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 thanks for checking in well here we are another video another
review by some miracle taco bell has released another item i think i make the same exact
joke and pretty much every review that i do but obviously there is a lot of truth to it i always
pretend that you know taco bell never releases things but i think these days i think they are by
far the most consistent uh releaser of items so to speak but i mean in the end look i review all this
stuff so am i am i complaining no of course not um i actually wish that more places would release
stuff not just because it gives me videos to do obviously but it's fun when you see what these
establishments come up with you know what are they able to do what are they able to release
and it is fun in a way that you're able to look at these new items and you know yeah it's like hit or
miss but you you always wonder is this going to be really good right and you never know now this is
the return of an item i think they released this originally back in 2021 if i'm not mistaken and
it is back now i will say this right off the bat i tried this out at least some derivative thereof
back in 2021 and i really liked it i thought it was solid and so did a lot of other people
some folks have actually gone as far as to say that this is their favorite item on the
taco bell menu now i know that people get really defensive about that and people you know there's
always now this is better than that people get really really loyal to their taco bell favorites
but some people out there were saying you know what those cantina crispy chicken tacos
they're solid and i concur with that i wouldn't say it's the best thing on their menu but when
i tried it out last year it was good um and we know the taco bell can be you know they could
be really iffy sometimes so it's nice when you see an item there that really you know
they hit the mark and it's good and all of that expectations are exceeded so they brought it back
and obviously a lot of folks are excited about it it's not the most complex item in the world so
this will probably be a straightforward review but what my goal today is going to be i always like
to just check when they bring an item back number one have things changed right number two are they
maintaining the standards so if this was a good item last year is it still going to be one this
year i know the economy is what it is right now i know yeah taco bell was pretty cheap but still
this is your hard-earned money we're talking about you want to make sure it goes out to something
that you actually enjoy and you want to eat so we're going to find out if this is any good still
so the cantina crispy chicken taco here's what it is it's a piece of crispy chicken so think of
it essentially as like a glorified chicken tender fried breaded crispy so you've got like a chicken
chicken tender a chicken strip it's inside a soft flour tortilla
and on it is lettuce and tomato and cheddar cheese so like i said this is a very straightforward
basic item you've got the crispy chicken lettuce tomato cheddar cheese and then you can get two
variants of this the first comes with the chipotle sauce for a little bit of spice
and then the second one which is more this is like the one that everyone goes with and that's
what i'm going to be trying out today uh has avocado ranch sauce obviously avocado for all
them quirky millennials out there and a blend of again avocado ranch like i said i tried this
out in 2021 i liked that sauce i thought it tied it all together so we're gonna see
i did notice right off the bat though uh this year the price is a bit higher and uh granted
yeah this is taco bell we're talking about but when it's something that's the size of a soft taco
i'm paying three bucks for this so like i said it's just the way things are right now
um and these are just you know changing times but this is just how it is so three dollars i also got
some baja blast because i like the taste and i like the way it looks too
so that's going to be my refreshment to help wash it all down all right
here it is standard size that's like exactly what you would expect to see in a like a soft
taco so now let's take a look at it and let's see what we got the cantina crispy chicken taco
i'm not gonna i'm not even gonna touch it i just i just
i want you to look at this and just see it for yourself
this is this is what we've got
i know they say don't judge a book by its cover but i mean look just look at it all right
i don't know maybe it's still going to be good i just have a feeling and i you know i don't
want to be the person that rants all the time i don't want to be the person that hates everything
but i swear if i had to make a judgment just looking at this thing i'd say it's
going to be another one of those videos but i don't know it's just
preparation wise it leaves a lot to be desired that's all that i could say
um i guess it's easy to take it out though i guess i could do that and you could just get a
see it's like a little chicken tender like a little piece of crispy chicken
it's like something you'd see at a fast you know like like a
mcdonald's or sonic type of place right little chicken tender there and that goes in the tortilla
and then surrounding it is obviously the cheddar cheese
and that's the um avocado ranch sauce on the bottom there did they they even did they put
any tomatoes no they didn't i guess they didn't put any tomatoes in so it is missing an ingredient
there is there a run on tomatoes i don't know and again that's the avocado ranch sauce on that side
um in the pictures it has more of a greenish hue to it but i guess it is what it is all right well
to be honest it doesn't doesn't look all that good but i'm going to try it out nonetheless and uh hey
we'll find out right we'll find out so far though
just purely by the looks the one last year blew this thing out of the water anyway who
knows let's try it out the cantina crispy chicken taco 2022 edition from taco bell it's going in
before i lose my train of thought real quick
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hey you got a radio break it out tune in that announcement was exceedingly hard to give because
you know i try not to be i try to give items a chance i really i try i'm just going to say
this outright with this item that i got today this is disgusting this really is it is um
this is completely disgusting
and it was just that that's why i said look just because you're going to forget about that stuff as
soon as you begin this assessment just so promote that broadcast because otherwise you're going to
forget about it if you just give the assessment now that thing is that is vile that is horrible
and i i mean i'm not usually i try not to be this direct with these uh reviews
but there is not a single redeeming i mean the tortilla i guess that's it
i don't think there's other aside from that and maybe a little bit of the lettuce i can't think
of a single good thing to say about this it's overpriced it's disgusting it tastes horrible
i don't know what they did to it from 2021 to 2022 but this is bad i mean
i'll give it the you know here's the benefit of the doubt and we understand this and i'll
i'll say this just for you to consider and you've got to make up your own mind
here we understand especially with taco bell that individual preparation is key
so your place might not screw it up this bad but i'm beginning to think if the ingredients
especially the chicken if it's that bad across the board then it doesn't matter it
doesn't matter whose hands this is in that it's just going to be ruined from the start i mean
when i tried this out last year it was good it was it was legitimately good the chicken
was fine it tasted like a chicken tender but you had this creamy avocado ranch sauce and the ranch
had this nice sharpness to it but the avocado just tied it all together and it was simple
but it was really good and it's like they took every good thing and just did the inverse of it
and drove this thing right into the ground smashed it into the ground pretty much
i mean where do i even begin let's start with the chicken
so now number one we're paying three dollars for this thing and you see this this little um chicken
tender it's like a glorified chicken nugget really in terms of its size it takes up maybe
a third of something that isn't even that big to begin with this is the size of a soft taco
and you try it out this thing's minuscule so you've got over half of the the item that the meat
isn't even there and this is egregious this is you could obviously just see it with your own eyes
then i bite into the chicken i mean taco bell i know they're not known for their
chicken and i know sometimes i've said that it's like a little spongy or whatever that
has to be the worst piece of chicken i've ever tried at least from taco bell at least there's
not a good thing i can say about it the thing it just it it tastes wrong it tastes bad only
flavors that i could taste aside from just this off flavor that i can't even describe it's just
it's like filled with oil like flavorless fat and oil and like i said it's got this off
taste to it there might be something wrong with that piece of chicken for all i know
because that's i mean that's how bad i'm talking right now
and then on another note the outside of it i taste this char on the outside
that adds insult to injury so that's the problem then you've got the sauce
which used to be good a year ago and then this time it's just totally underwhelming those
sharp notes that used to be there in the ranch aren't anymore and it's just like this creamy
mostly flavorless um sauce that it's like all right so great i've got this vile tasting chicken
that's now extra moist with this creamy sauce that i can't really discern any good um remarkable
qualities of there's no tomatoes on it the cheddar cheese all right the cheddar cheese
just is what it is it kind of melts together into this solid block but it does nothing it
is it doesn't salvage this thing at all and the lettuce some of the lettuce was just like a little
soggy and a little chewy and then this is priced higher than it was a year ago no this is bad this
is bad this is um i don't know what they did to it but taco bell i mean this is the only good
thing i can say is that at least they release a lot of items so we're going to we're going
to see what they try out next and all i could say is i really hope it's going to be better
than what i got here it has to be that's all i could say this is horrible 1 out of 10 i'm giving
this uh i'd pass on this if i were you we're just hoping your place just does a better job than this
that's all that i have for you thank you for watching i'm your host the report of the week