The Fast Food Connoisseur Reviews Taco Bell’s Cantina Tacos

I’ve made no secret on this site of my love-hate relationship with fast food (hate the body it gives me, love every other aspect of it more than life itself). I do my best to avoid consuming it, enduring weeks of bombardment by ads for the latest burrito or burger, thinking I’ve managed to avoid that sweet surrender and then bam, like Frank Sinatra in The Manchurian Candidate, some trigger will set me off and I simply must eat it. Yesterday, it was the siren’s song of Taco Bell’s Cantina Tacos that I succumbed to.


Taco Bell is, by far, my favorite fast food restaurant because it’s both dirt cheap and, in theory, not as grossly unhealthy as its competition. I had forgotten about the new Cantina Tacos until, the other day, I read someone mocking Taco Bell’s press release for them, which contained the line “Our Cantina Tacos are based upon authentic-style Mexican street tacos, which are designed using simple, fresh ingredients, that customers regard as high quality.”


“Mexican street tacos?” That’s supposed to sound sanitary and delicious? Conjures up images of being surreptitiously fed donkey meat to me. Also, bonus points for using the word “regard.” As in, “These ingredients are not actually high quality, but we hope you regard them as such.” Still, reading about a new culinary delight awaiting me at El Bell was enough to flip the switch. Come lunch time, I knew what I was having.

I decided to get one taco in each of the three meats offered (I’m a Renaissance man like that), chicken, steak and pork. (Usually I don’t eat pork because of both the profound influence of Jules Winnfield upon my life and, one time, I busted out the “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.” line from Babe after a girl had just finished going down on me and I still laugh thinking about it, but for the sake of a review, whatever.) The verdict? Worth a purchase. While the double-layered corn tortillas were about as fun to gnaw through as a hymen, the meat contained within wasn’t half bad (pork being the most flavorful of the three by far). Better yet, they were only $1.49 a pop and got cheaper the more you ordered (God bless America).

So if you decide to be a slovenly fatass and embrace your inner Papageorgiou, the Cantina Tacos aren’t a bad way of going about it. I can also say they didn’t cause any diarrhea, but I have the constitution of a goat and pride myself on my ability to eat all manner of food rife with e coli without breaking a sweat. If you’ve downed these suckers, leave a comment to let me know what you think. Bonus points if you post a pic of the result of any gastric disturbances they may have caused you.

Tagged as: Fast Food,  Fast Food Connoisseur,  Taco Bell.