A valid decision, for sure 
I answered your questions. I go back because I can’t replicate the wafers. I buy the pizzas.
I have no places around me that make anything good. Chipolte is a dump too. So is Chilis, Meson Ole, etc.
Again if I finally duplicate the pizza wafers, I will never go to Toxic Hell again. This is plain English. I don’t see any other questions.
And RICE is filler plain & simple. Does not belong in anything you hold or dip - period.
Harters, I love you.
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Seriously- I grew up and live in Tucson, AZ. Taco bell wasn’t bad back in the day, and I’m talking about the '80s. I used to get taco salads and other stuff there, but I wouldn’t now, do they even have that without calling it something like an enchirito ensalada or something equally disgusting? There was another chain, El Taco, that was much better, but it faded away over time. If you think you like Mexican food based on Taco Bell, be aware that it’s not like that. Kinda like my totally food-ignorant sister when she came back from a trip to Italy, she declared that the Italian food in Italy wasn’t good. 
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Maybe she’ll get lucky and they’ll open an Olive Garden before her next trip there.
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I loved those Taco Salads ! Yes and they turned them into “Fiesta Salad”'s. Ruined another great item. Then got rid of that too. The Taco Salad had the SAME wafer substance as with the Mexican Pizzas, just in the form of a bowl. You know why they had to get rid of those? Same reason for the Cinnamon Crispas. Because when people ate the bowl by itself they could taste the RANCID flavor of the toxic vegetable oils used to fry them. Glenn Bell used natural healthy coconut oil originally and they tasted like Heaven. Oh and speaking of Italian, I grew up with home cooked Italian food everyday. I am Sicilian. Even our sauce was made from garden tomatoes grown in the backyard. I know Italian food as well. And yes Olive Garden is NOT Italian food. Far from it. Also, pizzas are different in Italy. But I must confess that I love NY pizza. Best pizza in the U.S. Go to Pennsylvania etc. and the pizza is dogfood just like Papa John’s. I can’t believe people eat it. I was shocked when we ordered a pizza in the Poconos from an “Italian Restaurant”.
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Over the past 3 years, my take-out habit has changed.
I splurge on take-out from upscale restaurants, as a break from cooking. As my cooking has gotten better over the last 3 years, I’ve become fussier with respect to the quality I want from my take-out. I still get cheap take-out and try lots of new places, but I’m buying a lot less chain take-out than I was 20 years ago.
I also buy enough for 2 dinners when I place a takeout order, so I don’t have to cook the following night.
The takeout rotation when I was growing up was fried or rotisserie chicken, Chinese , fish and chips and pizza. These days, our takeout rotation has tended to be more varied. Pizza maybe every 2 months, fish and chips once every 6 weeks, alternating tandoori, Portuguese, fried and rotisserie chicken, Lebanese, Indian, Thai, Japanese and Chinese.
Taco Bell (or McD’s, Wendy’s, Burger King) is always a lunch food, on the go, usually eaten in my car, not a take-out dinner food I bring home!
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Fish & Chips are excellent. I always go to Nathan’s where they still have Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips. Comes with hush puppies too in the meal.
These companies need to be broken up into their individual corporations again like they used to be. That is the cause of the downfall of their foods. because monopolies exist that own bunches of them. And they cut all the good ingredients and preparations to save $.
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I miss Long John Silver’s. Maybe I will make a run for the Michigan border this summer. https://locations.ljsilvers.com/search?q=43.025596447485654%2C-81.28350487803904&qp=My%20Location&l=en
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I would like that place too. Don’t remember if we ever had them. Possibly, but if so they all left NY. I may have to go to Nathan’s next week now. Starting to yearn for fish & chips lol.
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The meal you cannot make at home!
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YES ! And I do not know why. But I guess it is no different than Chinese spare ribs. Another food you cannot make at home. One nut I will never crack. Even my former Chinese technicians could not give me the secret. Problem is not just the ingredients and amounts but the processes involved.
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I loved that place! It was a lunchtime favorite for my office.
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This has been a relatively unsuccessful quest of mine. I’ve gotten the taste profile pretty close, but on baby back ribs. I’ve been trying for decades. I agree it’s the roasting technique. There is a spice mix that Vanns makes called Beijing Rub that combined with a wee brush of Chinese barbecue sauce at the end makes the ribs very tasty.
https://vannsspices.com/spices/beijing-rub
The glaze happens because there’s sugar in the mix.
Vanns no longer operates an online store, and even among local stores that carry the brand, the rub has been MIA for years. Obviously, they still make it. Since they are local, I could of course call them and just drive over to their plant if they’d sell me some, ut that would be… too logical. Well, I’ll put it on my to do list.
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Agreed, but I have gotten close enough, I think with a serious eats recipe. As you said, way too many processes.
Different dish from what I never got enough of as a kid in New York, and I have not tried it, but I trust woks of life.
Husband is away, so Ill be experimenting with “fatty meat”!
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I have been very happy with these. If any of you want the full recipe lemmeno and I’ll try and look it up.
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I will admit i use a kitchen torch on the ribs at the end.
I’ll check it out!
I just checked out Woks of Life for this recipe a couple of days ago … because I have a rack of ribs in the fridge waiting to be prepared/experimented upon.
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Yummm! do share, at least pictures.
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I love Woks of Life.
Great site
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