Happy Australia Day! Colin's Nachos (105/104B Brook St. Coogee, Australia)

So, as previously mentioned last year I was studying abroad living in a little beach town right outside of Sydney known as Coogee. It was beautiful place where I met a whole bunch of amazing people. Today is Australia Day in the states and I decided to celebrate with a post about one of my greatest memories of Australia-Morganne's fake birthday party. Now, this was a party consisting of some Mexican favorites that we hadn't been able to find yet in Sydney- nachos, tacos, and.... .....margaritas!!!! (of course). So what is a fake birthday you may ask? Well, its when people don't know each other too well and communication is lacking and we think we're celebrating a birthday..and the half way through the night when everyone becomes extremely intoxicated you realize it's really no one's birthday at all..but continue celebrating anyways. My fake birthday was first and after the excellent time we had we decided to throw Morgs one too. Now, at my party only beverages were served, but we decided to class it up a bit for Morganne's. Colin decided he was going to make his famous nachos and I was excited that I had found someone thousands of miles away who shared my love for them. So Colin prepared the nachos..laid down the tin foil on a baking sheet, laid out the chips and placed cheddar cheese, diced tomatoes, jalapeños, and diced peppers on every layer (Colin was great about layering the chips, making sure each layer had the perfect proportion of toppings). He baked the nachos in the oven for about 10 minutes and served with salsa and sour cream. They were delicious and I was so glad Colin had made them. Everyone enjoyed the nachos-they disappeared in 5 minutes. Dieting is something we all cared a lot about. Now, delicious homemade nachos aren't difficult to prepare, but Colin has them perfected. Thanks Col, miss you!

I give them an 8.3/10.

Rhody Joe's (Wakefield, RI)

Had been to Rhody Joe's a couple Wednesday nights while home for Christmas break. Nothing too special-cheap beer and the possibility of running into everybody you went to high school with. Then, I stopped in for lunch one day. Rhody Joe's used to be a Chelo's so unfortunately the stench of nursing home has remained its signature scent as Chelo's was often frequented by 70 somethings for "early bird specials" such as the Sunday night meatloaf. Must say however, I was quite impressed by the nachos. Great presentation. Thick, crispy chips stacked high with chili, cheese, jalapeños, and tomatoes served with sides of salsa, guacamole and sour cream. Now, one great thing about these nachos was how the chili and cheese was distributed equally over every chip. Nicely proportioned. Must be part of the no chip left behind act. The cheese was melted beautifully and laid properly on every layer of the nachos. Sometimes you run into trouble when the cheese doesn't seem to be thoroughly melted, but these nachos were great! They're certainly up there on my list so far. I say 8.4/10.

Polly's Nachos (South County YMCA, RI)

It's been a little while...I've been busy. So, I KNOW this post should have been the first on the list, but, I'm not too organized and I never read the Nacho blog for Dummies handbook, so I've been pretty all over the place with this thing. But, the other night I was at my good family friend's house and I ran into someone I hadn't seen in years, my friend, Polly. I used to be on the swim team at the local YMCA and I have to admit one of the highlights of the 8-hour long Saturday afternoon swim meets was the concession stand. Polly volunteered at the concession and knew exactly what snacks we would be craving after hanging around the South County Y all day-hot dogs, bagels, popcorn, candy, sodas (the real nutritional stuff that makes you swim fast) and my good ol' friend Mr. Nachos himself. Now, I know what you're thinking round tortilla chips with fake cheese from a machine that's served at most concession stands. Nope, Polly's nachos were different. They had a real kick to them, I believe it was jalapeños. She always told me she bought the cheese at Sam's Club and that it comes in a big can. I've never been able to find this magical canned cheese myself, so I always relied on Polly to have it at every home swim meet. This was one of my first encounters with nachos and it was love at first bite. Polly knew how I liked my nachos (cheesy), she always added an extra ladle full to mine and any time I walked up to the concession stand she knew exactly what I'd be ordering. The cheese smothered the chips, but in a good way..my favorite are the ones at the bottom of the bowl that you can barely recognize as chips because the cheese has melted them down. Even though Polly's nachos only came with cheese, they were delicious and tasted so great before/after a race. Thank you Polly for introducing us. Because they're a classic I give them an 8.2/10. Picture -closest I could find to what they used to look like, but still doesn't do them justice.

Brick Alley Pub (Newport, RI)

Order the Texas Chili nachos. There are many mouthwatering nacho options on the menu and it can be quite overwhelming. I don't want you to be confused about the ones I'm writing about. The Brick Alley Pub has to be one of my favorite restaurants in RI as I have celebrated many a birthday there. The ranch dressing is one of the best I have ever tasted, it's rich, creamy, and buttermilky. Just the way I like! So, I recommend your ordering goes a bit like this. "Hi, I'd like a pina colada, the Texas chili nachos and the salad bar." Just a recommendation, but honestly how could you go wrong with that combination? So, back to the nachos, they're served in a heap-Australian for pile, it's a term I picked up, topped with chili, cheddar cheese, guacamole (if asked, it was alright, didn't seem that fresh), jalapeños, and about 18 dollops of Daisy. If you're not a sour cream lover I would totally recommend asking for the sour cream on the side. They must use a shovel to put that stuff on and in my opinion too much sour cream can sometimes be a bad thing-now notice my use of sometimes, in onion dip (a personal favorite) sour cream is absolutely amazing, but as a nacho smotherer it can bad. The nachos were great! The chili had a nice kick and the salsa was flavorful.

I give them a 7.9/10 (because of the sour cream situation).

J. Paul's (Georgetown, DC)

Well, this post may get a little bit nasty. But, honestly J. Paul's serves a plate of nachos that are a disgrace to all nacho lovers out there. My roommate and I stopped into J. Paul's about three weeks ago on a Thursday afternoon while shopping for our Halloween costumes. It must have been our lucky day because we were seated right by the open air window, the perfect people watching spot. This table can also a little bit dangerous when the pepper falls right out the window haha..some nice Russian tourists scooped it up for me. Anyways, once again it was lunch time and we were only planning on having a light meal-maybe a sandwich or a salad. But, I peruse menu and guess who staring back at me under the Starters section, I'll give you a hint it wasn't the hummus and pita platter. So I look up at my roommate, we lock eyes, and she immediately knows what I'm about to ask. "Yes, Katie I'll eat some of the nachos with you," she says. Then, I throw out some bs about how I'm really just ordering them all the time to serve blog purposes. So, the nachos arrive shortly after and man I'm at a loss for words. Now, nachos are not classy, they never have been and never will be so don't ever try and plate nachos sophisticatedly, it's embarrassing for them, they're meant to be served in a disorderly pile and sloppily eaten. This chef must have been new in the nacho business or something. So I'll try and paint the picture for you. Thin chips come out on a shiny white plate, in the middle is a bowl of melted cheese and on the side is three smaller ramekins filled with sour cream, salsa and guacamole. Let's get to the biggest problem-the cheese. Now, don't get me wrong I would not have been apposed to a nice bowl of smooth, creamy queso to dip my chips in. But, this cheese was not smooth or creamy, it was dry and hard. The melted cheese concoction was just melted shredded cheddar cheese with some salsa mixed in. If, you don't understand what I'm saying go melt a bowl of shredded cheddar cheese and try to dip a chip in. Most likely the chip will break on first contact with the cheese. That's exactly what happened here, we ended up having to scoop the cheese out with a spoon and place it on our chips, scooping with a spoon was hard enough, never mind attempting a chip. Note to the chef-try some of the plates you serve.

I give them a 4.2/10-simply because the window table was great and the Shirley temples made up for the nachos.

Old Glory (Georgetown, DC)

Recently visited this little BBQ gem while shopping in Georgetown. I'm all about trying new places..so when I discovered that this was one of the only restaurants on M st. that I had not dined at I decided I should give it a try. It was a beautiful day in October, almost 75 degrees, so we sat outside on their deck. While looking over the menu I had decided on the pulled pork sandwich (makes sense to try it at a BBQ joint known for their pulled pork). I saw nachos on the menu, but was honestly trying to resist. It was lunch time and I usually feel guilty/fat getting appetizers at lunch on a college student's budget. I was ready to order and had convinced myself that the pulled pork sandwich would be enough for me today. Then, the waiter comes over to our table and asks if we'll be starting with any appetizers "The nachos are great!" he says. In my mind I was thinking "Now, why did you have to go and say that I had just spent the last 5 minutes trying to convince myself that an appetizer was not necessary today?" So, then I asked the waiter "Honestly, how good?" and he replied "Honestly, they're excellent!" I looked at my two friends sitting at the table with me who are obviously tired of me ordering nachos at every meal we ate together. But, they knew my mind had already been made. I said, "We'll have the pulled pork nachos, please." The waiter was back within minutes with our order. Now, I've never had pork on nachos before I'm sort of a beef or chicken kind of girl but, tucked beneath the layers of cheddar cheese the pulled pork was so tender and sweet. The usual suspects were also piled on-guacamole, sour cream, salsa, and jalapeños. They were great! My only critique of Old Glory's nachos is that the chips are a bit too thin to manage the pork, otherwise I think they're a savory plate of goodness that I recommend everyone trying at least once. I give them an 8.1/10.

Nachos for Breakfast (Sydney, Australia)

This post is going international. Last year I spent about five months gallivanting around Sydney, Australia while "studying" abroad ha. Now, unfortunately I did not realize how few nacho spots there would be until I actually thought about Australia's proximity to Mexico. But, I was determined to try every plate of nachos in the area. By the end of the semester my friends knew the first food that I would be requesting on my arrival home. Anyways, I could literally count on three fingers the number of Mexican restaurants in a 30 mile radius of my apartment. However, the restaurant where I found my favorite plate of nachos in Sydney was not Mexican. So here's the story :
It was your average Sunday morning abroad, rolled over around 2:00pm said to myself "I can't believe I slept until 2:00pm again" called around to recap the events of the evening and all decided where the best place to absorb some of last nights beverages would be. We decided to start with breakfast food. Pancakes on the Rocks is one of the most notorious restaurants in Sydney, lines are out the door nearly everyday of the week at almost any time of day. Their pancakes are absolutely out of this world. You can have them topped with bananas, apples, blueberries, strawberries, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, chocolate chips, or ice cream. So we arrive to the restaurant around 2:30pm, all sporting water bottles (hydrating) and take a browse at the menu. The options look tantalizing and it wasn't 30 seconds before looking over the menu that I spotted my favorite friendly snack. Now, who ever said nachos for breakfast was outrageous, (god, would who ever say that?) are wrong. I proceeded to order myself some blueberry pancakes with ice cream and chocolate sauce (study abroad is not for the weak stomached-that goes for food and libation) and a side of nachos. The pancakes were delicious-rich, fluffy, and absolutely mouth watering with the fresh blueberries and ice cream. The nachos came as dessert (Australia doesn't quite have their restaurant skills down yet, often times appetizers arrive after the meal). The nachos were smothered in cheese, chili, guacamole, sour cream and jalapenos-my five essential ingredients. They were delicious, a real pallet cleanser, after gorging my heap of pancakes. They were just the right amount for dessert, not too big, not too small. Nothing like nachos to start the day off right.
I give them a 7.8/10.