hello everyone this is running on empty food review well hello ladies gentlemen and everyone
watching welcome one and all to this newest edition of the running on empty food review series
i'm your host the report of the week thank you for checking in hope everyone out there is feeling
doing all right well a little bit of a change up i mean honestly not really um but it is nice to
kind of take a little bit of a break from chicken sandwiches or burgers or the occasional pizza and
taco bell has a new release what i've always noticed when i do these reviews in terms of you
know you have some establishments that regularly pump out new items taco bell is one of those
places they're always coming out with something new you know i always like to think of them kind
of as as old reliable you know you could always count on a new release from taco bell usually
and uh this is no exception taco bell is uh they're really making waves with this one i
mean they really are if you want to talk about an item that is groundbreaking this is it right here
i don't really know if it is but that sounds good anyway
and you wouldn't believe i think the reaction when i first heard of this which was last night i think
my reaction if anything is an understatement to how most people are feeling about this
they just released the ad campaign so i found out about this by seeing a commercial
last night i was feasting on some boneless wings and i was enjoying the succulent boneless wings
and i had the television on in the background a taco bell ad came on i dropped the boneless wings
one of them fell to the ground the other somehow acquired a means of propulsion
and flew through the air for a while and that's where the phrase flying fish actually comes from
because every single object in the room myself the boneless wings and even all of the inanimate
objects were in an absolute state of shock taco bell released the cantina crispy melt taco
it comes with a fried white corn shell can you believe that i think that's what really did it
it comes with melted nacho cheese sauce a three cheese blend as well
shredded cheddar cheese on top of that seasoned beef sour cream lettuce and tomato the cheesiness
that's how that's what people are supposed to say i guess when they see that obviously the big
appeal for this one though is supposed to be all right instead of your regular you know just hard
shell taco or a soft tortilla this comes with the fried white corn shell which i don't think taco
bell has at least at the very least had those um in recent times at least as i recall this is one
of the first times i've really been promoting this so i thought that's an interesting touch so that's
supposed to be one of the appeals and likewise this is an item for all the cheese lovers out
there uh cheese aficionados as one may informally say or those are interested perhaps in some cheap
eats the price for this taco as is uh standard with taco bell fairly affordable two dollars and
nineteen cents for the taco itself but that's what it is again it's supposed to be cheesy supposed to
have a little bit of a crisp to it as well and then everything will be balanced out with some
beef some lettuce tomato and the sour cream as well again at the price of two dollars 19 cents
the cantina crispy melt taco let's see how it is i got the taco itself so it comes in the crispy
wrapping as well you can kind of hear definitely got a little bit of crisp going on there
let's open it up and see what we have
even come look at this this is a collector's item right here look at that
what does that even say chessy
i guess that's like a new meme or something
and crispy and there it is right there
all right now if i pull it out this is like when the groundhog comes out of its lair on groundhog
day it's seeing the world right now uh you can see though the difference in the uh
in the shell compared to how it normally is as a matter of fact this might make for an
interesting thumbnail so i'm gonna i'm just gonna do something with this right now um
i'll try this
and
like i said we'll just figure it out but you can you can get a um
it might be interesting too i don't know
um but you could see there's those tomatoes very vibrant i must say again there's the white
the white corn tortilla if i'm not mistaken the white corn shell there we go i want to get the
terminology right um but again you can see some of the beef in there i don't see too much of the uh
the melted cheese i mean i see some cheese action but certainly not a ton looks a little different
than what the picture portrays um but you know you can't judge a book by its cover so we'll see
and uh with that i think we got a good enough view of it i mean you know what's on it i know
what's on it we all know what's on it so let's try it out the cantina crispy melt
taco from taco bell let's see what it tastes like and if it's good or not it's going in
you
so this is an interesting one
i think personally one's enjoyment of this item here's what i'll say it's going to come down
to your personal preferences in terms of how do you like your tacos right how do you like
how do you like it i think some people are really gonna like this and may even enjoy this particular
element whereas others and maybe not so much so what i'm gonna do i'm just gonna tell you what
i got and probably what you'll be in for and then make up your own mind and go from there
all right we've outlined that this item has a good list of ingredients right it has
the cheese blend that has the three cheeses the shredded cheese the nacho cheese
it has of course the shell has the beef has the sour cream lettuce tomato
one thing that again it will irk some people and it may please others is this item is extremely
layered as a matter of fact probably one of the most layered items i've ever seen from taco bell
in terms of how each layer is distinct in and of itself akin to kind of the
you know the various bands of of the different atmospheric gases on on jupiter for instance you
know you see the different bands of clouds etc and um well that's that's a comparison i never thought
i'd be making um but there you have it you can see at the bottom for instance that's the cheese right
there see that's that blend of the cheese that they were talking about all right then you can
see right above that is the beef then you have the sour cream layer then you have the lettuce layer
the shredded cheese layer and then the tomato layer at the top and everything is
blended together i shouldn't everything is it's actually what i wasn't going to say everything
is independent of itself so what does that mean exactly well here's what i'm getting at depending
on how you decide to tackle this and how you decide to eat it there may be instant there
may be instances where you um bite in and you know if you if you take perhaps a smaller bite
you may just wind up getting a little bit of a mouthful of cheese in other cases you might just
kind of get a combination of some of the cheese and the beef or some of the beef and the sour
cream or some of the lettuce and tomato etc you'd really have to stuff the whole thing in your mouth
or just go ahead and mix it up yourself to try to get an adequate combination of everything
but again some people might find that a little bit iffy and they'd be like i kind of want to taste
everything at once though for some that's not going to be a problem at all and um it's not going
to be an issue and uh for others again it might be a good thing i just needed to outline that just so
you know what you're in for um in case you do get this a lot of the time i've noticed with taco bell
a lot of stuff actually just blends together this is one of the instances where it doesn't
necessarily but that's not to say that it doesn't work in that it doesn't necessarily taste good
this is one of those items that i think if you like your cheese and um you like cheesy tacos or
burritos etc just cheese in general i think you'll be a fan of this one because there is
cheese to some capacity in every single bite you could really taste the nacho cheese of course
that's most prevalent so it spreads around the most and um again if you get a little bit of that
in your bite you'll still be able to really taste that and i would say that is the prevailing flavor
of this taco of course at the very top though you do have the shredded cheddar cheese surprisingly
enough you know a little bit of that still does go a long way and there is a bit of that as well
um so it's a very cheesy taco i mean you're going to notice that in every single bite like i said
i believe regardless of where you happen to take that bite you will be getting that cheese
um credit where credit is due the tomatoes are fresh i would say that they're quite
moist actually they provide um just a nice freshness to the taco so i'll give them that
same thing actually with the lettuce the lettuce is a little more on the crisp side than i would
have anticipated it because there have been many instances where i've gone to taco bell
and they have had um lettuce that's just a little soggy and kind of stringy and it's just you know
maybe not the freshest in the world but in this case nice fresh crisp lettuce and the
tomatoes likewise which is a good thing to see i'm always somebody's a fan of that um
the sour cream layer does work it does work i think one and see this is the thing this is one
of those things taco bell knows this there's no reason for me to even really outline this
because i already know it um taco bell sometimes falls into this trap where sometimes everything
can just blend in too much together and you just get the saltiness of the uh the seasoned beef and
it just mixes in with the cheese and and all of that it just kind of becomes this kind of
you know not necessarily bad um but just this kind of mix on the blander side of flavors at
the very least it's the same stuff so the sour cream kind of cuts into that and um
livens said even a word livens it up a little bit you know makes it more lively and exciting perhaps
and uh otherwise of course the big star of the dish the uh the tortilla or the shell more or less
you could really you could really smell it i mean that's the interesting thing actually the um
the scent that it gives off it's just like you know your corn
tortilla chips really that's what it smells like and honestly that's the most comfortable
uh taste now i know one can kind of get particular and they could say yeah but it's the
it's the um white corn shell etc but really it's just no different just akin to that of a corn
um tortilla chip that this is what it tastes like quite frankly and um it's not bad though
it works ties everything together and in terms of taco shells it's actually a bit more on the
the flavorful side a lot of the time the shell is just kind of that neglected thing it's like
uh the shell you know it just holds it together and that's that's a big deal
um in this instance though it actually is more flavorful than i would have imagined
in the end though it's really not that bad um you could see that even though it's got all the sauces
and everything it's not messy to eat so i would say that this is something that you could get and
uh consume in the car if you're on lunch break or something and you wouldn't have to worry about any
disastrous results plus it comes in a little taco holder but in the end the ingredients are fresh
like i said i wish maybe that they would have blended together a little bit better but
honestly i think that may just be a specific issue to me everything works
so everything is actually balanced out better than i thought that it would be
and um what took me by surprise pleasantly was the shell more flavorful than i thought it would be
so that was that was nice to see and it's available for the price of 2.99 cents real
quick i'm just going to put a little bit of hot sauce on it and then we'll call it a day
the spice works the spice indeed works and one of those things that definitely if you want to
spice it up a little bit certainly going to pose no detraction so take that into account but all in
all standard taco bell but honestly it's not that bad i've had much worse like i said everything
blends together it might not be something that i'm absolutely raving about but at the same time it
doesn't taste bad either so taking everything into account i'm gonna be rating the taco bell cantina
crispy melt taco i'm going to give it a 7.7 out of 10 because again i really can't find
too many complaints yeah you could find some basic things in terms of the preparation but in the end
the ingredients are fine it works and it tastes good for what it is it's at a decent price too
happy about the flavor of the shell as well which is really the namesake of the item
so um we're not even talking about i don't think that is the namesake but it's
scratch that but either way i'm happy with it so that's all that i have for you thank
you for watching today's review i'm your host thereportoftheweek until next time