Veteran consumers of fast food have certain expectations—certain低的expectations. At the start of every month, we expect fast-food chains to introduce new “limited time only” products, and by and large, we expect those products to re-combine ingredients that the restaurants already have on hand. Wedon’t希望任何新物品都会改变我们对快餐的看法，因为我们的健康廉价，劣等和不利 - 尽管我们确实感谢餐馆公司办公室的好人为培养新颖性的幻想而付出的努力。
Few fast-food places have been more brazen about the monthly game of mix-and-match thanTaco Bell, which apparently only has about half a dozen ingredients on hand at any given time, along with a chart hanging over the melter that keeps track of all the possible combinations. Every time Taco Bell introduces a new ingredient—be it bacon, spicy chicken, or a puffy flatbread—it’s only a matter of time before they run it through The TB Gauntlet, adding a version with nacho cheese, then a “fresco” version with all cheese replaced by a watery pico de gallo, then a version with an extra tortilla glued to the outside by a layer of refried beans, and so on.
The Bell’s latest round of ingredient roulette has resulted in theBacon Cheesy Potato Burrito，它在炸玉米饼钟菜单（实际上是俗气的嘉年华土豆）上提升了迄今无卫星的物品。墨西哥卷饼将这些小的炸土豆掘块带入玉米饼中，撒上奶酪酱，培根酱，调味的碎牛肉和酸奶油。在嘴里，这只野兽的质地感觉就像是一个外星文明，如果被要求产生我们人类所说的“食物”，那么综合的。在食道和胃中，就像大多数炸玉米饼铃一样，培根俗气的马铃薯墨西哥卷饼感觉像是布里罗垫。
But how does it taste? Let me break it down for you. I ordered the BCPB twice from my local Taco Bell, both times without sour cream, since the burrito seemed creamy enough already, and both times with a fair amount of Fire Sauce at the ready, because Taco Bell food tends to be low on the spice/flavor factor. The second time, my local Taco Bell threw a handful of rice onto the burrito for no apparent reason. (This actually happens fairly often at my neighborhood Bell, where they interpret the concept of “recipes” fairly loosely.) Both times, the burrito was unappealingly lumpy—sort of like a tater-tot sandwich on Wonder Bread—and left a pool of reddish translucent grease on my tray. And both times, the dry, crunchy bacon bits dominated the flavor of the meal. I’m used to a lot of different tastes coming out of the TB kitchen: “tomato-y,” “cumin-y,” “plastic-y.” I’m not sure I can get used to “smoky.”
Still, I admire Taco Bell’s willingness to keep experimenting with what’s sitting in the walk-in. The TB food scientists are like toddlers, mixing up the contents of their Gerber Graduates trays, or like me whenever I throw a few Ziploc Boxes worth of leftovers together with a fresh starch to make a “new” meal for my family. There’s something blessedly unpretentious about Taco Bell’s approach to new menu items. Come back next month, when they start tossing Cinnamon Twists into Meximelts.
At least Taco Bell isn’t as presumptuous as温迪的, which is touting its newSweet & Spicy Asian Chicken(along with the rest of its new line of boneless wings) as so “tasteful” that customers will think they’re eating in a fancy restaurant. This has become a common marketing approach for fast-food places over the past several years: pitching their products as practically fine-dining-worthy. Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr. has the confusingly named “Six-Dollar Burger,” which they market as being as good as the pricey need-a-big-knife-because-they’re-just-so-damn-huge burgers served at sit-down chains. Pizza Hut has aired commercials that show diners at fancy Italian places being fooled by the deliciousness of the Hut’s baked pasta dishes. And now Wendy’s—which already claims to be “way better than fast food”—has been running ads that insist the Sweet & Spicy Asian Chicken is the kind of dish you’d order if you were out at some place with cloth tablecloths and candelabras.
实际上，温迪的亚洲鸡肉不会在带有蒸汽桌子的地方和悬挂在前门上的“你们所有可以吃的”标志的地方。无骨的翅膀不是bad， 确切地。它们又大又肉，甜辣的酱汁具有宜人的姜/辣椒/柑橘味。（我还尝试了水牛酱，这很甜，而且不是很好。）但是isfast food. It’s no better and no worse. Actually, it might be just alittle更糟糕的是，如果只是因为“亚洲鸡”与温迪选择的任何一面都没有整齐配对。风味的特殊混合物与薯条，烤土豆或辣椒味不佳。亚洲鸡肉组合的最好的一面是花园沙拉，但温迪确实没有适当的敷料来伴随它。（牧场？意大利人？千岛？Bleu奶酪？chipotle？）
温迪最新的努力（无论如何还是对快餐奉献者的迷人）来说，这是温迪（Wendy）最新的一系列尝试，以不同配置的消费者将面包夹面包鸡肉的最新尝试。温迪（Wendy's）提供了蘸有鸡肉三明治和各种鸡肉条的蘸鸡肉三明治（降低和未造成的），而连锁店的价值菜单目前具有基督教世界中最浓郁，最淡淡的鸡肉块。188asia金宝博官网然而，温迪（Wendy）在家禽艺术的稀有领域中曾经没有尝试过辣鸡肉三明治，这仍然可以说是整个快餐宇宙中最完美的参赛者。
与温迪不同，哈迪的始终对食物（或者没有“六美元的汉堡”）保持一定的自负，但有时它使其眨眨眼的“为人民快餐”的立场太过分了。例子：
The unfortunately namedBiscuit Holesmight seem like the elusive “something new” in fast food: not quite doughnut, not quite biscuit, not quite cinnamon roll. But when I lived in Athens, Georgia, I occasionally visited an all-night dive called Herbie’s that served a similar snack called “Herbie Balls.” The proprietor, Herbie, had a reputation as an ornery old cuss, fostered by years of taking the abuse of drunken college kids at 3 a.m. Herbie would let loose with a stream of profanity at anyone who tested him, such that a large portion of Herbie’s late-night clientele would go to the restaurant just to taunt him. (It was like a real-life version of the Tube Bar tapes.)
无论如何，每当我拜访赫比的人时，这个人本人都很亲切，可能是因为我从未对他鸣叫。那些赫比的球很好：温暖而脆，含糖，非常适合在上次通话后吸收酒精。Hardee的饼干孔的主要问题是它们在早餐时提供服务。Hardee's应该保持24小时的开放时间，仅在午夜至凌晨4点之间提供饼干孔。
但是，真的有什么要抱怨的？饼干孔是用肉桂糖撒上撒粉的面团，并配以糖霜。他们很美味。在快餐食品包装中的快餐食品消费中，某些事情不应该被过度思考。