Underneath the plastic top there was a dollop of sour cream, a healthy sprinkling of jack cheddar cheese and some rectangular Fritos poking out from the surface of meaty chili. This was the moment when I still thought things might be OK.
Incredibly, the first bite involved each of those layers. I tasted each individual component -- all of which had a slightly soft texture -- before the beef and salt taste of the chili wiped away all senses. The chili might not be so noxious if it weren't served in a cereal-sized bowl. There's simply too much and the flavor is not complex enough to compel you to keep stabbing it with your spork. Although at $2.99, T-Bell might have felt obligated to give you a larger size portion.
So, is Taco Bell going after the apparently lucrative Fritos fast-food market, which to date has been dominated by Sonic -- which offers the Frito pie and the Jr. Fritos Chili Cheese Wrap? Taco Bell also sells a rival wrap -- the Fritos Chili Cheese Burrito -- but I have a strict limit of one Fritos and chili combination per drive-thru experience, so I can't weigh in on the tortilla-ensnared mouthful.
In the hours that followed my consumption of the Taco Bell chili bowl, I was treated to periodic, fragrant gurglings that I can only interpret as cries for help from my beleaguered stomach. This is not a chili bowl that I would care to revisit in the future, as it provided me with enough samplings well into the night after I tried it.
Although I'm at least glad to see that Taco Bell is back to embracing what it does best, which is place a snack food inside of fast food -- as opposed to suggesting that the drive-thru can be a diet option.
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