I always get super excited when Taco Bell comes out with a new menu item. Ever since they revealed my now-favorite Volcano Taco, I’ve found myself to be like a fat, zitty 20-year-old kid with an intense inability to control his anticipation for greasy new Taco Bell menu items with stupid names, made up or otherwise. Oh wait…

Taco Bell’s new Tortadas are just that — a new Taco Bell menu item with a stupid name. Believe it or not, though, the word Tortada isn’t simply the result of a corporate brainstorm where a bunch of old white guys try to combine names of Spanish food items to fit their needs (enchirito = enchilada + burrito). Perhaps even more stupid than that is the fact that tortada means “cake,” and Taco Bell’s Tortada is not a cake. It is a bunch of recycled ingredients wrapped up with a tortilla, grilled, and shoved inside of a Quesadilla wrapper.

Wanna know something else about Taco Bell’s Salsa Roja Tortada? It sucks.

Review:

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that what is essentially a Crunch Wrap Supreme sans the Crunch comes off as unappealing to me, as the Crunch Wrap Supreme is likely my least favorite of all Taco Bell menu items. I’m not sure why I dislike it so much, but I do. People call me crazy, but I prefer the term “sexy,” which really has nothing to do with anything. I’m not sure why I’m rambling, maybe it’s because I’m so pissed off that this thing was such a waste of money, a resource that I really don’t have such liberal access to.

Regardless, I should probably tell you why I don’t like the Tortada. Inside of the big floppy wrap, which is sloppily folded in an attempt to hold the structurally impaired sandwich, (that’s right, I called it a sandwich) lies a few ingredients that one would think would be incapable of making anything short of something delicious, but somehow, here, they just suck. White meat chicken, shredded lettuce, fiesta salsa, salsa roja, and a blend of cheddar, pepperjack, and mozzarella cheeses all sound like winning ingredients, especially when mixed together in a flour tortilla.

But somehow, the Salsa Roja Tortada just falls flat on its grilled tortilla face. Maybe it’s because no single ingredient is fully detectable in the culinary mess, and instead the combine to make a clusterfuck of indistinguishable flavors. Maybe it’s because the damn thing falls apart within the first three bites, leaving you picking up pieces of lettuce and chicken off your lap.

Final Words:

Whatever the reason is, the Roja Salsa Tortada isn’t very good. I wanted to like it, I really did. But after eating this sloppily constructed mess, the only good thing I can really say about it is that there is a surprisingly abundant amount of chicken, but that doesn’t make up for the inability to detect any other flavor clearly in the wrap.

And clocking in at $3.49, it is a huge waste of money. Items like this are the exact reason why I usually order exclusively from the value menu, straying only on occasion to satisfy my craving for heat from the Volcano Menu or to try something new. Skip the Salsa Roja Tortada, as it is an uninspired mess that isn’t worth the asking price.

Pros

• A very hearty amount of chicken

Cons

• Too expensive
• Can’t taste any single ingredient, as the flavors are very poorly balanced
• Falls apart with every bite

Score: 4.5/10 (Bad)