I get excited every time Jack in the Box comes out with a new Munchie Meal. I feel like Jack uses the Munchie Meal line to let their imaginations run wild and be completely unapologetic about the wacky foods they come up with. “Mozzarella sticks on a chicken sandwich? Yes. Jalapeño poppers on a burger? Yes. Chicken and hash browns on a croissant? HOW CAN WE NOT?”

If this all sounds like the ramblings of a stoner, well, Jack in the Box has done nothing to discourage this idea. Munchie Meals used to be advertised as available between 9pm and 5am, but they’ve since made it clear that if you have an office job, you can still get your munchies fix. It will just cost you $2 more, for some reason.

In another move away from weed culture, Jack has moved away from his “puppet hanging out with Weedlord Cheeto on the couch” commercials and has gone in a different, more mature direction.

It’s all narrated by the classic old man sitting in the corner of a dark, dingy pool hall, wearing a bowler hat because they’re always wearing a bowler hat. Jack enters looking like a bad update of the Fonz, but I guess he’s supposed to look really cool. He walks in, sinks an entire 8-ball rack in one shot, shoves a Spicy Nacho Chicken Sandwich in a surprised man’s face, and walks out.

“It was just an ordinary night until he showed up, with a hungry look in his eyes. And then…he made…the shot. And when jaws dropped, he had something for that too.” Then the old man chuckles because he is wise.

I’m not entirely sure what point the commercial is making. Or who Jack is playing against, since he just sinks the balls and walks right back out in the span of 21 seconds. Also, it’s pretty rude to just shove a sandwich into someone’s maw, but on the other hand it’s rude to walk in, take up a table and then leave without paying.

I guess I’d be surprised too, but in more of a “what the fuck just happened?” way than a jaw-dropping awed kind of way.

As always, my Munchie meal came with two tacos, halfsies (half regular, half curly fries), the sandwich and a drink. Since I’m easily susceptible to signage, I decided to order a Loco Lime Fruit Cooler as my drink, since I’d never had one before and there was an advertisement for it hanging right there.

However, the lady on the other end of the talky box thought “Loco Lime” translated to “iced mocha”. As soon as the words “Loco Lime” had left my lips, I regretted the silly phrase, and since I refused to say it twice, I just went with the coffee drink.

Let this be a lesson to fast food marketing teams – those of us who are easily embarrassed will be put off by silly-sounding menu items we have to say out loud. I’m looking at you, Taco Bell, with your Doubledillas and your Quesaritos.

The Spicy Nacho Chicken Sandwich is unassuming on the outside, unlike the immediate mess that the Exploding Cheesy Chicken was. It’s also on the small side for a chicken sandwich, but that’s to be expected – after all, you’re also dealing with two tacos and halfsies. I’ve always found the “Munchie” in Munchie Meal to be a bit misleading, as I am always stuffed after eating one.

Jack in the Box describes the sandwich as “Spicy crispy chicken topped with onion rings all covered in nacho cheese sauce with jalapeños on toasted sourdough bread.” A pretty no-frills deconstruction.

After detaching the top bun, we get to the meat of the matter. Two onion rings that eerily compliment the circumference of the bun, three jalapeños, one spicy chicken…filet thing, and, of course, the nacho cheese sauce.

I was impressed with the methodology involved in constructing a Spicy Nacho Chicken – it appeared that an onion ring has been employed to keep the nacho cheese sauce and the jalapeños from running amok. Since the onion ring is almost as big as the bun, this didn’t limit these ingredients to just a tiny spot in the middle.

I always like when Jack puts something on sourdough, so I liked that part right off the bat. As for the chicken, it was a little thin, but fairly moist, and the breading actually had a nice little kick. I assume it’s the exact same chicken they use on the regular Jack’s Spicy Chicken. It was also nice that the breading stayed crispy, even under a layer of cheese sauce.

Amazingly, so did the onion rings. It’s nice to see onion rings on a sandwich actually be crispy. (I’m looking at you and your Western Bacon Cheeseburger, Carl’s Jr.) I feel like the breading added more taste and texture than the onion inside, which was largely flavorless and served mostly to just piss me off when it all wanted to come out in one long string, like onion rings do every damn time.

The nacho cheese sauce was your typical hyper-processed sauce, which I know is a big turnoff for some people. To me, however, it served as the perfect condiment, keeping everything moist and adding creamy texture and cheesy (if artificial) flavor.

Of course, the perfect compliment to nacho cheese is jalapeños! I only got three, but one of them was so massive it covered half the sandwich, ensuring that I got a hit of heat in every bite. They were your typical pickled jalapeños, and while those can sometimes lack a bite, these definitely packed a spicy punch that was supported by the chicken breading.

The Spicy Nacho Chicken Sandwich isn’t the craziest Munchie Meal Jack in the Box has ever dreamed up, but I think it’s a solid sandwich. The chicken was moist, crispy and spicy, the jalapeños were spicy, the cheese kept everything lubricated, and the crispy onion rings kept the whole thing from becoming a gigantic mess. None of these ingredients are new, but put together, they make for a solid late-night JitB run.

[Disclaimer: I paid for my Munchie Meal using a Jack Ca$h card provided to me by Jack in the Box. This in no way colors the objectivity of my review.]

Jack in the Box Spicy Nacho Chicken Sandwich Munchie Meal

• Score: 3.5 out of 5 Fonz’d-out Jacks
• Price: Free (normally $8)
• Size: 1 Munchie Meal
• Purchased at: Jack in the Box #106
• Nutritional Quirk: Eating a whole Munchie Meal is really bad for you, if you look at the nutritional info. Since this isn’t really a surprise, I’ll just use this space to reiterate that I really hate those damn onion strings.

In case you don’t remember because you were completely high when you read my last Munchie Meal review, Jack’s Munchie Meals are available between 9pm and 5am, aka Prime Stoner Time. Each one comes with two tacos, an order of halfsie fries (half french, half seasoned curly) and a 20 ounce drink to help you combat cotton mouth.

The real star, however, is always the entree. Previous Munchies have included things like the Stacked Grilled Cheese Burger and Loaded Nuggets, and the newest Munchie Meal is just as stonertastic: the Hella-peno Burger. A name that should leave me groaning, but I find myself smirking instead. Call it contact high.

Jack made more than a passing nod at the idea of their Munchie Meals being stoner-themed when the first batch came out, and this time around, I feel like they’ve embraced the idea with a vengeance.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the commercial for the Hella-peño burger. We start out with a girl sitting in a beanbag chair in what has to be the classiest room I’ve seen since I went to a friend’s kegger in college. His house was inhabited entirely by males, and the height of their artistic interior decoration was a poster of two girls making out, which was placed front-and-center in their living room.

This should give you an idea of what their garage looked like, which is pretty much what this girl’s room looks like, complete with lava lamp and Big Mouth Billy Bass. It looks like a garage sale threw up in someone’s 1970s wood-paneled basement. I’ve known many dedicated pot smokers in my day, and most would be downright offended by this aesthetic.

“Would you rather have spoons for hands…or elbows for ears?” The beanie-clad girl asks in a dreamy, disconnected voice.

The Jack puppet, who is sitting in a beanbag chair next to her, replies, “I’d rather have food,” to which I wholeheartedly agree, if only to end this commercial.

After briefly describing the Hella-Peno Munchie Meal, this whole embarrassment ends with the puppet saying, “I’ll eat it with my spooooooon haaaaands,” to which the girl replies, “What? I can’t hear you. Talk into my ellllbooooow.”

Shut up.

It’s also hella-apparent that they’re hella-stoked about the name, encouraging people to Tweet with the hashtag #hellahungry. They also describe the burger as “hella-hot” and mention that the Munchie Meal is available hella-late. Are you hella-tired of this yet?

Now to the actual burger. According to Jack, the Hella-peño is “A burger heaped with both stuffed and sliced jalapeños, gooey cheese and taco sauce.”

Right off the bat, I could tell that gooey cheese was definitely present, as it had leaked all over the wrapper. You may find this gross; I find it a harbinger of good things to come.

And good things were there, indeed. Upon removing the top bun, I was so pleased to see that the stuffed jalapeños covered almost every square inch of the burger. Topping coverage – a rare sight, indeed! There were a few sliced peppers, as promised, covering the areas the stuffed ones missed. And, holding it all together, a mess o’ cheese. Lookin’ good, Hella-Peno burger.

And, I have to admit, it tasted hella-good. (Sorry. I really am.) The combination of stuffed and sliced jalapeños meant there was a delicious amount of heat in every bite, and the breading of the stuffed ones remained, through some sort of dark magic, perfectly crunchy. So often have I seen fast food restaurants promising crunchy toppings, only to receive a soggy mess. Not the case here!

And the cheese was everywhere. I feel like half of it had leaked out onto the wrapper, which was unfortunate, but the cheese stuffed inside the poppers definitely took up the slack, adding at least double the amount of cheese you’d find on a regular cheeseburger and probably triple the calories, although I’m pretty sure you’re not concerned with that if you’re eating a Munchie Meal at 2am.

The Hella-Peno burger was not without fault, however. Jack in the Box’s taco sauce, which is a laughable approximation of hot sauce to begin with, completely disappears under the heat and flavor of the jalapeños. In fact, pretty much everything takes a backseat to the jalapeños and the cheese. I almost forgot there was an actual burger in this Hella-Peno burger.

These are minor complaints, however. I love jalapeños. I love cheese. I love the crunch that the breading added to the burger. I love that, for once, there was actual topping coverage.

I will, however, bitch about the fact that a.) Munchie Meals are only available from 9pm to 5am, and b.) you can’t just buy the Hella-Peno burger on its own. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Jack’s tacos, aka grease pockets, and the halfsies are nice, but I’d like to have a choice of when and with what I order my Hella-Peno burger.

In the end, what’s important is that if you like jalapeños, and you like cheese, and you like some actual crunch on your burger, then the Hella-Peno is for you. Putting poppers on a burger screams gimmick, but it really works. And if you scream gimmick to my elbow, I will use my spoon hand to punch you in the face.

[Disclaimer: Jack in the Box kindly provided me with a gift card to purchase this product and contacted me in regards to potentially reviewing this product. This has in no way influenced my review of said product; neither has any drug, illicit or otherwise.]

Jack in the Box Hella-Peno Burger Munchie Meal

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 Big Mouth Billy Basses
• Price: $6.00
• Size: 1 Munchie Meal
• Purchased at: Jack in the Box #106
• Nutritional Quirk: While I couldn’t find nutritional info on the burger itself, the entire meal claims to only have 1,600 calories. This has to be either wrong, or a miracle. However, it does fess up to containing a whopping 3,644 milligrams of sodium, which sounds just about right.