bell were to ever offer these chalupa shells by themselves, I would order a slick dozen fresh from the fryer, no problem. Call it sacrilege if you must, but I actually prefer them to the lauded Doritos Locos taco shells.
The typical Taco Bell fillings are all present and accounted for — temperate ground beef, cool lettuce, chopped tomatoes, stringy cheese, and reduced fat sour cream. They all seem to be spiritually created simply to mate graphically with this chalupa shell.
It was still crunchy even after an hour or two of sitting by itself on my dining room table. Even the best tacos the Bell has to offer can’t live up to that scrutiny.
More of this please, Taco Bell.
Purchased Price: $2.49
Size: N/A
Rating: 10 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 450 calories, 30 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 550 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugar, and 16 grams of protein.
I greatly enjoyed this review, and even tho my fast food indulgence boils down to a DQ burger once a month, this one made my mouth water. I’ll be checking it out!
Spot-on review in my opinion. I had this the other day and I thought it was good. Standard Taco Bell fare, but the shell was quite tasty and added a new flavor to the mix. Would I order it again? Yeah, I think I would.
10/10!
Tried one earlier in the week, it was good but I didn’t care for the bland sour cream. On their app they give you an option to substitute the sour cream for the spicy ranch from the cheesy gordita crunch, which sounds much better, but my local Taco Bell almost never pays attention to customizations I try in the app on orders so I’ll probably never find out what one of these tastes like with that spicy ranch in it instead of the crappy sour cream.
This is heaven on earth! My husband bought me one and I couldn’t try it until later. Even 2 hours cold it tasted amazing. I hope they never stop making this.
Hey, I really enjoyed this post. I love your descriptive language. When you talked about way it sat in your hand- chills! I wanna read more of your work but I’m new to this app and can’t figure out how to get to your site. Let me know.