"Live Mas", I whisper to myself as I go in for my first bite of Taco Bell's newest culinary concoction, the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa. And for those few, fleeting moments - I certainly was.
It isn't the most outlandish creation to come out of Taco Bell's kitchen, especially when you consider that at one point they were putting taco fillings inside tortillas made from fried chicken - which is, in all honesty, probably a sin and we're all heretics for allowing it to happen. No, by comparison the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa is a fairly tame spin on a classic mainstay that doesn't even need to do anything to break the laws of nature to achieve its design. As it turns out, Taco Bell is capable of subtly.
What the Toasted Cheddar Chalupa lacks in flare and "wow" factor it makes up for in execution. Nothing has been altered in terms of structure, other than that the chalupa shell has been infused with a thin layer of toasted cheddar. Nothing fancy, but it works very well. The flavor of the cheddar is pronounced enough to be distinguishable, and actually kind of reminds me of a grilled cheese - even though I can't help but believe there will come a time when Taco Bell announces an actual "Grilled Cheese" variant to one of it's tortilla-clad entrees. In the meantime, however, this is about as close as it gets to a taco/grilled cheese hybrid.
As anyone who has had a Taco Bell chalupa can attest, the texture of its shell is usually somewhere between being soft and crunchy. Perhaps this is just because I was dealt a good hand by the Taco Bell gods, but the added cheese on my Toasted Cheddar Chalupa tilted the scales a little more towards the crunchy end, which for someone like myself who almost exclusively deals in crunchy tacos - is very much appreciated.
