Review: Taco Bell Grande Quesadilla

For convenience and bang for your fast-food dollar, it's hard to beat Taco Bell. Inexpensive, ubiquitous, and open late, they've become a staple for the late-night college and post-bar crowds. Using a relatively simple handful of ingredients (cheese, meat, tortillas, flatbread, and a handful of condiments) Taco Bell mainly specializes in putting things in new combinations, or tweaking the quantity.

Case in point: the new Grande Quesadilla.

From the order board, the Grande Quesadilla looks both massive and delicious. Thick, warm flatbread stuffed with melted cheese, tangy sauce, and a choice of chicken or steak? It's hard to imagine that such a thing isn't worth a try. I ordered one on the spot, curious to see if it could live up to its own appetizing hype.

Short answer? Not really.

It's possible that the Grande Quesadilla was more robust in the lab. Flatbread stands up well in a lot of culinary applications, and it seems only natural that it should be capable of stepping in for the tortilla. However, this is definitely not a case where anything the humble tortilla can do, flatbread can do better.

For one, the tortilla is more flexible. My Grande Quesadilla arrived looking somewhat more the worse for wear. The bread had mostly folded and half split along its spine like an old book (or, perhaps more appropriately, like a broken hard-shelled taco). The texture of it had also gone a little wrong, as if time in the punishing climes of the grill press had fried it just a little on the outside. The net result was more mealy than soft.

Second, tortillas are poor insulators, which typically makes them quite good at what they do. Flatbread, meanwhile, is (relatively speaking) thick and full of air, which is a recipe for protecting its contents from heat, just like the walls of a house. It's a poor trade-off for the Grande Quesadilla, and makes it harder for the cheese inside to melt properly. While I've got no objection to plain shredded cheese in general, I'm not a big fan of cold spots in my quesadilla.

The Grande Quesadilla is, then, a bit of a disappointment. At best it's a treat that's difficult to execute well on the prep-line with the equipment available, while at worst it's an ill-conceived combination of perfectly good ingredients that would be better applied elsewhere. It's only strength is novelty, perhaps and the appearance of bulk (which, incidentally, seems to be an illusion as mine didn't seem to have any more than the usual amount of cheese and chicken for a regular Taco Bell quesadilla). My extra buck didn't bang. It more or less fizzled.

My advice? Skip the upgrade and save your change for the dollar menu.