Taco Bell Beefy Crunch Burrito
Posted on Apr 28, 2016
It’s back! It’s back! Ring the bells and dance in the streets, it’s back! Oh, frabjous day! Celebrate with us, and be merry! Oh, but what’s back, you ask? Dear sweet friend, it’s the Beefy Crunch Burrito! Yes, yes, the BCB is back for a limited time only!
But is it really reason to celebrate? Will it live up to the incredibly high standards its fandom has put upon it? There’s only one way to find out!
As we’ve discussed in our Lava Sauce article, Taco Bell has a strong following for its discontinued items, and the Beefy Crunch Burrito had one of the strongest. It was a dollar menu staple of beef, cheese, Mexican rice and Flamin’ Hot Fritos, but was shot down in 2012 to the outrage of Taco Bell lovers nationwide. The Beefy Fritos Burrito was introduced in 2014 to presumably be its successor, but BCB lovers claim it is a pale imitation of the original’s greatness.
The charm of the Beefy Crunch Burrito was its hot Fritos and tomato-flavored Mexican rice; the Beefy Fritos Burrito used regular Fritos and “Latin rice” seasoned with cilantro. Fans were so moved by the Beefy Crunch Burrito’s discontinuation, protest groups were organized to collectively bother Taco Bell into bringing it back. And finally, after years of protest, they’ve got their beloved burrito baby back for a month.
This is, of course, a tremendous amount of pressure for a poor limited-time-only value menu item. The Beefy Crunch Burrito wasn’t even the only one brought back - we haven’t seen a single word in edgewise about the Cheesy Double Beef Burrito! We’ll be the first to admit that fan hype gets us very excited but the twinge of doubt in our heads was hard to ignore. What if this burrito just wasn’t that great? Fans made it sound like the Second Coming would coincide with this burrito’s return. What if it was… average? There was only one way to find out: eat it.
Boy, were our doubts unfounded! This may be the greatest Taco Bell item we’ve ever eaten. We’ve been huge fans of the Beefy Fritos Burrito for a long time and this was the same thing but made way better. The star of the show, without a doubt, is the Mexican rice. It’s stellar. It’s amazing. The flavor of tomato sauce is so strong and fresh-tasting! We actually were worried they had gotten our order wrong because of how strong the smell of tomatoes was coming from the bag before we opened it. We thought the Mexican rice simply couldn’t have been that much better than the Latin rice, but we were wrong. This is the best part of the entire burrito and Taco Bell genuinely should be ashamed they ever took it off the menu.
The only other significant deviation between the Beefy Crunch and the Beefy Fritos were the spicy Fritos. Those didn’t make that big of a difference. They were slightly spicy, and we could’ve been given regular Fritos without noticing the swap. The cheese sauce and beef are identical to the Beefy Fritos Burrito, and are just as good. It really is the addition of Mexican rice that elevates this above and beyond.
There’s nothing bad we can say about this. The price point is amazing at one dollar. The flavor is superb. The only thing we wish is that we had gotten it grilled for that added crunch. We ate these three at a time and suffered the gastrointestinal distress afterwards gladly, knowing that we’ve feasted upon a truly once in a lifetime treat.
Why did Taco Bell ever remove this? We’ve seen the light. We’ve converted to confirmed Beefy Crunchians, and we’re going to join in the good fight to make Taco Bell put this on the permanent menu. With the imminent return of Diablo sauce, there may be hope for Taco Bell to bring this back permanently too.
Oh, and the Beefy Crunch Burrito goes amazingly with Diablo sauce. You did keep a stash of packets around from last year, right? Didn’t you?
Categories: food