Naked Chicken Chalupa

I was reading Grub Street earlier today and they were talking about a new Taco Bell experiment - a taco shell made out of a fried egg debuting this month in Michigan. I can't say that I'm very excited about the idea of holding an oily, squishy egg in taco form, but it reminded me of the last unconventional taco shell that Taco Bell had, the one made out of fried chicken that they sold across the country as the naked chicken chalupa and which was gone within a month.

The naked chicken chalupa came out at the end of January, and within the first week, I picked one up at Taco Bell for lunch and absolutely loved it. I wanted to get more, but there isn't a Taco Bell super close to us at home and our February weekends were pretty packed, making it difficult. Sometime near the end of February, less than a month after releasing it, they announced that the naked chicken chalupa would be gone before March. I had missed the news for a few days (was pretty busy with work and stuff), so by the time I finally learned about it, it was too late. The naked chicken chalupa was gone. I always knew it was going to be a limited edition item, but I didn't think it would be that limited.

There was a lot of buzz around this chalupa when it first came out because it was replacing the regular fried chalupa shell with a shell made of fried chicken. Inside the fried chicken shell were the usual chalupa toppings - lettuce, tomato, cheese, and avocado ranch sauce. Eating it, it was just like eating a regular chalupa. The taste was so similar, except better since the fried chicken shell not only had the flavor of the regular fried chalupa shell but also fried chicken. It was so good. Unfortunately, now it's gone. Was it that expensive to make? Did they run out of fried chicken shells? It got pretty good reviews as far as I could see, and there was a lot of hype about it, so why was it gone so soon? Hopefully this will be like some of the other menu items that Taco Bell brings back from time to time. If so, I will definitely be trying to get as many as I can.