Bangkok Taco Bell fans binge on comfort food, and possibly, regret

By Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter

 

Stuart Holden, Nitiwit ‘Junior’ Jongphiphithaporn and Aleksey Stanishevskiy at Taco Bell.

 

BANGKOK — For almost three hours, Junior stood eagerly waiting in line. After the 27 people before him were served, he would be sinking his teeth into a greasy taco like he did during his teen years in the American midwest.

 

The last time Nitiwit “Junior” Jongphiphitaporn, 18, ate Taco Bell was two years ago, when he would down burritos after school as an exchange student in Grand Haven, Michigan. Thursday morning, he was the 28th customer to queue up for the official opening this morning at Thailand’s first branch of the Tex-Mex fast food chain at The Mercury Ville shopping mall on Chit Lom Road. Other Thai customers in line echoed Junior’s sentiments – they were waiting out of nostalgia for time they lived in the United States.

 

Full Story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/food/2019/01/24/bangkok-taco-bell-fans-binge-on-comfort-food-and-possibly-regret/

 

-- © Copyright Khaosod English 2019-01-24

Oh boy not another US bs crap junk. If people miss their so called comfort crap fast food then stay in your country problem solved 

Nitiwit by name , nitwit by nature.

No beef on the menu....

 

Taco Bell's U.S. beef (mostly ground beef) has never been great...

 

But at least, they offered beef as a prominent meat choice on their menu items.

 

Taco Bell TH, strangely in my view, has NONE!

 

 

Quote

 

The chicken taco filling – no beef served yet, the chain says – tastes like the meat layer scraped off of a cafeteria lasagna, and Thai palates will beg for some lime to cut through the creamy greasiness of a chicken quesadilla.

 

OUCH!!!   The Khaosod EN reporter must not be much of a Taco Bell fan...

 

But meanhile:

 

Quote

Taco Bell hopes to expand to 40 branches across Thailand by 2022.

 

Hang in there Korat... MAYBE help eventually will be on the way...

"creamy greasiness of a chicken quesadilla."

 

Sounds yum. Creamy greasiness. Sounds like a night with a Bar Girl. Nomnomnom

11 minutes ago, Nyezhov said:

"creamy greasiness of a chicken quesadilla."

 

Sounds yum. Creamy greasiness. Sounds like a night with a Bar Girl. Nomnomnom

 

My past nights with bar girls were often creamy -- but never greasy!!! 

Upon somber (sober) reflection, the other thing noticeably missing from the TB TH menu (besides beef) is....

 

BREAKFAST ITEMS!!!   

 

Even though the location opens at 10 in the morning, nary a breakfast item anywhere on the menu...

 

Some egg, bacon and french fry/potato burritos (or similar) would have been nice... Or even a scrambled egg, cheese and meat quesadilla.

 

 

Fast food is just bad food 

look of America fat people 

There only eat junk food 

Bon appetite 

5 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

No beef on the menu....

In other local news, it was reported that the population of feral soi dogs around the Mercury Ville mall on Chit Lom Road has dropped significantly.  Some speculate that they don't like the smell of Tex-Mex tacos. 

 

 

Edited January 24, 20197 yr by Damrongsak

Good one Damrongsak. Reminds me of dark comedy "Eating Raoul": couple wants to open restaurant, wife puts escort ads in local paper, they kill men who show up & sell the "meat" to local Mexi restaurant.

Comfort food is usually considered dishes like ma used to make: meat loaf, pot roast.... not quasi Mexican.

"look of America fat people 

There only eat junk food"

Come on down to Jomtien Beach and check out the Russians, some of monumental proportions.

Taco Bell has NEVER tried to misrepresent themselves. They serve crap, people buy it. Seems like an acceptable business model to me, so what's the beef? (see what I did there?)

Not Tex Mex just Bad Mex

Did I read right?.... No beef yet???

Of all the American Fast Food, why oh why can't we get Chick-Fil-A or In 'n Out????

That's actually stuff you want to eat. Taco Hell is just plain crap.

Sunrise Tacos and La-Monita are just fine, I guess I changed my mind and stay with these 2 Mexican restaurants..... 

2 hours ago, Emdog said:

Come on down to Jomtien Beach and check out the Russians, some of monumental proportions

Or go to any Thai town with a McDonalds, KFC, pizza hut, or whatever like that and have a look at the Thai kids, they are the best example of what can go wrong.

Edited January 25, 20197 yr by hkt83100
Typo corrected

Never been near one m'self. Loathe corn products.

1 hour ago, MaxLee said:

Did I read right?.... No beef yet???

Yeah, this has been a huge complaint on Thai social media. Many people waited for a long time to find this out and were not happy. I assume either they haven't sorted out a beef source yet, or maybe they will never have beef here.

16 minutes ago, keemapoot said:

Yeah, this has been a huge complaint on Thai social media. Many people waited for a long time to find this out and were not happy. I assume either they haven't sorted out a beef source yet, or maybe they will never have beef here.

That would be totally unheard of in other countries, that you make a grand opening of a chain like Taco Bell without any beef dishes,.... but only in Thailand. Who the hell ordered to open its operations without beef???

 

Well thanks, I'll stick to Sunrise Tacos and La Monita, which IMO are more than formidable alternatives.

Edited January 25, 20197 yr by MaxLee

No beef in menu.

Just chicken and pork.

No beans either.  Gosh darn it!

Edited January 25, 20197 yr by ricklev

3 hours ago, keemapoot said:

Yeah, this has been a huge complaint on Thai social media. Many people waited for a long time to find this out and were not happy. I assume either they haven't sorted out a beef source yet, or maybe they will never have beef here.

 

Some of the responses made by TB on their TB FB page suggest it was a conscious, deliberate decision to not offer any beef menu items, with the suggestion that they knew their customers didn't really want it.

As long as the menu remains as it is (in distorted fashion), I will henceforth avoid referring to them as "Taco Bell" and instead be referring to them as "Taco Thailand"!!! 

 

Can't bring myself to call them a real "Taco Bell" under the current circumstances.

 

Even though Taco Bell is not good Mexican, by any sense, it's better than any Mexican I've eaten this far in Thailand. Other Mexican restaurants,  I guess to fit Thai tastes add a lot of lime and the other seasonings are off too. For instance,  I can only order the rice at Sunrise Tacos. Anything else I've tried is  just bad Mexican, but the same goes for much of Europe. I don't know why. Other countries do a good job at Italian, French, Indian, etc., but why is an acceptable form of Mexican so hard to make? In conclusion, I'm happy to see Taco Bell, even if it's not great Mexican, it's better than anything else I've had in Bangkok or Pattaya. Hope they add beef soon

18 hours ago, Denim said:

Nitiwit by name , nitwit by nature.

Looks like chubby 'Junior' is well on his merry way to a heart attack.  Enjoy your meal nitwits.

From the OP

 

"For Briton Holden, it was his first time at Taco Bell – but he said he had found a new source of comfort food.

 

“It’s great. All I order here is pizza, McDonald’s, so this is a great alternative,” Holden said.

 

“This would totally be a great drunk food, man!”

 

Good grief man, that's not a diet, it's a heart attack in waiting.

Edited January 25, 20197 yr by Bluespunk

29 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Some of the responses made by TB on their TB FB page suggest it was a conscious, deliberate decision to not offer any beef menu items, with the suggestion that they knew their customers didn't really want it.

Yeah, that's a cheap cop-out. Every Thai knows Thai beef sucks, and that somehow the major burger chains have figured out how to get decent tasting ground beef. Thais know this too, and were likely looking forward to seeing what Taco Bell came up with. Not sure if the other fast food giants mix Thai beef  with Australian beef or what, but Taco Bell should have figured this out before opening. And, if the refried beans are missing too, well they just took the sizzle out of their grand opening.

Edited January 25, 20197 yr by keemapoot
sp

16 minutes ago, keemapoot said:

Yeah, that's a cheap cop-out. Every Thai knows Thai beef sucks, and that somehow the major burger chains have figured out how to get decent tasting ground beef. Thais know this too, and were likely looking forward to seeing what Taco Bell came up with. Not sure if the other fast food giants mix Thai beef  with Australian beef or what, but Taco Bell should have figured this out before opening. And, if the refried beans are missing too, well they just took the sizzle out of their grand opening.

 

I believe the major burger franchises here mostly claim to use 100% Australian beef, and at least claim they do NOT use Thai beef.

 

The sourcing info posted above for "Taco Thailand" indicates they're getting their pork from Australia and their cheese from the U.S., among other out of country sourcing.  So I don't know of any reason they couldn't have sourced ground beef from either country if they wanted to...  Apparently, they figured they knew best....

 

 

 

19 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

No beef on the menu....

 

Taco Bell's U.S. beef (mostly ground beef) has never been great...

 

But at least, they offered beef as a prominent meat choice on their menu items.

 

Taco Bell TH, strangely in my view, has NONE!

 

Agreed.  Taco Bell beef has never been the best in the West, but I can imagine them using the Thai equivalent: ox, buffalo, rendered milk cows.  Doesn't matter imho.  These Western fast food joints that move operations to Asian seldom have the same Western-based menu.  Call me a junk-food purist, but I tend to simply avoid them.  No Taco Bell signature Beef Tacos?  Ok.  No old, expat customer who basically only liked the Taco Bell signature Beef Tacos with sour cream and salsa.  No great loss.  Better for the arteries and overall health eating Thai with a lot of veggies.  I'll let the new generation experiment with obesity, arteriosclerosis, and diabetes.  You gain a lot of wisdom by abusing your body in your youth if you're smart enough to clean up your act later in life.