Taco Bell’s XL Steakhouse Burrito

Taco Bell’s general modus operandi is to create new food items or just double (or triple!) the portion size of an existing item. Why serve a regular burrito, when you can serve an XL burrito? The question is so silly it shouldn’t even be asked.

The XL Steakhouse Burrito comes with chips and queso. The chips and queso are not an add-on to the burrito, they are necessary accompaniments. I think I see that Taco Bell is looking to give a restaurant feel to a bigger and pricier item, but for me personally, I’d prefer to eat a different menu item rather than waste stomach space on Taco Bell chips and queso. The collection of foods cost $6.49, and I added on a medium drink for $1, which lines up with the cost of a meal at other fast food outlets. Of course, that means this is expensive for Taco Bell. The burrito itself contained steak, bacon, queso, sour cream and fried potatoes.

To run through the sides before we get to the main event, the chips were meh. They were nice and salty, but thin and stale tasting. The chips sometimes broke when dripped in the queso. The queso was better and is more in line with what I expect from Taco Bell. It had a nice spicy cheesy taste. The only problem with the queso was the consistency: it was too soupy, which makes me think it came from a mix.

The meal came in a large cardboard box, and the burrito itself was in brown paper. From the looks of it, it was a hefty burrito. Taking into account on the presentation and the size of the burrito, you’d be happy receiving this form your local burrito establishment, while also wondering how they made an oblong burrito.

My first bite was tortilla and fried potato. I wasn’t sure if the potatoes were fried pieces or tots, but it doesn’t matter. One of my policies in life is that adding fries potatoes to any foodstuff is always the correct decision. In a burrito, it helps to have that crunch to switch up textures as you eat. The Taco Bell tortilla is not great. It’s thick and chewy, but those qualities also mean it should be sturdy enough to hold everything together.

The other prominent ingredient in the first few bites seemed like a bacon cheese sauce. There’s a chance it was just bacon pieces and queso (which I found out afterwards when researching the ingredients), but I want to believe it was one ingredient. I like queso and thought it complemented the steak well, when I eventually got to the steak, that is.

The burrito suffered from poor construction. I made it 1/3 of the way through getting any steak. Seeing the ads, I knew XL meant a bigger burrito, but also should mean more steak, which didn’t seem to be case.

When I finally reached the steak, I was surprised at how tender it was. I always hesitate when ordering steak burritos because if the meat is too chewy or difficult to bite, then it’s difficult to get just a bite of steak, as opposed to a whole piece. It goes without saying that I was expecting hard and chewy pieces. The steak was decently spiced I think. I twas hard to isolate alone because of the sauce throughout the burrito. One nit pick: the steak pieces were pretty small. The pieces were small enough that it almost didn’t seem like I was eating steak. Soon after I encountered the steak, I reached a sour cream cache in the middle of the burrito. I’m not a fan of sour cream in general and don’t think it helped the burrito.

Taken as a whole, the burrito was extremely messy and saucy. At the halfway point, the burrito started falling apart. It seems the tortilla wasn’t as study as I thought. Combining all the ingredients, there were some good bites here. Anything steak heavy was tasty and I applaud the use of fried potato, rather than rice, as the burrito filler. The bacon, when not a featured bite, fell into the background and seemed to just be there so they could advertise that the burrito had bacon on it. Maybe if it had more of a smokey flavor that would have been good for background.

The XL Steakhouse Burrito was filling. While on the pricey side for Taco Bell, it was a substantial meal. The fact that I’m leading off with that point is not a great sign though. I felt like the burrito was less than the sum of its parts. The bites without steak, of which there were many thanks to uneven ingredient distribution, just didn’t have strong enough taste, and too much of the heavy lifting was left to the sour cream. As I write this, the XL Steakhouse Burrito isn’t currently on the menu, so no one can actually order it right now, and I’m not sure I’d recommend it as anything other than a filling meal.

Burger King’s Whopperito

When I was putting together my thoughts back before I started this blog, I was drawn to choosing new items because fast food chains, as well as stadiums, seemed to revel in outdoing themselves in creating imaginative items that sound repulsive, but when given a second thought, intriguing in the sense that they may have stumbled across a new combination of items from their kitchen that could be refashioned into a new, and tastier treat. I’ve been writing off and on (mostly off) for the past 2.5 years, but I believe Burger King has recently released a food item that is the platonic ideal of this blog. Without further ado, I give you the first new food I’ve eaten since the restart a few weeks ago: Burger King’s Whopperito.

Burger King frequently plays around with the Whopper, its signature sandwich, but that usually involves some BBQ sauce, bacon, special cheese, or hot sauce. This is the first time they’ve changed the actual concept of the burger, turning into a “burrito”. Per the official description, the Whopperito is “savory flame-grilled 100% beef and seasoned with a special blend of spices […] with a creamy Queso, pickles, diced onions, juicy tomatoes, and crisp lettuce all wrapped in a warm flour tortilla.” At the location I visited, the sandwich cost $3.29 on its own and $5.49 as a meal with a small soda and fries. I opted for the meal, which may have been a mistake because I’d just visited Taco Bell for some research on future blog posts. Don’t ever think I’m not dedicated to this… or have a slight disregard for my health.

Anyway, the sandwich took a long time to put together considering no one was in front of me in line. It’s still a new item and it’s completely out of line with all other Burger King offerings, so slack can be cut, but we’re talking five or so minutes for a fast food sandwich. I originally sat down in a booth to eat this delicacy… then immediately had to move to a table with a harder chair. The sinking feeling did not sit well with the Taco Bell and the thought of eating this monstrosity. I’m saying Burger King needs firmer booths.

To get to the actual food (finally!), the Whopperito comes wrapped in sandwich paper. With the way it was wrapped, you couldn’t quite unfold it and keep it wrapped as a regular burrito, so I took it completely out, which of course imperils the integrity of the bottom of any good burrito. Upon first glance, the Whopperito looked thin for a burrito, but it was, uh, quite lengthy. The tortilla also was slightly frayed at the edges and didn’t look fresh. I tore off the top because the first bite was only going to be that old tortilla, which would be a terrible first impression.

My first bite was beef and tomatoes. Not gonna lie, it was weird. It wasn’t bad, but my head was having a hard time wrapping itself around the idea of this being a burrito. After that bite, there was some spice that crept up on me. I realized that it came from the raw onion, which is a taste I usually hate, except for Mexican food. And it pains me to say it, but it really worked here. I liked the taste of raw onion in a Burger King burrito. Words I never thought I’d say.

The burrito was really beefy, because there was no rice or beans filler. Think of it like a legit carne asada burrito, San Diego style. Except instead of carne asada, it’s a Burger King burger… with Whopper toppings. So just like the concept of a carne asada burrito. Of course that simplicity also meant that the Whopperito lives and dies with the burger meat. The beef was a typical Burger King burger, just chopped up. The pieces were inconsistently spiced, but when the special blend of spices showed up, the sandwich was really good.

Around halfway through, as I was pondering the sandwich as well as my own existence, I came to the realization that if I thought of the Whopperito as a cheeseburger wrap, and not a burrito, the concept makes sense and is easier to accept. If you go into the experience thinking you’re eating a burrito, you’ll likely be disoriented and disappointed.

In that vein, the pickles really shone though. While they’d be unwelcome on a burrito, they provided a good burst of flavor and contrast with the other ingredients. Since there’s no pico de gallo or hot sauce, the pickles were the only acid represented and my favorite bites of the sandwich always had a pickle. The tomatoes were good for the juiciness, but were cut way too big. I think instead of chunks, they should have diced. This would have been helpful on two fronts: 1) I think they’d be distributed better inside the tortilla and 2) more of the juice would be released, so the sandwich would be moister. The lettuce was filler. I don’t usually get lettuce in my burritos and I wasn’t a fan, but it makes sense with the sandwich as presented.

Now onto more of the actual problems and not my quibbles with the Whopperito. The creamy Queso was there, but it was flavorless. Cheese would have been a big addition. I think a melted piece of cheese would have served this better than the flavorless sauce, or a cheesier queso. It also had the consistency of a sauce, and wasn’t as thick as a decent queso. In addition, the sandwich, particularly the meat, was extremely oily. I don’t think regular burgers at Burger King are like that and I don’t know where it came from here. The leaking also produced a giant oil slick on my tray as I was eating. Lastly, the tortilla added nothing. The best that could be said is that it held the ingredients and didn’t fall apart, though it could not contain the meat oil.

So where do we end? Burger King took a giant swing on this one and came up with a surprisingly bland sandwich. The queso didn’t work, which is probably the real failing. Without that cheesy flavor, the Whopperito lived and died on the meat and pickles. In what was already an unorthodox sandwich, maybe adding bacon would work. I understand calling this a burrito produces intrigue and marketing #buzz, but embracing this as a wrap could allow Burger King to be more creative. Or, if they want to follow the burrito route, get some guacamole in there. This isn’t a complete loss, but it was disappointing. The Whopperito just needs one more flavorful ingredient to shine through and make this a win.