Taco Bell, home of the schlockiest American fast food, truly has no shame. Now, for a limited time, you can get a “beef” taco in a shell made out of a giant, nacho-cheese-flavored Dorito.
Does Taco Bell employ a permanently stoned focus group? ‘Cause the Bell always seems to roll out the kind of foods dreamed up by pot-smoking college kids, or greedy nine year olds. This is the same, ahem, restaurant that gave us the 5-layer burrito (beef, beans, and cheddar cheese, rolled in a tortilla, coated in nacho cheese sauce, then rolled in still more tortilla), and the “crunchwrap supreme” (a flour tortilla filled with seasoned beef, warm nacho cheese sauce, a crunchy tostada shell, reduced-fat sour cream, lettuce and tomatoes and then wrapped up and grilled “for maximum portability”). Oh, wait: I get it now…this is menu development generated by algorithm. A database of imgredients is randomly recombined every six to eight months, creating a new item to star in the company’s pervasive advertising campaigns.
All of this complaining about Taco Bell makes me hungry. Guess I’ll go to Taqueria Chilangos to satisfy my cravings…
Bouillie 
To be fair, I think Taco Bell does have their target market down pretty good. The last time I was in a Taco Bell on a road trip I’m almost entirely certain I was the only person in their not under the influence of one substance or another.
Kudos on hacking their product development algorithm though.
The ever-evolving, endlessly recombining “food” at Taco Bell manages to innovate in form while delivering precisely the same flavors in each iteration. The phenotype changes, but the genetic material never evolves.
I ate one (ok, maybe two) of these for research purposes since I do some freelance work for the Yum! Brands, and I have to admit it was pretty damn good. And I didn’t feel too guilty since they only clock in at 170 calories which is much less than I anticipated.
Did the Dorito taco shell leave the usual tooth-furring, tastebud-deadening aftertaste of ordinary nacho flavored Doritos chips? You can brush your teeth five times, and you’ll still have lingering Dorito breath.
ETA: is “freelance work” for Yum! brands codespeak for “living off the $1 menu”? LOL.
It didn’t. Maybe the “beef product” counteracted it.
And no, I’m proud to say the Yum! brands are putting more into my account than I am into theirs.
After seeing their ad a few years back for the “fourth meal” of the day, which was apparently a 1 lb. burrito, meant to be consumed at 2 or 3 am, my wife came to the same conclusion: the entire menu is designed for stoners. Who else wants that kind of food at 2 am?
I have to agree with Buck 25…they know their 2am target market. So to answer your question, yes, they use a stoned focus group.