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Drive-Thru Gourmet: Biscuit Taco good, but can it beat the mighty McMuffin?

By Ken Hoffman - | Apr 10, 2015

This week I reached out for a new Biscuit Taco — a really boring name for a pretty adventurous breakfast sandwich — at Taco Bell, the country’s leading “Mexican-inspired” chain, with 6,500 restaurants. “Mexican-inspired” … first time I’ve heard the Bell P.R. machine use that one.

Just about a year ago, Taco Bell decided to throw stones at Goliath — McDonald’s domination of the drive-thru breakfast market. Taco Bell had real-life Ronald McDonalds say they were done clowning around with Egg McMuffins, and they were switching to Taco Bell’s new A.M. Crunchwraps and Waffle Tacos.

The tactic worked. Now breakfast accounts for 6 percent of Taco Bell’s sales. Taco Bell still wants what McDonald’s has, though: breakfast racking up 25 percent of total sales.

Barging into breakfast isn’t easy. Burger King has tried many times, without much success, to put a dent in McDonald’s morning market share. Wendy’s doesn’t even offer a breakfast menu. But Taco Bell isn’t backing down. Instead, it’s upping the ante with its new Biscuit Taco, which is replacing the Waffle Taco.

Here’s the Biscuit Taco breakdown: a fluffy buttermilk biscuit all bent out of shape so that it looks like a taco, filled with the usual breakfast stuffings, like bacon or sausage, eggs and cheese — and some unusual breakfast items, like a white-meat chicken patty rolled in crushed tortilla chips and deep-fried.

Total calories: 370 (for a Biscuit Taco with sausage, egg and cheese). Fat grams: 23. Sodium: 55 mg. Carbs: 28 g. Dietary fiber: 1 g. Protein: 12 g. Manufacturer’s suggested retail price: $2.49.

OK, so there’s nothing “Mexican-inspired” about a biscuit breakfast sandwich with sausage, egg and cheese — other than the shape of the biscuit. Hey, you can smush a biscuit so it’s flat like a crepe, but that doesn’t make it French toast.

The biscuit is made with real buttermilk and real butter. The Bell rings up points for that. Otherwise, the sausage and bacon models of the Biscuit Taco are pretty much same old, same old — the next 10 drive-thrus down the street have biscuits for breakfast, too.

But something is definitely going on with the Biscuit Tacos with Crispy Chicken. No one else has a chicken patty that’s all crunchy with broken-up tortilla chips. And just to make things interesting, Taco Bell has two types of sauces for your Biscuit Taco with Crispy Chicken: Jalapeño Honey and Country Gravy.

Taco Bell has an onslaught of new commercials, throwing shade on the Egg McMuffin. The Bell is saying the McMuffin is boring, an instrument of totalitarian control of our eating habits. It’s time to break free of the dictator’s control, and try a Biscuit Taco.

Will the campaign succeed? It’s got an uphill battle. The Egg McMuffin has a freshly cracked egg and a toasted English muffin. Pretty yummy. And you can customize it with egg whites only. The Biscuit Taco uses a scrambled egg mix, and egg whites only is not an option.

Let the battle begin. The Biscuit Taco is legit good, but, as the great warrior Ric Flair says, to be the man, you got to beat the man. And Egg McMuffin is THE man.

Starting at $4.32/week.

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