Quod Me Nutrit Me Destruit—The Life Altering Enchirito
Written: Jun 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Read the review
Cons: See above and below
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| gogigantes's Full Review: Taco Bell |
Several childhood traumas have contributed to form my rather skewed worldview. There was the time in fifth grade when I would have been beaten up by a first grade girl my friends and I called “Large Marge” had I not been a skinny, fleet-footed runt and had she not been an overzealous consumer of the entire Hostess product line. There was also that unfortunate incident at Tommy Looper’s ninth birthday party when, in front of the cutest girl in class, a warm, trickling sensation told me that I had had a little too much Mello Yellow and Mr. Pibb. Neither of these incidents, however, compares to my defining childhood moment, a betrayal that has left me an incurable cynic incapable of trust and unconditional love.
No, my parents didn’t molest me. Nor did any of my single, middle-aged uncles. And no, it was not Candy Maldonado’s unbelievably stupid dive in the 1987 NLCS that left me a frail and emotionally volatile being. Instead it was a fast food restaurant that sent my life into a downward spiral of sarcastic comebacks, defensive cynicism, and incorrigible behavior.
It was an unusual day in California, one that Californians (ignorant of any meteorological terminology save ‘sunny’, ‘partly sunny’, and ‘drought’) always call earthquake weather. After suffering through my mother’s impossible bacon pie the night before, I headed to Taco Bell for some much needed sustenance. Like a true Californian, I battled the frigid 60 degree weather and the unbearable 10 mph winds, hopped in my mom’s car, and turned on the heater full blast for the 200 yard drive to Taco Bell.
After my mom made an illegal U-turn and a ‘California Stop’ at the stop sign, she pulled in to the line at the drive-thru. I already knew my order, but we had to wait behind a Toyota pickup, its driver staring vacantly and taking eons to decide between a taco and a soft taco. When he finally gave his order, my mom inched forward. “Two Enchiritos, two soft tacos, and a large Pepsi,” my mother said.
There was a brief pause, and then came the words that would change my life forever. “I’m sorry. We no longer carry Enchiritos.”
I immediately thought there was a problem with the intercom, notorious for turning well enunciated orders into mere gibberish. Two days before, I blamed the faulty intercom for giving me two orders of those crappy, wannabe churro cinnamon crisps. “Excuse me. I didn’t hear you,” I responded.
“We no longer carry Enchiritos,” the voice repeated. There was no mistaking it this time. What was I to do without the staple of my diet, without that culinary perfection of a bean, beef, and cheese filled tortilla topped with more cheese, enchilada (or was it enchirito?) sauce, and three thin olive slices? I had spent much of my childhood riding in the car, staring at those olive slices through the transparent plastic cover on the Enchirito dish, impatiently waiting until we got home so I could savor every bite. What now?
I don’t remember the ride home. I only remember sobbing uncontrollably, knowing that things would never be the same. I would never be that friendly, likeable kid again. No more joie de vivre or youthful exuberance. No more raising my hand in class, talking to the lunch lady, or helping that boy with a lisp sound out monosyllabic words. I was forever tainted, replacing Beverly Cleary and Curious George with Thomas Hobbes and Holden Caufield.
I did not, however, stop going to Taco Bell. That would have been the easy thing to do, and life now was a battle to be waged. I began substituting the Burrito Supreme for my beloved Enchirito and, after years of pain and inner turmoil, I have summoned the strength to write an epinion about Taco Bell. I will try to block out the painful memories of a childhood lost and be as objective as possible. I owe it to you the reader, and I owe it to myself to move on and forge ahead in search of a new life, forgiving a fast food chain its lone failure and rejoicing in its many successes.
Two years ago, I set out on a cross-country drive in a van packed with five-pound tubs of Red Vines and countless packets of beef jerky. Some people plan long drives around stops at national parks, scenic overlooks, historical sites, KOA campsites, Wall Drug, or the world’s largest ball of twine; I planned a trip around Taco Bell. Ok, I didn’t plan it. I have enough difficulty trying to limit the number of times I hit the snooze button. But I did stop at every Taco Bell possible. The result, other than occasional gastro-intenstinal grumbling, is the background for much of this epinion.
For research purposes, I had to enter a Taco Bell. I hadn’t actually been inside one since I got my driver’s license years ago (though I could probably sketch the dimensions of the drive thru in less than a minute). The inside is fairly standard for fast food restaurants, except that Taco Bell for some reason insists on having a southwestern/vaguely ‘Mexican’ theme that is only vaguely Mexican because people outside of the west have come to think of Taco Bell as Mexican food. I am convinced that were it not for Taco Bell, some regions’ knowledge of Mexico would consist solely of pinatas, Tijuana, and Montezuma’s revenge. After the enlightenment of nationwide media campaigns, Mexico is now also known as the birthplace of coronas, chihuahuas and, yes, Montezuma’s revenge.
Except for Taco Bell Express, which is no bigger than an ordinary gas station restroom, the dining room is usually spacious, though the swiveling chairs that only do quarter swivels are incredibly annoying. The menu has pictures of virtually every possible order, the pictures resembling the actual product about as much as the faded pictures of impossibly large shrimp and grease-free Chow Mein resemble your order at a Chinese take-out restaurant. The menu is essentially this: tacos in various permutations (soft, regular, supreme, steak, chicken, chicken supreme, etc.), burritos in various incarnations (bean, seven layer, supreme, big beef supreme, etc.), other stuff with incredibly misleading names that I know little about (Taco salad, Mexican pizza), and new gimmicks that are essentially a combination of everything else (gorditas, chalupas). Everything pretty much tastes the same, so the only real choice that effects the taste is whether you want to spend an extra 39 cents and have that half-conscious guy behind the guy behind the register give you a shot from his sour cream gun.
Admittedly, the quality of the ingredients is poor. The cheese is what Velveeta would be like if it were hardened and shredded. The tortillas are often stale or reheated to hide the fact that they’re stale, a technique that makes them even more stale. The tacos seem to crack at the bottom just when you finally get to that extra big squirt of sour cream, the lettuce is usually wilted, the tomatoes uncommonly pale, the chicken chewy, the steak suspect, the beef just plain bad. But somehow, and maybe it’s the lard, the combination of ingredients almost always tastes good. Besides, if I had been a picky eater, I never would have made it through college cafeteria casseroles or the extra large containers of pork fried rice from the Chinese restaurant whose price reductions two years ago coincided with an increase in “Lost Cat” posters around town. All apologies to Andre the Giant, Taco Bell is the eighth wonder of the world. How such a repulsive and unsightly collection of ingredients can be so good is beyond any human comprehension.
As I have gotten older and wiser, I have learned to cut back on the hot sauce. It reduces the risk of large dry cleaning bills resulting from hot sauce leaking out of the burrito down your wrist and arm until it settles as two huge splotches, one on the tail end of your shirt and the other on the top of your shorts. Cutting down on the sauce also cuts down on any unwanted peristaltic and diastolic increases. For those addicted to antacids and prone to popping pills of Pepcid, Taco Bell is not for you. Taco Bell and its spice, lard, and expired products could very well become God’s waiting room for the intestinally challenged.
The service is what you would expect from a bunch of minimum wage employees either saving up for a new stereo and an extra-large tube of anti-zit cream or cowering behind the counter every time someone with a jacket even remotely similar to the INS issue walks in. I know that if I were making five bucks an hour and dealing with indecisive pains in the ass who threaten lawsuits after getting onions in their bean burritos that they specifically ordered without onions, I’d be an apathetic employee too.
Yesterday, after weaving through the annoying wooden barricade that doubles as the line, I approached the counter. Three employees were standing next to the register: Mildred, an elderly lady who would make Dorothy from the Golden Girls look like a pre-pubescent belle; Jesse, an oafish manager with a permanently dumb expression etched on his face and enough back hair jutting out of his uniform to prove we are still evolving from apes; and Bradley, a normal looking teenager with a walkman attached to his hip. Mildred took my order while the oaf made sure that she didn’t press the button for extra onions by mistake. Bradley took out a cloth and pretended to clean the counter. In the back, two taco assembly line workers expedited my order, and I made sure that the sour cream gun was fired each time. I then tried to win a free burrito supreme by landing a quarter on that small-as-a-dime pedestal in the ‘charity’ aquarium, failed, and waited for my food.
A minute later, I searched the contents of the bag Jesse handed me, checked for any errant back hair that might have found its way into my food, took a few packets of fire sauce, and walked out the door. I ate most of the food in the car, expertly steering with my knees and trying not to spill anything on my shirt. The burrito supreme was tasty, even though I had to wait until the end to get to the huge gob of sour cream. The chicken soft taco didn’t cause any allergic reaction, and the regular taco was washed down nicely with the mixture of Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and orange soda I had so carefully concocted.
When I got home, I started on the last item. Sometimes I save the best for last; other times I am afraid that I might be too full to fully enjoy the best, and so I eat the best next to last. This time, with room to spare, I had saved the best for last. I grabbed the spork, took a preparatory sip of soda, and started eating my Enchirito.
Taco Bell decided to bring back the Enchirito a few years ago, apparently aware of all the trauma it had caused young children like myself. It now had a synthetic paper/cardboard box and the three olive slices must have been too costly to keep using. But it was still the Enchirito, a delectable dish capable of quelling hunger and righting the lives of wayward men.
The reappearance of the Enchirito has brought a renewed joy to my life, slowly supplanting my cynicism and severe depression with an untainted innocence and jovial disposition. I have even forgiven the money hungry, careless corporate automatons who never thought about the consequences of pulling the Enchirito from an impressionable young boy’s mouth. I don’t care if the employees expectorate and micturate into the food in the back of the restaurant. It does not matter that Taco Bell is the culinary equivalent of dumping a stale tortilla in a vat of seasoned grease. Permanent damage to my internal organs is of no consequence. I am willing to endure anything, even a talking chihuahua and an endless supply of cinnamon crisps, so long as Taco Bell never discontinues the Enchirito again.
Check out the other members' epinions in this Taco Bell write-off: that-guy, elorraine, kchowell, lpmiller, gracef, ZentropaJK, and caravan70 all braved the Bell and gave new meaning to the term ‘intestinal fortitude’.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
gogigantes
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Member: Jeremy Delicino
Reviews written: 28
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