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Valuable Experiments

Written by Pacdan

So, as I’ve mentioned before, Taco Bell has a new value menu trying to be as cheap as possible. Well yesterday I actually got to try something off it for the first time. I ordered the 79 cent triple layer nachos and two 89 cent cheesy double beef burritos (a name which is absurdly catchy, despite the fact that there’s no “double beef” involved).

So, the burritos were pretty good. It’s basically just taco beef, rice, and lots of cheese sauce. The cheese sauce basically becomes the dominant flavor. They’re tasty enough, though if we’d eaten in store I would absolutely have unwrapped it and added a packet of taco sauce to give it a little more oomph.

The three layers of the nachos are refried beans, cheese sauce, and random red sauce (probably recycled from some other dish). They’re pretty good, certainly better than the just plain nachos with cheese, but the real surprise here was just how much food they give you. There’s a lot of stuff here, and it’s really a great value with the price. They don’t taste nearly as good as the uber deluxe nachos and would really benefit from just a splash of sour cream, but they’re an enjoyable dish and a great cheap snack.

All of that with a large soda came to $4.79. Which means it was one expensive soda, but still fairly reasonable for a meal. Overall, I enjoyed both of the items and would order either one of them again.

They still aren’t forgiven for raising the price of my spicy chicken burrito, though.

Update: Found out from a very helpful commenter that “double beef” comes from there being two scoops of beef in the burrito. Also, I amend my complaint about it not being flavorful enough - the last one I had was delicious and didn’t need any additional enhancement. Also, I’ve now tried the 1/2 pound cheesy bean and rice burrito, which my mother ordered by mistake, and surprisingly found that it’s delicious. The sauce used is somewhat spicy and really adds a lot to the relatively bland flavors of rice and beans. I think it’s my favorite of the value menu so far, and grabbing two of them would make a damn cheap lunch.