I am embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve been on a bit of a nacho binge lately. I find myself drawn to them nearly all of the time and even feel my mouth watering at this very moment, as I type this, merely thinking about them. I’ve had nachos three times in the past week…who knows, maybe more that I’m blacking-out on.
Last Tuesday I met a couple of friends at The Kingston Bar and Grill in Portland, right next to PGE Park, grabbing a beer and some food before catching a Portland Beavers baseball game (AAA Minor League affiliate of the San Diego Padres). And of course, I ordered the nachos. The Kingston is a dive sports bar that I woudn’t normally go to, but my friend Tom (my token old guy friend – he’s over 40) always likes to go there before baseball games. Maybe it’s tradition or something?
The Kingston’s nachos are fair…nothing to get too excited about. They came on a huge oval plate, with chips heaped up tall like a mountain on top. While I ordered them without meat, jalapenos or olives, these nachos were a bit heavy in cheese and onions. Quite rarely does anyone ever put diced onions all over a plate of nachos…but The Kingston did. I was definitely tasting the onions in the morning when I woke up… My two biggest complaints were that the refried beans were spread evenly on the plate, buried far below the chips and cheese. In fact, I hardly knew there were any beans at all until I was about half finished. Also, there was no guacamole – which is a big problem for me. I give The Kingson’s nachos a D+. (Price $9.25 – way over priced)
On last Sunday morning, following a late night of music and festivities (Dimes+Derby+Oh Darling+DCRS at The Someday Lounge), my brother and I decided we’d like to find some nachos for breakfast (11:30am). So we went to Casa Del Matador on NW 23rd and enjoyed what is definitely one of the top plate of nachos in town. The nachos at The Matador are truly amazing, no doubt about it. They do everything well, from the chips, to the beans, to the cheese, salsa, cilantro, sour cream…and best of all, plenty of to-die-for guacamole. For merely $6.95 ($4 during happy hour), you get more nachos than two hungry people can eat on their own. I highly recommend these nachos and confidently give them an A rating.
Last Friday night, Jeana and I met a bunch of friends at The New Old Lompoc on NW 23rd for happy hour. My friends Erik and Gisu came to visit from San Jose and Mikey flew in from Santa Cruz for a weekend full of fun. We made a new friend named Jason who joined us – a recent grad from UC Boulder who is working as an engineer at an exciting new Portland company that designs and manufactures giant wind mills, producing wind-generated power. Cool, huh? He mentioned that his company is growing rapidly and are looking to hire people in nearly every area of the company. (Send me an email if you’d like an introduction – seriously!).
While I truly love the micro brews at The New Old Lompoc and will admit that they’ve got a wonderful happy hour ($1 off of pints and half-off on appetizers), their nachos are only slightly better than average. They use some pretty standard round corn chips that I don’t particularly appreciate in my nachos and they’re pretty skimpy on the sour cream, salsa and guacamole. I even tried to extra guacamole and somehow, the waitress thought that I simply asked for it on the side. Next time, I think I’ll order the hummus plate instead. While their wonderful varieties of IPA’s definitely compensate and the fun, outdoor back deck makes the atmosphere hard to beat on a summer evening, I give these nachos a C. (Price $7 regularly – $3.50 during Happy Hour)
Currently, my wifey and I are taking a long weekend at the good ol’ Stephanie Inn in Cannon Beach. We went out for some dinner last night and as we drove through the whole “blink and you’ll miss it” beach town, my heart kept being called to this hole in the wall place called “Burrito Magee’s”. We both agreed that it didn’t sound like the best name for a good Mexican restaurant, so we continued on and landed at the only Thai place in town. I think it was called Thai Cuisine - not better on the name, but it looked busy, which is usually a good sign. Long story short – the Thai place wasn’t good. Peanut sauce was watered-down, they gave us each a table spoon of rice to eat with the entree, and the service, ambiance, etc was all very marginal. As we finished up and considered how disappointed we were with how dinner ended up, I couldn’t help but wonder what nachos may have been like at Burrito Magee’s…
So there. Welcome to my world of a mad addiction to nachos. I only wish I was addicted to something healthier….like granola or apples or something.
