I feel like there’s some really clever joke that does something with the idea, “Hey, you got your Taco Bell in my Burger King!” but I can’t actually think of the joke; I just know it’s out there, somewhere, in the ether. Maybe “My Burger King may taste like Taco Bell today, but at least my Dunkin’ doesn’t taste like Arby’s!” Nah. I’m going to need to workshop this one.

We’ve been getting some dinners from Burger King lately since the BK in the area is right on the way home from my daughter’s dance class, so it was very convenient to try out this new sandwich. Apparently, there are other special chicken sandwiches on offer right now: an Italian-style and an American-style, but the Mexican is the only new offering — others are returning fare.

I’ve always been fond of the BK long-and-thin chicken sandwich, so it was an appealing package right out of the paper sack. When I opened the sandwich up to see its beautiful innards, I saw a whole bunch of green specks that looked a bit like grains of rice. Later, I would find out these are little pieces of fried (and crunchy) jalapeno. I purposely didn’t look up the components for this item before tasting it so I would take note of what I was actually tasting and not what I was “supposed” to taste, so the little green bits were mysterious at first, although now I can’t imagine what else they could have been besides jalapeno. The other spicy component is a queso that is slathered on the buns.

For the first few bites, it was just a regular BK chicken sandwich. I asked my husband, “Are you sure you got me the Mexican one?” He gave me a “How stupid do you think I am?” look and I sheepishly returned to eating my strangely-oblong sandwich. Fortunately, it was at that point I started biting into the little jalapeno crumbs of joy and a pleasant spice began burning my mouth. This is actually pretty spicy, with the queso cheese bringing most of the heat, but as I’ve mentioned recently, I am new to spicy food so my “really spicy” might be someone else’s “meh, whatever.” That said, this sandwich was about as fiery as my food can get before it becomes a problem and I need a drink (and possibly some consoling), so it’s definitely not bland.

So, between the jalapeno and the queso, there’s definitely some spicy action going on here, but is it really “Mexican?” I can’t decide. With those two components, the sandwich definitely should taste Tex-Mex, but something about the stolid flavor of the original BK chicken sandwich seems to fight against that. I definitely want to have it again though, so it’s clear BK did something right. Even though they don’t carry the brunt of the spice quotient, those tiny little green jalapeno fried bits are addictive; as soon as I finished my sandwich, I ate all the little jalapeno pieces that had fallen onto my wrapper.

There’s something in me that doesn’t want to give this sandwich a high score because it’s not “really” Mexican, but….so what? More importantly, it was delicious, and deliciously spicy. Now I have a new dinner order for dance class nights.

Purchased Price: $5.29
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 680 calories, 31 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 50 milligrams of cholesterol, 1900 milligrams of sodium, 75 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 28 grams of protein.