Irene Jiang / Business Insider
I tried Del Taco for the first time when I went to Los Angeles in December.
- Del Taco, a West Coast Tex-Mex chain, has a larger but less creative menu than its more popular competitor, Taco Bell.
- While Taco Bell is known for its crazy flavors and snack-food collaborations, Del Taco's menu sticks to a wide range of simple classics, including tacos, burgers, fries, and tamales.
- I ate at Del Taco for the first time during a trip to Los Angeles, and despite a few surprisingly good items, I was sorely disappointed by most of the food that I tried.
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If Taco Bell is the rebellious older brother who dropped out of college, spent a year trying to be a professional skater, and somehow magically found international success as a pop graffiti artist, then Del Taco is the straight-laced younger brother who went to college, graduated with a business degree, and despite a respectable career in bulk paper sales, remained in the shadow of his senior sibling his entire life.
I'm not saying Del Taco is boring. In a way, it's much more interesting than Taco Bell. Taco Bell's menu pretty much has six ingredients: meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, beans, and tortilla. Add a dash of Dorito dust here and there, and that's basically it.
Del Taco's menu, on the other hand, contains those six ingredients plus the ingredients for burgers, fries, and tamales. Oh, and Del Taco was the pioneer of the Beyond Taco. But is the food actually good?
Some people say that curiosity kills cats, and I say that curiosity also kills food writers - slowly, with clogged arteries and elevated blood pressure. So when I went to Los Angeles, my curiosity led me to the mysterious realm of Del Taco for the very first time.