Junk Food Nation, I heard a funny story over the weekend about a friend of mine who wanted to move to Madrid, and was looking for a place to stay.  Which I think is a lovely and romantic idea.  However, he was struggling… places to rent, to buy, etc… it was a tough expensive market.  At one point, he noted that he found a place!  “It’s awesome…just three hours outside of Madrid.”  Which gave me pause. WHAT?

How can you say that a place that is THREE HOURS AWAY from something is “outside of” it?  What is THAT?? Ridiculousness!  If you are three hours away from one city, YOU ARE LIKELY IN ANOTHER CITY.  I can’t say “Oh I live three hours outside of DC…in freaking Trenton, NJ.”

Where do you live? “Oh I live two hours outside of LA…in a small hamlet called SAN DIEGO.”  ABSURD.  But we all do it to some extent.  Saying you’re from DC when you’re from Bethesda, saying you’re from San Fran when you’re from Sunnyvale, etc.  But three hours????  That’s pushing it, no?

Today’s junk food: Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit!

Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit!!! I bought this back when I bought the Chocolate Taco dessert kit, and actually ate it the day after…just haven’t had a chance to review it until now. The Chocolate Taco one, while I gave it decent marks for being fun, was not the best flavor combo.

This one, however, I had high hopes for.  Maybe it’s because I have had Mexican desserts with cinnamon before, but cinnamon nachos makes sense to me more than choco tacos.

The knock against this Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit is that…well, you’re just being asked to throw a lump of ice cream on top of chips and drizzle it with sauce.  Not the most sophisticated snack.

Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit comes with cinnamon chips, caramel sauce, and toffee bits.  I like it!  Very churro-like.

I know that I shouldn’t have expected anything fancier with this Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit, but still, it did make me laugh that when I opened the box there were just three big white plastic bags of stuff.  I got a small bag of toffee-flavored bits (wait, if this is toffee, why not just call it toffee bits?), a tube/bag of caramel XMR 0634, and a big bag of 3163 2 11!!! MMMMMMM

The cinnamon chips in this Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit were tasty, I must admit.  They were LOADED with cinnamon and sugar, and when I ate them, I didn’t get overwhelming corn flavor – it tasted more like a churro.  Very good.  I approve.  Cannot wait until eaten with ice cream.

Added the Vanilla (Turkey Hill, of course)…

And then added the toppings from this Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit.  IT LOOKED AWESOME!!! Let’s get some sexy sexy closeups:

So how did this Taco Bell Cinnamon Nachos Dessert Kit taste, after all had been added and loaded up?  In a word: SPECTACULAR.  Honestly, this was really good; I have to say it blew the other dessert kit out of the water.  Why?  Not because this was any kind of unique flavor or anything; it’s just that the flavor combo was right on point.

The caramel sauce, while noticeably artificial, gave the basic burnt sugar flavor that we’ve all come to know and love.  Add this to some creamy vanilla ice cream, and then eaten with the cinnamon chip, and you have happiness in your mouth.  Just a perfect balance of vanilla, creamy, cold, crunchy, cinnamon, and caramel.  On top of that, add the sort of salty-sweet toffee bits (sorry, toffee-FLAVORED bits), and this dessert had extra textures and bursts of flavor.  The balance worked well, and the flavor profile worked in harmony.

All in all, this dessert kit evoked all the Mexican-ish desserts I love – Obleas (the caramel), vanilla (fried ice cream), cinnamon (churros), all rolled into one.  Good varied texture with the chips and the bits.  Was it messy? Yes.  Was it not the most complicated?  Sure.  But did it work?

Definitely. Buy this. Buy this now.

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I had some leftovers from both kits, so I decided to combine EVERYTHING to see how it would go.  CHOCOLATE SAUCE CARAMEL CHIPS SPRINKLES TOFFEEEEEE ALLLLLL TOGETHER NOW!!!

How’d it taste? LOL….bad.  I overdid it.  All the flavors got muddled, and I felt like an idiot.  Too sugary in some places, and the texture was all wrong – the chips actually started to taste soggy.

Heed my advice.  Just go with the regular Cinnamon Nachos kit, and follow the instructions.  Do not add or subtract anything.  You’ll thank me.

PURCHASED AT: Super Walmart

COST: $3.00

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Let’s do this social networking thing.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy