 Taco Bell #4671
It only occurs to me now, with my fourth consecutive Taco Bell review in three weeks, that most people would simply review and rate Taco Bell as a chain, and not necessarily list every possible franchise. Yet like record stores and bottled water, not every store within a chain is the same. However, at this point, I'd be fooling myself (and anybody who is bothering to read my increasingly disjointed restaurant reviews) to say that there is a great deal of difference between Taco Bells. Of the five I've visited in the past couple of months, only one has been notably terrible, while the others have been more or less the same. See, what emerges is a portrait of Taco Bell as a very consistent chain. Sure, a single sweeping generalization about the franchise as a whole might convey this idea well enough, but you really need to get into microscopic levels of detail to truly understand the consistency of Taco Bell. I shall endeavor to review them all! In the name of science! Or, uh, journalism! Wait, what is it we do around here?
The Taco Bell at Gurnee Mills (it's just off the Grand Avenue exit of Interstate 94, tucked in amid the labyrinth of retail stores and restaurants) is a good one. I visited their drive-through, which was efficient and speedy, although the window cashier seemed to be scowling at me despite (or because of) my progressively more pandering attempts to win him over with overly polite "thank you"s and "Have a good night"s. I ordered a 7-layer burrito and two bean burritos (both without dairy elements) plus an extra large Slice, but had to settle for a large as they were "out of extra large." I assume he meant cups, not "extra large" as a concept.
This brings me to a fairly nuanced topic in Taco Bell dining: portion variation. Particularly with burritos, portions can vary somewhat wildly from store to store and visit to visit. For example, I only ordered two bean burritos because I have come to expect a certain skimpiness in items like the bean burrito and 7-layer burrito when ordered without cheese. Yet, occasionally I will be rewarded with a very large portion of beans in the burrito, making for a very, perhaps overly, filling meal. In this case, all three burritos had generous portions of beans, rendering the second, supplementary bean burrito an extravagance. It was ordered more or less as an insurance policy against hunger pangs later on, yet turned out to be (through fate's randomization of portion control) simply too much food. Additionally, the amount of beans, accompanied by the tasty yet kickin' Fire! sauce, created a thirst not entirely satisfied by a merely large Slice.
These comments are not directed at this Taco Bell in particular, or even at Taco Bell in general, but are rather offered as observational reportage for my own sake specifically, since I believe myself to be my entire audience with these reviews. I certainly am not calling for more stringent portion control standards, be they larger or smaller than normal, but thought that this would be an excellent forum in which to inaugurate a national discourse on the subject of fate, free will, and gambling on unrevealed portions of beans.
Review by La Fée, September 1998 |