Taco Bell might be in the middle of a menu revolution, and we’re totally onboard. Back in March the Mexican-inspired chain launched its Cantina Chicken Menu, which we called easily the best collection of new food they’ve launched, well, ever. If you think that’s just hyperbole, we promise you, it’s not.
A new menu item proving so promising is exciting because until recently, Taco Bell’s main strategy this decade has been to remove beloved foods from its menu (the Mexican Pizza, the 7 Layer Burrito, the Volcano Burrito), only to bring them back in a transparent way to ignite excitement amongst its fans. As a hungry person who just wants good food at a cheap price, it’s quite frankly, obnoxious. Especially because the Cantina Chicken menu proves that when Taco Bell does finally decide to launch something new, they hit out of the park and honestly, we’d gladly give up a few menu staples for genuinely new food.
Which is why we’re hyped for Taco Bell’s newest dish, the Cheesy Street Chalupa. These chalupas are available nationwide and consist of a tortilla shell stuffed with melted mozzarella, cilantro, onion, and your choice of Cantina chicken or grilled steak, all topped with T-Bell’s Jalapeño Ranch sauce.
We ordered the dish with both protein options to break down the tasting notes and let you know which you should order. Let’s eat.
Cheesy Street Chalupa
Thoughts & Tasting Notes:
The build of the Cheesy Street Chalupa is indulgence at its finest. The shell consists of two pieces of deep-fried flatbread melded together with melted mozzarella and pepper jack, the cheese doesn’t have much dimension (I’m getting zero spice from the pepper jack), but it provides a nice salty and buttery flavor that tastes great with the sweetness of the flatbread.
Those more indulgent flavors are joined by a mix of peppery chopped cilantro and some biting, mildly spicy white onion, which add a sense of freshness to the dish that serves as a nice balance for the creamy and spicy tang of the jalapeño ranch sauce.
A single order comes with two chalupas in a portable paper holder that would presumably allow you to walk around on the streets with the dish. I’m not sure why anyone would do that, but the street food connection seems to be very important to Taco Bell, even though ironically, most people are going to be ordering these chalupas via the drive-thru. Having said that, if you’re going to be eating the chalupas in the car, the packaging works pretty well!
The Cheesy Street Chalupas come with your choice of chopped Cantina Chicken, which has a nice zesty and herbal flavor with a tender texture, or Taco Bell’s steak, which is chewy, and a bit flavorless. The steak has this weird texture, like the meat has been spoiled or steamed. If it had some char typical of carne asada, I could see that working for this dish. But that’s not the case here.
Because of that, we think the Cantina Chicken is the best option for this dish.
The Bottom Line:
There is a lot of flavor here! The chalupas provide a medley of familiar Taco Bell flavors, they’re a bit spicy, salty, sweet, and zesty, with an indulgent vibe that could easily be anyone’s favorite Taco Bell dish.
We won’t go as far as saying the Cheesy Street Chalupa is as essential as the Cantina Chicken Menu, but they’re a damn good new addition to the base menu, which is much more appreciated than rehashing a discontinued dish.
