I Miss Volcano Tacos

Back in Fall 2008, Taco Bell introduced the Volcano Taco to their 89¢ menu. It wasn't an amazing innovative breakthrough in faux-Mexican culinaria, but it was a decent spicy lunch - several hundred thousand Scoville units beyond most Taco Bell fare.

It was a simple concept: Take an otherwise standard Taco Bell crunchy taco, color the shell a ridiculous bright red, and add a thick layer of "Lava Sauce" on top of the meat.

The Lava Sauce was the secret to the Volcano Taco's appeal: A smooth and cheddary cheese sauce that was loaded with two-stage heat: A mild burn to start that gradually built up in your mouth and throat as you ate, and a more solid fiery "warmth" down deep that stopped just short of heartburn. Topped off with a couple of packets of Fire Sauce, a Volcano Taco was comfortably warm and would get the top of my poor ol' balding head breaking out in tiny beads of sweat. (Keep in mind that my heat tolerance is somewhere on the high side of medium - true chiliheads would probably consider this taco to be kind of mild.)

They never looked as good in person as they did on the posters, but fast food never does. I was pretty disappointed when they were discontinued, though.


Links:

Fast Food Critic's Volcano Taco Review

Here's One Internet Petition to Bring the Volcano Taco back, and here is another one. I'm pretty sure no one at Taco Bell pays any attention whatsoever to internet petitions - why should they? No one else does - but the comments are fun in a "guilty pleasure" sort of way.

Taco Bell's website.

.