Greetings, reader!
Culinary Month concludes in the only way possible, when it comes to me - a Taco Bell feast. Ever since we got my favorite fast food chain in Finland, and Jyväskylä in particular, I’ve become quite well-acquainted with their delicious menu. I know Taco Bell has its haters, but I have always felt a special connection with the chain - it may not be the cheapest, or the healthiest, or the fanciest, or the least messy, or the spiciest, or anything resembling authentic Mexican cuisine…but it doesn’t need to be. For that specific craving of enjoyable, greasy and chaotic fast food, there’s nothing like it. Here’s my ranking of every menu item I’ve had the pleasure of consuming from Taco Bell!
Note on the highly scientific method: I counted every item that can be ordered as a meal or an individual thing as an individual item, as well as counting sides, sharables and dessert items separately. For drinks, I counted only those that are made in a specific way in Taco Bell, but not generic soda fountain items, because something like Coca-Cola doesn’t really feel like a ”Taco Bell menu item” as it tastes the same there as anywhere else. I didn’t go as far as to count dips separately, as they are so inherently something you order as a part of a larger whole, but suffice to say that their Cali Ranch is like a dear friend to me and the Cheddar dip would come as a close second.
29. Naked Chicken Taco
Now, I’d be lying if I said this unhinged creation made in defiance of God didn’t taste good. Back when I still ate meat, I enjoyed the hell out of this outrageous taco where the taco shell itself is made of fried chicken. But the thing is - now that I’m fully vegetarian, it feels only natural to rank this one last. In a move that every single restaurant should be following, you can basically get any menu item from Taco Bell as a vegetarian version, which is a lot nicer than having 1 or 2 veggie options to choose from - but for understandable reasons, this item is an exception as a vegetarian version would make zero sense.
One could argue that I should’ve still ranked the Naked Chicken Taco higher, because I used to really like its taste. But, as is the case with my movie/TV posts, any given list is inseparable from my ethics, and a food being available as a more environmentally friendly and less animal-killing way is immediately a reason to put all of the non-meat options ahead of this one in my book.
28. Coffee
Look, I won’t tell you to never order coffee from Taco Bell - sometimes a situation does call for such drastic action. But unless the circumstances dictate this, I highly recommend getting your coffee from anywhere else than a fast food joint whenever possible. It’s not great.
27. Nachos (side)
I love nachos as much as the next guy, but with Taco Bell, you gotta get the upgrade version for the real experience. The regular nachos just aren’t cutting it - it could be that time is embellishing my memory for dramatic effect, but to the best of my recollection, this version doesn’t have any sauce, any proper seasoning and absolutely fuck-all except for the mere nacho chips. It’s fairly dry and upsetting.
26. Mexi Melt
A mainstay of the ”cravings” portion on the menu, the Mexi Melt is one of those cute little items that you can add to your order to make sure that your meal will be filling enough. Such items are a brilliant concept, but this specific snack is the least tasty and inspiring item from that selection.
25. Fries (side)
Obviously, the upgrade fries are a lot better - but the regular isn’t bad either. It does sort of have the same issue as the regular nachos, but with fries, it doesn’t bother me so much - especially as I like the way they’re seasoned and properly salty. It’s a decent side, especially if you add some of Taco Bell’s signature Fire Sauce to counteract the dryness.
24. Vegan Griller
More from the cravings menu! The grillers read like miniature burritos - way too small to do anything to your appetite, but a nice addition to a combination of items when having a proper fast food feast. The combination of ingredients isn’t quite as solid as in the other griller, but I still do appreciate this one.
23. Beefy Nacho Griller
I was happy to find out that even the menu items with “beefy” in the name can be gotten as vegetarian versions, substituting the ground beef for the Bell’s excellent plant-based protein! The beefy nacho griller is wonderfully cheesy and filled to the brim with your protein of choice, and it’s among the better items from the cravings menu.
22. Salad Supreme
I’m pretty sure I’ve only ordered this once - I had just arrived at the Tikkurila railway station after a long and jetlagged flight from the States, and in a bizarre and rather extreme mixture of sleepiness and hunger, I felt the most obscure and specific of cravings - a Taco Bell salad.
As one can guess, it’s not so much a “salad” per se - basically, it’s the insides of a Taco Bell taco put into a dish. It’s not bad, but a vast majority of the stuff you can get from my favorite fast food chain is inevitably better.
21. Freeze Blue Ice
The Freeze is a signature item in Taco Bell, making for a nice and slushy blend of drink and dessert. In the U.S., they have all sorts of crazy flavors (reading about the Mountain Dew Baja Blast Freeze struck me with so much awe that I named a play I wrote after it), but in Finland, they only have two (at least in the Jyväskylä location). Both are decent, but Blue Ice is the lesser option in my view.
20. Mini Quesadilla
The hands-down best item from the cravings menu is the Mini Quesadilla, which I often find myself adding to the order if I’m so hungry that a regular meal won’t quite cut it. The only real downside to this one is that it’s so damn small, and you’ll end up wanting more of the same (hence the life-size Quesadillas on the menu).
19. Churros in Chocolate Sauce
The only pure dessert item to be regularly found on the Taco Bell menu in Finland, the churros in chocolate sauce are quite a treat. I have to admit that I order this very rarely, as my average Taco Bell order is made in such a hungry state that I recognize the absolute lack of room for dessert after I’m finished. But once in a blue moon, I’ll be in the mood for churros when ordering from the Bell, and they never disappoint.
18. Upgrade Nachos
Oh, hell yeah. The Upgrade version of a Taco Bell side is inherently better, with the delicious mixture of pico de gallo, melted cheese and sour cream adding so much to taste and texture alike. I still prefer the chain’s fries to their nachos, but still, the upgraded version of their dry and somewhat un-seasoned nacho chips makes them infinitely better and ends up being quite a treat.
17. Nachos Supreme
Very similar to the Upgrade Nachos side, but bigger and better. This item is filling enough to fill a medium-sized appetite, and is a thoroughly enjoyable eating experience (even if there are many even better treats to be found on their menu). Sometimes, Martta and I will both get our own meals but additionally one of these bad boys to split, and honestly, that’s never a bad idea.
16. Naked Burrito Bowl
Okay, remember how I mentioned that Taco Bell’s “salad” is just the insides of their archetypical taco dumped into a dish? Well, this one is the same but for one of their deluxe burritos, meaning that there’s a shit-ton of everything from sauces and spices to protein and rice. I’ll still order a taco or burrito etc. over this one almost every time, but every once in a while, going back to this delightfully quirky dish is refreshing and fun!
15. Freeze Lemon
This fresh and fun slushy drink is the better of the two Freeze flavors we get in Finnish Taco Bells! It tastes just like you’ll expect, and gets the job done - most times, I just get a regular soda from the Bell, but whenever I alternate and go with one of these, it’s the exact right choice for that moment.
14. Chalupa Supreme
Now we’re slowly starting to get to the classics! Not quite a taco but not quite a burrito either, this flatbread-based meal has all the stuff you’d expect inside, with the end result being properly greasy and filling fast food. Many of the similar menu items are even slightly better and thus ranked ahead, but still, there’s a good reason that this used to be one of my very most-ordered go-to meals especially when Taco Bell first came to Finland.
13. Quesadilla
Now, if you’ve ever had a real quesadilla, it’s important to adjust your expectations here. Of course, the same applies to any Mexican dish and Taco Bell’s version of it - but I’d argue that it especially applies here. Taco Bell’s quesadilla is to the real thing what Greta Van Fleet is to Led Zeppelin, or the Star Wars prequels are to the original trilogy, or Julian Alvarez to Lionel Messi.
But that’s just it - when you stop the comparisons and just enjoy stuff, Greta Van Fleet is a really good band even if it’s no Led Zeppelin, just like the Star Wars prequels are decent cinema and Alvarez is a brilliant football player. While being just a shadow of quesadillas in their full potential, Taco Bell’s take on the dish is still fairly delicious in all simplicity.
12. Updgrade Fries
I f**king love this side, and I almost always pay the extra 1 euro and 50 cents as it is quite the bargain considering the difference in quality. The same elements are added as in the Upgrade Nachos, but they hit even harder here - not even the presence of coriander, which I’m not a big fan of, can come close to ruining the joyous mess of ingredients that makes up this side.
11. Cheese Quesadilla
Learning the difference between this and the regular quesadilla was a wild ride - initially, you assume this’ll be better because the addition of “Cheese” to the title in an already cheese-based dish implies MORE CHEESE, which is always a good thing. Then, you eventually wonder why the regular quesadilla costs more, and come to the realization that the key difference is that it has a protein of your choice while this one doesn’t, so the name is “Cheese Quesadilla” as in “Just cheese / The cheese has a more prominent role due to the absence of other stuff”.
But, when you’re far enough along your Taco Bell journey, you’ll realize that despite this plot twist, your initial reaction was right - somehow, the Cheese Quesadilla is slightly better even though it really kinda shouldn’t be. Sure, it’s less filling and I wouldn’t recommend having this as your main course if you’re properly hungry - but purely taste-wise, this just works even better (probably because the delicious 4-cheese blend does indeed have a more prominent role).
10. Beefy Cheesy Burrito
Mm, hell yeah. Once again, I have so much respect for chains and restaurants where you can order basically anything as a vegetarian version - the name of this dish implies that the beef plays a big part, but I’m guessing that it doesn’t lose any of its quality when it’s substituted with a large, well-seasoned amount of the Bell’s plant-based protein. Add to that the typical Taco Bell burrito ingredients and a f**k-bunch of melted cheese, and you have yourself a filling, satisfying eating experience.
9. Fully Loaded Fries
This is what happens when you take the already amazing Upgrade Fries, and add a whole lot more stuff to make it even messier and more fun to eat! No notes.
8. Cheesy Gordita Crunch
One of the more standout items in a menu where most dishes are close variations of each other, the Cheesy Gordita Crunch is a unique and enriching addition to Taco Bell’s tapestry of meals. When the Bell first came to Finland, this and the Chalupa Supreme were my most common alternatives to what is still my #1 favorite - and while a select few dishes have skated ahead of this dynamic duo, I still have a lot of love for them. And out of the two, the CGC is the vastly superior one.
The way in which the flatbread exterior, the crunchy taco layer and all the good stuff swiveling within play together and complement one another is quite exquisite - I particularly appreciate the role of the California Ranch sauce in this one, as well as the sheer amount of cheese.
7. Taco / Taco Supreme
It’s basic, but let’s face it - even the most diehard Beatles fan with the most hot takes on underrated songs will feel like listening to Yesterday every now and then, just like any proper Frasier fan will choose to watch The Ski Lodge for the millionth time once in a while no matter how much they can quote the dialogue from memory. If you’re enough of a classic, true fans will never get sick of you.
Now, the big issue with a regular Taco Bell taco is that much like the regular cheese burger in any fast food burger joint, it isn’t filling in the slightest. In fact, I’m pretty sure that having just one of these bad boys would literally only make me hungrier.
But, you gotta learn how to utilize the Taco. One strategy is to use it like something off the Cravings menu - order a full meal of something else, and as the final nail on the coffin for your hunger, an individual Taco to top it off. Another tactic, one that I use less frequently but is arguably even more fun, is ordering like five or six of these bastards and nothing else in lieu of a meal. You can even spice things up with fun variations - maybe add Cali Ranch to one of the Tacos, have a few of them be hard-shell even though the soft-shell is objectively better, et cetera. The sky is the limit!
6. Vegan Burrito
As much as I love Taco Bell to an admittedly weird degree, even I have to admit it - most of their dishes are quite stuffy. Those Weekend Update jokes where Taco Bell meals and bowel movement horror stories go hand in hand don’t come from nowhere. I generally don’t mind this, because I think fast food is allowed to be messy and I know what to expect with the Bell - but it’s nice to know that on those rare occasions where you choose to go to Taco Bell but don’t want a complete “ähky” (there’s no perfect translation in English for this gem of the Finnish language), the perfect dish does exist.
Now, it’s still a Taco Bell menu item, so it’s not exactly health food - but the Vegan Burrito is so delightfully fresh compared to its counterparts! The soft wheat tortilla, the plentiful room given to guacamole and rice in the filling, the delicately proportioned protein and salad elements - this item gives you room to breathe in a nice, refreshing way. I can’t rank it higher than this because there are messy-and-stuffy-in-the-right-way junk food items to be found that I enjoy even more - but I will say that this is the only Taco Bell dish that could almost be counted as cuisine. It’s like Fast Five being actual cinema - if you compare it to the other Fast & Furious movies.
5. Cheesy Topped Fries
This is such a sweet spot - it's slightly less filling and stuffy than the Fully Loaded Fries, but it's bigger and better (and, most importantly, cheesier) than the Upgrade Fries. That makes this into the perfect side dish, or a thoroughly excellent shareable item. The combination of flavors, in this exact ratio, is pretty damn unbeatable in its own category.
4. Nacho Cheese Drip Burrito
Have I mentioned yet that I love plentiful amounts of cheese in my Taco Bell meals? This burrito has melted cheese as a key ingredient inside the taco, while being served with a dish of additional cheddar sauce to dip it in. I'm pretty sure there's even some cheese ingrained into the tortilla itself. This is the newest main course item on the Finnish Taco Bell menu, and oh man, it's a masterpiece.
3. Double Crunchwrap Supreme
I initially had this even ahead of the regular Crunchwrap Supreme, but then I felt the spirit and ended up reversing the order. Sure, the DCS could be argued to be even better because, well, it's more. But there's just something special, magical, even untouchable about the original...maybe it's that that ingredient ratios hit even harder, or that I generally prefer ordering a slightly less filling main course so that I have more room to go nuts with the sides. In any case, the Double Crunchwrap Supreme is among the very best ones for obvious reasons, but it doesn't quite have what it takes to break into the top two.
2. Grilled Stuft Burrito
All of the burritos on the Taco Bell menu are solid, but this one stands in a league of its own. There's such a perfect amount of everything, the tastes of the different ingredients clash together beautifully, and the whole thing is just such a delightful fast food experience. Highly recommended, as you can't really go wrong with this one.
1. Crunchwrap Supreme
At the end of the day, it had to be this chain-defining item at #1. Everything you want from wannabe-Mexican fast food can be found here in ample amounts - a glorious mess of protein, salad, cheese, spices and sauces, wrapped up in a crunchy tostada which in turn is wrapped up in a soft wheat tortilla. It's my favorite fast food menu item of all time (no contest really), and its existence continues to bring joy into my life.
Thank you for reading! Culinary Month is now over, so tune in next week as I return to my movie/TV topics with a ranking of the very best lines of dialogue from the sitcom Modern Family.
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