Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Fast Food Review: Del Taco Chicken Fajita Burrito

I usually can count on Del Taco to come up with good promotions. But after a string of things I liked - the chicken mole taco, the crispy shrimp taco, the jalapeno rings - they came out with an absolute monstrosity: a breakfast bowl containing hash browns, scrambled eggs, jalapeno bacon, chili, sour cream, cheese and cilantro. To be fair, I didn't try it. I guess it could have been good. (Although I have no idea how; just writing all those ingredients made me a little sick to my stomach.)

When I read that they would be coming out with a chicken burrito, to which they allow you to add two ingredients (from a choice of cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa.) It didn't sound great, but it certainly sounded like something I needed to try. At the tail end of my fast food crawl with Zach and Elizabeth, we hit Del Taco. I ordered the burrito plain, knowing Zach would prefer it that way. If it was just for me I would have requested cheese and sour cream.

We cut the thing is half (it was for me and Zach; Elizabeth was done with fast food after our previous five stops) and we dug in. Zach immediately made an excellent point: "this would have been much better with all white meat chicken." He was absolutely correct, there was a rubbery, greasy texture to the chicken that reminded me of the El Pollo Loco chicken carnitas tacos that I tried and disliked months ago. I doused my half of the burrito liberally with Del Taco's "Inferno" sauce. I always enjoy their hot sauce and the peppers were good, but I just couldn't get past that chicken. A couple of bites were great, but the rest weren't very good. I suppose if you add condiments to your burrito it might mask the taste of the chicken.

This was not one of my favorite Del Taco promotions. I'm sure it was a lot better than the breakfast bowl, but that's not saying much.

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