Taco Bell falls into the rare niche of fast-food restaurants that you either love with an almost religious fervor, or you despise and don’t understand how people can poison themselves with Grade Q meat.  I, am firmly a member of the former camp. I love Taco Bell.  I don’t even really like fast-food, but the laisez-faire attitude of T. Bell, plus their aggressively extreme ad campaigns and food combinations always leave me coming back for more.   So when I heard they were expanding their entire menu to include breakfast items, I was beyond intrigued.  This week, I am on vacation, so today was my first experience with Taco Bell breakfast and I got a few things on the menu just to get a solid overview, enough to draw an opinion.

1. The Waffle Taco: I was extremely intrigued about the waffle taco, but felt that if I ordered it with sausage, it might be harder to eat like a taco, due to the structurally flat nature of the sausage, so I ordered it with bacon instead.  It came with syrup that you could dip or whatever, but I opted to eat it plain.  This of all the things I ordered was the most “meh” eating experience I had.  The eggs are as good or bad, as you would expect from a fast food place, and the cheese is fine.  The real problems were the bacon and the waffle.  The bacon is extremely salty, and the waffle is soft and greasy as all hell, so it ends up making you feel way worse than you would have expected.  This is pure novelty, but I would stay away.

Verdict: Ugly.

2. Cinnabon Delights: A lot of the breakfast value meals come with two Cinnabon Delights, so I tried them.  I’m going to call these bad in the sense that they are being marketed as a breakfast food, but they aren’t bad otherwise.  They are tiny little cinnabon balls filled with a cream cheese-based frosting of some sort.  They fit perfectly in T. Bell’s pantheon of dessert items, but they have no place as a standard in the value meals.  That being said, they aren’t bad, but they are a bit overpriced ($1 for two, when it should be $1 for four) if you are paying for them separately.

Verdict: Bad (for breakfast).

3. A.M. Crunchwrap: By the time I got to the Crunchwrap, I was beginning to think T. Bell in the morning was a fools errand.  I am happy to report that they pretty much struck gold with the Crunchwrap.  Similarly to the original P.M. Crunchwrap, this is a game-changer for the morning.  Instead of the flat tortilla that would provide the crunch, the A.M variety has a crispy, not greasy, hash brown providing said crunch.  The eggs again, are blah, but the sausage has a decent flavor, and whatever “mexican” spices they add to the egg and cheese mixture really works well.  This will be my breakfast item of choice going forward.

Verdict: Good.

If you don’t like Taco Bell, stay far away from this menu.  However, if you, like me, are a fan, try it out.  My one piece of advice would be, to stick towards menu items that closely reflect those of the traditional menu.  Burritos and Crunchwraps are fine.  Waffle Taco’s and Cinnabon’s are not.  Also, remember, this is Taco Bell’s first foray into breakfast.  I can imagine that years from now, they’ll have nailed down what works and jettisoned what has not. Overall, the breakfast menu is a good idea, that they are having some hiccups executing. However, sometimes thinking outside the bun, means you have to deal with the reality of making some mistakes. This won’t stop me from being a card carrying member of the Live Mas Generation.