Place: Taco Bell
Items: Baja Beef Chalupa, Cheese Quesadilla, Nachos, Cinnamon Twists
Prices: $1.29, $1.29, $.79, $.79
Enough with the health food! We Lunch Guys had to escape the Atkins wraps, the spinach salads and the grilled chickens encroaching on menus everywhere. That's how we found ourselves at Taco Bell with a serious jones for calories and fat.
After running the nutritional numbers, we picked the most unhealthful items on the menu -- not on the basis of total calorie count (that, surprisingly, is the Taco Salad), but pound for pound. The resulting lunch: a Baja Beef Chalupa and Cheese Quesadilla with a side of Nachos. For dessert, Cinnamon Twists. So was it a worthy splurge?
Tom: I don't know what's wrong with me. As I was enjoying the decadent Baja Beef Chalupa, I was thinking how much I'd rather have the low-fat Fresco version of a soft taco. That's right, while eating the least healthy item, I was longing for the healthiest. Don't get me wrong -- there's nothing not to like about the Chalupa, which basically is a Taco Bell stuffed doughnut, but why pack on the extra pounds?
Now the great Cheese Quesadilla might be worth its excesses. The tortilla makes for a flaky crust around the melted cheese, which is mixed with the secret creamy
centers in my brain fired hotter than salsa. And I don't think I'm a bad person for dipping my Cheese Quesadilla in the cheese tub that came with the nachos, even though it was like slathering lard on a stick of butter. Finishing it all off with the Cinnamon Twists, virtually a bag of sugar-coated helium balloons, was the perfect ending to the perfectly luxurious lunch.
Tom: Chris, you're wrong! There's no need to have these items when other things on the menu taste just as great with much less digestive damage. I will, however, be tacking on Cinnamon Twists to my orders from now on. Those are better than a fluffy elephant ear at a county fair. Dessert at lunch – great concept!
Chris: Tom, your willpower must be much stronger than mine. I'm sweating right now with a craving for another Chalupa. My doctor now says I need to space out my splurges with Chicken Soft Tacos and something called fruit.
Rating: 4 sporks (out of 5)
Food Facts for the Cheese Quesadilla (best of the worst): 142g serving size, 490 calories, 53 percent calories from fat, 28g fat, 13g saturated fat, 39g carbohydrates, 1150mg sodium, 19g protein.
E-mail The Lunch Guys:
tomandchris@thelunchguys.com
jalapenoy sauce for a most satisfying zing. This half-moon shaped delight cut into wedges went down as easy as a box of Girl Scout cookies. This with a side of salsa is my new Bell favorite. I can live without the nachos—that cheese sauce is too “cheesy.” The same thing comes out of a pump near the hot dogs at 7-Eleven. Taco Bell should do better.
Chris: Do better?! Tom, all this recent focus on nutrition has clouded your mind. Every bite of this meal was fried, cheesy bliss. I do agree with you on the Cheese Quesadilla, a culinary wonder with 4.1 calories and .20 grams of fat packed into each gram. Sure, those stats make this Taco Bell's most efficient item if you're working your way to being on People magazine's “Twice My Size!” cover, but I didn't care.
Thankfully, my best attribute is a teenager's metabolism, otherwise this lunch would be a serious bender. The fried dough of the taco-shaped Chalupa is like my caviar, a rich delicacy to be savored with each bite. Combined with the “Baja” sauce coating the glistening meat, the pleasure
