Food Review (Chicken Cantina Bowl from Taco Bell)

I've had a good number of these, and I'm surprised I never got around to reviewing what many people believe to be the embarrassment of Taco Bell. For $4.99, this is what you get, per the Taco Bell website:

"Experience our new citrus-herb marinated chicken, flavorful black means, guacamole made from real Hass avocados, pico de gallo prepared fresh daily, roasted corn and pepper salsa and a creamy cilantro dressing, all served on a bed of premium Latin rice. Also available in Steak of Veggie"

And that's what it is. When this item was introduced to Taco Bell way back when, it was soon after I decided to start counting my calories. While I still ate nothing but loads of sodium and saturated fat, I was (and still am) trying to not let myself balloon out. A lot of people probably look at the price for this item and scoff, but the truth is, it's a good value. Not just because of the pretty decent quality of what you're getting, but because of the size of what you're getting. The chicken cantina bowl is, from what I've seen, the heftiest item on the Taco Bell menu, which should also help to explain the five dollar asking price.

I've probably had at least two dozen of these over the past year or two (primarily because of its size and relatively low calorie amount of 540), and I've noticed some consistencies that aren't exactly positives. First of all, all too often it seems like the rice is undercooked. Not terribly, but definitely noticeable. Second, the chicken seems to be dry too many times when I get these things. Why do I keep getting them? They still taste decent. The black beans and corn salsa are always perfectly fine, the guacamole is decent (albeit uninteresting), and the cilantro dressing has a good flavor (although it's a bit salty, but what can you expect?).

If you're looking to fill up and feel a bit less remorse from eating fast food, this is a fair option. Yeah, there aren't too many calories in this cantina bowl, and there's not a lot of fat, but there is a lot of sodium, and it still has chicken that's likely injected with a bunch of mystery ingredients, regardless of what that slut Lorena Garcia says.

3.75/5

+ Good value. Decent amount of flavor. Surprisingly filling.

- Pretty consistently undercooked rice and overcooked chicken.