Taco Bell Breakfast Items – Golden Valley, MN

There aren’t a lot of things that will get me out of bed in the morning earlier than I usually overslee... I mean, wake up for work. The new launch of Taco Bell’s breakfast menu items Is, in fact, one of those thing (8 am Happy Hour at Steve-O’s is another one of those things, in case you’re wondering). TheDoctor and I made arrangements to meet up at the exact time Taco Bell opened to be the first in the non-existent line for these items. And yes, we were both also late.

And, there wasn’t a line, either.

The first thing I noticed about this Taco Bell environment is the lights are dimmed down to a hangover-friendly level. Seriously, it’s a breakfast-appropriate level of light, and I’m guessing they hit the regular lights at 10:30 or 11:00 just to make sure there is an obvious ambience shift. Classy, Taco Bell, I like it. There are 13 new breakfast menu items – as you can guess, many of them are tortilla based.

As you can see, a couple of wrap things, a hashbrown patty, some Cinnabon bites, and even orange juice. The thing everyone has been pushing the past few weeks is the Waffle Taco and the AM Crunchwrap. I decided to go for BOTH. I’ll wait until later to pick favorites. The woman behind the counter regretfully informed us someone had just come through the drive thru and gotten $40 worth of Waffle Tacos so there weren’t any sausage patties left. MAJOR BUMMER. So TheDoctor and I both ended up with the same thing – a Waffle Taco with bacon and an AM Crunchwrap with steak. I also got a hashbrown patty to makes sure I could compare it with other breakfast fast food offerings.

Oddly enough, it’s difficult to decide what to drink at a Taco Bell for breakfast. I guess I never thought about it. Also, you have to figure out what sauce you’re going to squirt all over your taco – yes that was written intentionally. Do you go with their traditional hot or fire sauce or since there’s eggs and hashbrowns, do you go with ketchup? Tough calls this early in the morning might be the downfall of Taco Bell’s breakfast menu.

The Waffle Taco was surprisingly good. For this menu item, they make the condiment decision easy for you – they give you a small container of syrup, which is the right option.

I’ll say it’s one of the greasiest breakfast items I’ve had, but only because whatever was on the outside of the waffle basically covered my hands and needed multiple napkins to remove. I’ll pretend it’s butter and give it a greasy thumbs up. I’m guessing the sausage version of this would taste even better than the bacon version, but the bacon version was pretty darn good. Good balance of toppings so not one thing overwhelmed another. The eggs tasted real and the waffle itself had a good flavor. Great work on this new menu item. I’ll get it again.

I tried the hashbrown next. It’s pretty close to the McDonald’s hashbrown, so there’s that. If you like them there, you’ll like them at Taco Bell. I can honestly say I was bummed there wasn’t any magic dust on it like the potato ole’s at Taco John’s. Missed opportunity perhaps, but the things still tasted fine, if a bit plain. Add some ketchup or green salsa for this one.

The AM Crunchwrap is where it’s at though. Lots of ingredients (including a hashbrown patty inside) to make this thing pretty substantial. The steak flavor is what you’d expect at Taco Bell – good, but not a date-night steak or anything. There was a lot of cheese in this as well, so I was thrilled. I covered half of the inside with green salsa and the other half with fire sauce. The smokiness of the fire sauce won the day over the green, so I’ll go with that next time. Also, I forgot how difficult it is to refold a crunchwrap – and multiply it by 10 for breakfast sleepy finger dexterity issues. For your money, this is the menu item that will fill you up all day. It’s pretty damn good. TheDoctor agrees with me on this one, and he only lies on Mondays and Tuesdays.

And there you have a much-longer-than-any-Taco-Bell-review-should-be review of three of the new Taco Bell breakfast items.

[Additional editor's note: Jesse found the coffee to be "drinkable" at Taco Bell, for those of you interested.]

You’re welcome.