Taco Bell's Crunchwrap Supreme is turning 20. So I finally tried one, and it's meh!

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

Twenty years ago this summer, something momentous happened in the annals of Southern California.
I'm not talking about Antonio Villaraigosa becoming L.A.'s first Latino mayor in over a century. Or the Lakers rehiring Phil Jackson as their head coach to embark on one final championship run with Kobe Bryant. No, history will look at those achievements as mere blips compared with the debut of Taco Bell's Crunchwrap Supreme.
A flour tortilla wrapped around a ground beef tostada and stuffed with lettuce, tomatoes, nacho cheese and sour cream, the item has become essential for American consumers who like their Mexican food cheap and gimmicky — which is to say, basically everyone (birria ramen, anybody?). The Times has offered multiple articles on how to make your own version at home. Celebrity chefs like Matty Matheson have shot videos praising Crunchwrap Supremes while hawking their own takes. Its June anniversary will soon get the star treatment in a national publication for a story in which I was interviewed because I'm literally the guy who wrote the book on Mexican food in the United States.
But there was a slight problem that needed to be rectified before I sounded off on the legendary dish: I had to try a Crunchwrap Supreme for the first time.
Hell, before a few weeks ago, I had only visited Taco Bell thrice in my life.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Southern California underwent momentous shifts. The white middle class was fleeing the state as the defense industry and blue-collar factories collapsed; immigrants from across the globe came in to replace them, jolting the region's politics.
Meanwhile, the ideal taco in the Angeleno psyche was transitioning from the hard-shell topped with a blizzard of yellow cheese eaten since the 1930s into the one we all love today: a tortilla — usually corn — stuffed with something and baptized with a sprinkle of salsa.
(A quick etymological aside for the kids: Tacos made with non-deep-fried tortillas used to be called 'soft' tacos to differentiate them from hard-shell tacos, which were just called 'tacos.' Now, it's the reverse — progress!)
So my childhood wasn't spent at Taco Bell, Tito's Tacos or even Del Taco, whose half-pound bean-and-cheese burrito remains the world's best fast-food item. My tacos were the ones at King Taco when visiting relatives in East L.A., or the Taqueria De Anda chain in Orange County back when it was still good.
I had no reason to go to Taco Bell, even as it went worldwide. Nor did it entice me to visit with its half-racist TV ads like the Taco Bell Chihuahua dog or the ones that ended with the slogan 'Make a Run for the Border.' I didn't go to one until the early 2000s, and I can't remember what my cousins and I ordered except it was bland, limp and too salty: A bunch of regret dabbled with nada.
I stopped in only twice more: when the Irvine-based company debuted its Doritos Loco taco in 2012, and when I forced the late Times food critic Jonathan Gold to go through a Taco Bell drive-thru for an episode of the hit Netflix show 'Ugly Delicious.' Both times, the experience was like my first.
I ordered one at a location in Santa Ana near my wife's restaurant, where I unveiled the dish. While looking as sleek and tightly folded as a dumpling, it was far smaller than I had expected. The tortilla had no flavor; the tostada which supposedly offers textural counterpoint — the whole idea, according to its advocates, like Times newsletter jefe Karim Doumar — was soggy.
And once again, Taco Bell's Achilles' heel was its ground beef, which was as pebbly as gravel. I squeezed some of Taco Bell's hot sauce to try and save my lunch, but it tasted like insulin dusted with black pepper.
You're better off buying two of Del Taco's half-pound bean-and-cheese burritos for the same $6 price.
I am no snob or purist — I think Jack in the Box's hard-shell tacos are magnificent. And I can see the Crunchwrap Supreme working with better ingredients. But the dish is hardly worth the hype. Besides, Mexicans have a far better dish that combines the soft with the crunchy to create something sublime. They're called chilaquiles — ask my fellow columnista Steve Lopez about them sometime.
The Black faith community, along with people of faith from across Los Angeles County, marched in solidarity through the streets of downtown L.A. Wednesday for a peaceful interfaith prayer walk for family unity.
Gustavo Arellano, California columnistKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters
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