Taco Bell is going big for the month of November! Two months back, Taco Bell reached out to fans and asked whether they’d want to see the Double Decker Taco or Enchirito make a brief return to the menu. It looks like the Enchirito won that contest and now the wet, sauce-covered burrito is back until the month’s end. But that’s not the only new dish Taco Bell is bringing to the menu. Beginning today, Taco Bell will also launch the 7-Layer Nacho Fries as well as a vegetarian version of that same dish, and the 7-Layer Nacho Fries Burrito, which is essentially everything in the 7-Layer Nacho Fries, crammed into a warm flour tortilla.
That’s a lot of new food out of Taco Bell, so we’re pretty psyched to see whether the Bell has dropped any new menu favorites that’ll hold their own against the Mexican Pizza — which looks like it’s enjoying an extended run on the menu. Is Taco Bell slowly building up its menu to pre-pandemic levels of variety? It looks like it, but our hope is that if the Taco Bell menu gets bigger, it’s because it’s being populated with legitimately tasty dishes not just variety for variety’s sake.
We picked up the Enchirto, the 7-Layer Nacho Fries, and the 7-Layer Nacho Fries Burrito to see which new menu item is essential, and which isn’t worth your time. Let’s start with the Enchirito.
Enchirito
Tasting Notes:
While, personally, I was pulling for the return of the Double Decker Taco, I have to admit, the Enchirito is truly the dish that deserved to come back. The burrito was first introduced on the Taco Bell menu back in the ‘70s and is the Bell’s version of a wet burrito (a burrito doused in sauce that you eat with a knife and fork). It was discontinued back in 2013 — almost a full decade ago — so not only have hardcore Taco Bell fans been missing out on this dish for a whole nine years but there is probably an entire generation of Taco Bell fans who haven’t ever had or heard of this dish.
The Enchirito features a grip of seasoned beef, beans, and onions wrapped in a tortilla that is drowning in Taco Bell’s hot red sauce and melted cheddar cheese. It smells absolutely foul. Straight up, the Enchirito smells like something that shouldn’t ever be in your body, and will probably expel itself soon after you eat it. I know, I know, that sounds disgusting, but once you bite into this thing — well… any stomach pain it causes will be well worth it.
This is simply one of Taco Bell’s best dishes. It’s beefy and savory with an umami-rich mild tomato-forward sauce that tastes wonderfully decadent and satisfying. The only true sin of this burrito is that it doesn’t have nearly enough cheese.
Taco Bell’s entire menu is a lesser version of Tex-Mex and Cal-Mex style Mexican food, but the Enchirito is the closest the chain restaurant has ever come to making something as good as the classics that actually inspired it.
The Bottom Line:
Beefy and savory with a mild pepper-forward sauce that elevates Taco Bell’s seasoned ground beef into something truly delicious.
7-Layer Nacho Fries
Tasting Notes:
I’m a big fan of Taco Bell’s Nacho Fries. They’re peppered with a zesty mix of paprika, chili powder, onion powder, and salt with a crispy exterior that makes them audibly crunchy while still housing molten hot buttery potato inside. They are easily in the top five of the greatest fast food French fries of all time — seriously, they’re that good.
Frustratingly, Taco Bell is always taking them off the menu only to bring them back later in order to whip up fanfare. It’s obnoxious, but as much as Taco Bell annoys me with its marketing it’s a little hard to be too mad at them when you have a dish this good.
I mentioned that the Enchirito was one of Taco Bell’s best dishes, well the 7-Layer Nacho Fries are even better. The seven layers in question include seasoned beef, chipotle sauce, black beans, sour cream, tomatoes, cheese, nacho cheese sauce, and guacamole. No, you counted right, that’s eight layers, not seven. I don’t know why Taco Bell made this error, but I don’t really care, because like I said, this dish is delicious.
The mouthfeel is on point — it’s crispy thanks to the fries, which serve as a great base for the ground beef, whole black beans, and mix of sauces. The initial flavor is zesty, followed by a blast of salty and savory flavors with a hint of tang and spice via the sour cream and chipotle sauce with a nice buttery and vegetal finish by way of the guacamole and tomatoes.
Here is the issue with this dish though — like the Nacho’s Bell Grande — there just aren’t enough toppings here. This makes for an incredibly inconsistent dish. The first few bites will give you an explosion of flavor, but at one point you’ll just be eating slightly dirty fries with ghost notes of the toppings. If Taco Bell would be just a bit more generous with those toppings, it would elevate this dish from great to absolutely essential.
The Bottom Line:
A near-perfect mix of salty and savory Taco Bell flavors.
7-Layer Nacho Fries Burrito
Tasting Notes:
And now we need to talk about the burrito. I hate to leave this review on a bad note but this burrito takes everything that’s delicious about the above dish and absolutely ruins it. The portioning is admittedly better here, you get an equal mix and distribution of the 8 ingredients in this burrito, but something about the way the fries steam in the tortilla turns this mix of flavors into absolute mush. It’s just a chore to get through and the tortilla isn’t really big enough to properly house the ingredients, so the more you chew into it the more it starts to fall apart.
The fries are inedible here, and the tortilla isn’t warmed up enough to have the flexibility it needs to make this dish work. Maybe ordering it grilled with save it and add some texture into the dish, but as it is it’s just too muddled and messy to really taste good.
The Bottom Line:
It’s a great idea but Taco Bell hasn’t perfected the art of putting fries into a burrito yet. Skip this and order the platter instead.
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