A survey of area fast food, ad nauseam

Okay, I'm back with the fast food reviews. I had put this one off, because the last time I went there I left feeling sick. I didn't want to write a review based on that past experience - I wanted to be in the moment. I've taken a few (well deserved, I think) swipes at Taco Bell, but I went back, ate their food, and here's my review:

First of all, I won't do the Taco Bell extravaganzas - that is, the stuff with sour cream, guacamole, Crisco, saturated pig fat, battery acid, and two other items that make it into the seven layer something or other. I'll scout these places out, but I won't drink the Kool-Aid. Taco Bell has some evil products, dietetically, which I simply refuse to sample, based on personal taste and a generally non-suicidal outlook on life.

There was a time in my life when I frequented "The Bell" on a regular basis - happy times in my life, when I was unbelievably poor, my best friend was a stoner, and I was young and happy and maybe a couple of pounds overweight. Taco Bell complemented my lifestyle, because, as I said, I was young and poor and hanging out with potheads. We could buy a half dozen tacos for about what we could dig out of the seat cushions of our car. Several trips to Southern California and living for years in a town with a large Hispanic population have upped the ante somewhat, and Taco Bell has failed to call my bluff.

So, I ordered a couple of soft tacos. While not terrible I would certainly call them lacking. Lacking flavor, first of all - the flour tortilla is an over-powering mess, sapping any taste from it's interior. There is absolutely nothing gastronomic to be gained from this shell. It sucks any flavor from it's mediocre interior, leaving one with an equivalent mouthful of Wonder Bread. Corn tortillas (which I know you can get with the hard tacos - give them to us on the soft ones) aren't available.

The "meat": please don't call it that. The reality is some kind of paste or sauce, and referring to it as "meat" only emboldens the vegans (and I think we can all agree that doing so would be unfortunate). This is Chef Boyardee-style meat, a suitable substitute only if your mother didn't give a damn. It's cousins are Spam, and army rations, and tripe, and anything that sacrifices substance for style (big time - like Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly).

Taco Bell is currently marketing their product as "fourth meal", an additional meal on top of a diet of fat and soda. Their goal, apparently, is to push those of you with eating addictions to the upper stratosphere of loser-dom. Shrewd and immoral marketing, in my opinion.

My soft tacos weren't so bad, although there was a consistency issue. Some had a good amount of the meat paste, some were significantly lettuce, and the amount of cheese varied. I would think, given the mechanical nature of the finished product there would be some across the board uniformity. I think, instead, that these are products assembled by men with little regard to their individual mass, given that those masses are nearly valueless.

The cheese is really horrible, with a thin white veil - it is apparent that it isn't fresh. I'm thinking either several days old or frozen. I think my second guess is more likely, although I wouldn't rule out a combination of the two. The lettuce is similarly "not of this earth", but that is par for the course. It's seen some bad times, but it's not talking...

You do, of course, always have the option of spicing up your meal with the hot sauce Taco Bell so graciously provides. I chose the "Fire" sauce, the hottest of the bunch, which I found to be the equivalent of ketchup on the "wussy to spicy" scale. Maybe my tolerance is too high, but this stuff is basically taco sauce for Queen Elizabeth...

I don't recommend Taco Bell, given that there are so many other similar places that offer something other than a "paste-based" dining experience. I do recommend that if you are an individual living on Mars or the Moon in the near future, once we have colonized, that you stop in for a simulated taste of what we once enjoyed on Earth...