Ordering a Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell is like playing Where’s Waldo? with ground beef and nacho cheese. I’ve always felt that this city has a way of ruining fast food chains - the prices are higher, while the quality is somehow worse - and the handful of Crunchwrap Supremes I ate for this article were not spared. Maybe five of those have been in New York. I grew up about a half hour from Taco Bell’s headquarters in Southern California, and have probably eaten a hundred or more Crunchwraps in my lifetime. Ingredients: Ground beef, nacho cheese sauce, tostada, sour cream, lettuce, tomato But is it better? I stopped by both restaurants last weekend, conveniently located a 10-minute walk from one another in Brooklyn, to find out. Its version, called the “Dankwrap Supreme” for obvious legal reasons, is bigger and more expensive. And now, from a new burrito shop in Williamsburg: Super Burrito, which started as a concessions stand on the Rockaway Beach boardwalk, recently opened a second location on Bedford Avenue and offers a take on the Crunchwrap Supreme as a weekly special. Neither hit quite like the original.Īlmost two decades later, Crunchwraps are sold from some 8,000 Taco Bells worldwide. Introduced by Taco Bell as a limited-run special in 2005, the Crunchwrap Supreme returned as a permanent menu item the following year after becoming the chain’s “most successful product introduction ever.” It has spawned offshoots within the company over the years, including a breakfast Crunchwrap and a vegetarian version with black beans instead of ground beef. Neither comes close in cultural significance to the Crunchwrap Supreme. These menu items are bigger than themselves, achieving icon status or something like it in the world of fast-food fandom. And don’t forget the Doritos Locos Taco, where a Doritos chips-flavored tortilla that stains your fingertips orange stands in for a hard taco shell. There’s Baja Blast, its trademarked soda long-rumored to just be a mix of Mountain Dew and Cool Blue Gatorade. Perhaps more than any other food chain, the company headquartered in my hometown of Irvine, California, has proven it can turn stunt menu items into runaway hits that stand the test of time. Hats off to the marketing team at Taco Bell.
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