On vacation in Lenox, MA (Official Motto: Are you a rich middle aged woman? Then you’ll love it here!), we had practically given up hope on finding nachos amongst the bevy of overpriced Italian restaurants and wine bars.  Then serendipity struck at Spoon, a cute little breakfast/lunch/ice cream cafe in the heart of town.  Our bleary eyes widened in surprise and delight at the description of Chilaquiles on their menu: “Basically, nachos with eggs. Salsa verde, queso fresco, crema, jalapeno.” Nachos AND breakfast? Sign us up!

Aren’t those egg yolks just begging to be popped??

• Appearance: (7) We found these to be much less colorful than the description. But it turned out that the salsa verde and crema had been combine into one.  +1 for excellent use of garnish.
• Quality of Ingredients: (10) The chips were thick and hearty, almost like pita chips, and definitely homemade.  The crema/salsa verde combination was at once spicy, tangy, smooth and creamy– and the queso fresco added a nice salty kick.  The poached eggs were a little on the runny side (perhaps their only fault, and it can be a personal preference).  We loved the clearly house-made pickled jalapenos and carrots on the side– definitely a nacho patrol first!
• Distribution of Toppings: (8) We could have used a little more of the chili/crema concoction, as it was sad to get a chip without.  Other than that, the distribution is up to the user: how early do you break the eggs?  A warning, once you do break the yolks you need to eat fast– runny egg soaks into a chip far faster than most nacho ingredients.
• Price: (9) At $9, these were a hearty and original breakfast dish, something that is often hard to come by, especially in tourist traps such as this!
• Overall: 34/40.  Other breakfast nachos, if you’re out there, take notice and get your game face on.  These were simple, fresh, authentic tasting, memorable nachos that we would re-eat in a heartbeat.  We wonder, will they ever be topped?

• Appearance: (8) You wouldn’t see these on Top Chef Masters, but these nachos demanded our gastronomic attention. Don’t you just want to dive in and cover yourself in all that perfectly smoked pulled pork? The burnt chips and sour cream waterfall pulled down the rating a few points, but the guac, tomato, and moist mountain of meat all but makes up for any shortcomings.
• Quality of Ingredients: (9) We recorded our thoughts mid-nacho patrol, but we couldn’t hear anything over the sound of reckless crunching. The chips were thick–almost pita chip-like–and we could easily ignore the burntness (though they were a little under-salted). The tomatoes were fresh, and we enjoyed the guac, though we doubt it was homemade. As you could probably predict, the meat was the real stand-out of these chos. Oh-so-moist, oh-so-succulent, oh-so-flavorful! We were torn over whether or not we wanted a sauce…Oh, the selection of sauces! In our experience, BBQ sauce doesn’t go well with the overall palate of ‘chos, and it would probably be a shame to cover up the perfectly seasoned pork.
• Distribution of Toppings: (7) New restaurant, same distribution problems. Naked chips, sparse cheese, and a sour cream avalanche that smothers everything toward the bottom of the plate. Dare we say it, but there were perhaps too many toppings and not enough chips!
• Price: (7.5) The one flaw of off-menu-Groupon-nachos is that you have no idea what they cost. After some shaky math, we estimate they were about $13, which is a lot by Nacho Patrol standards, but cheap in the grand scheme of BBQ.
• Overall: 31.5/40.

You should never order off the “American”menu at a Chinese restaurant, and you should never order anything but BBQ at Redbones.  So, while we wholeheartedly endorse these nachos, we implore you, don’t even bother unless you get them with the off-menu pulled pork.   It’s shocking and disappointing that Redbones doesn’t even list pork nachos as an option.  So for now, we are classifying these as “specialty nachos”, separate from the Best of Boston list.  Redbones, if you want to be a contender, put these on the menu!

First step: what kind of chips to use?  We considered both pita chips and sweet potato chips but found something even better in the grocery store’s natural food section: Food Should Taste Good‘s sweet potato tortilla chips.

These hearty, stone-ground tortilla chips had a lovely orange color and just enough of the vegetable’s delicate sweetness to support but not overwhelm the other ingredients.  And as opposed to regular sweet potato chips, they a little less deadly should you happen to eat the whole bag.

We selected a few hunks of turkey (mixing light and dark meat) and chopped them into bite-size pieces, the heated in the microwave:

Last night’s sage, sausage and wild rice stuffing had gotten a little dried out, so we reheated it slowly in a small pot with a few spoonfuls of broth (made from the turkey carcass, of course!):

Finally, the cranberry sauce.  We felt that these needed a little bit of zing (being nachos, after all) and added chopped jalapeno, red onion, and a splash of lime juice to our cranberry sauce to turn it into a salsa.  If you want more spice, let it sit for a while before serving to let the flavors combine:

Assembly: lay down a layer of chips, sprinkle with turkey and stuffing, and cover the whole plate with a drizzle of reheated gravy.  If you’re craving sour cream, a spoonful of mashed potatoes on the side will work in a pinch:

The verdict? With the spicy cranberry salsa on the side, these nachos were near perfection.  We had debated long and hard over including cheese but in the end vetoed it, since cheese has a minimal presence in a traditional Thanksgiving feast. It was the right decision– the salty gravy served as the cheese sauce on these nachos, and anything more would have overwhelmed some of the wonderful fall flavors at play. The chips were the perfect vehicle for the moist stuffing and turkey, and the cranberry salsa was good enough that we are already planning other nacho dishes around it.  If you’re getting sick of your leftovers (and even if you aren’t) these are definitely worth a try!

• Appearance: (6) Much more Sahara than Garden of Eden, but we swooned over the oozy, melty, occasionally crispy cheese coating.
• Quality of Ingredients: (6) We were expecting more substantial pieces of bacon, but they were so small to be almost powdery.  Still, this “bacon crust” provided nice crunch and flavor. The chips were thick and freshly fried, and we love potato chips, but they tasted a little overdone at times. The cheese was excellent and deliciously melty.
• Distribution of Toppings: (7) Once again, the bottom layer of cheese on the plate blew our minds.  There was so much cheese, but even on these, the sour cream was a little cloying.  With these nachos, they omitted all the lighter ingredients and gave us the straight goop– greasy, gloppy and artery clogging.  It was a little much, and difficult to eat.
• Price: (8) At $7.99, these come out to approximately 1,376 calories per dollar.  Quite the value, eh? Depends on how you count.
• Overall: 27.  It’s a good concept but not for the faint of heart.  Seriously, they should require a doctor’s note and an electrocardiogram before they place your order.

Fortunately for us, most of the ingredients you would use to make a traditional Reuben sandwich translate directly to nacho toppings: Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, corned beef and Russian (or thousand Island) dressing. The one point of uncertainty was the chips: no standard tortilla chips would do, as rye bread adds a distinct and crucial flavor to the sandwich as a whole.  After scouring the supermarket cracker aisle, a suitable substitution was found: caraway rye crispbread.  Much thinner than Ry-Krisp and not as dry, these looked like the optimal choice.  We also invested in some plain pita chips, as backup.

The makings of greatness

Next step, assembly.  We drained (but did not rinse) the sauerkraut, sliced the corned beef and shredded the cheese.  Breaking the crispbread into chip-sized pieces formed the bottom layer, upon which we piled a layer of everything but dressing (cheese always on top, to hold down the other toppings).  Then, repeat.  Pop the whole plate in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes, or until bubbly.  Incidentally, this cooking time is just long enough to create, photograph and enjoy the World’s Smallest Reuben Sandwich:

Amuse Bouch

Ding!  They’re out!  The final step remains: a light, but even drizzle of Thousand Island dressing, which is much easier said than done when using a bottle.  After a few disappointing globs, we poured it onto a spoon and commenced slightly more aesthetically pleasing distribution. Et viola! The finished product:

Verdict?  While lacking in the cooler color spectrum, these were still quite appetizing to behold.  Overall, they were drier than we normally like our nachos, but that was to be expected due to the ingredient list.  The rye crackers did indeed add a nice flavor though got soggier than normal chips.  The big ingredient disappointment was the Swiss cheese.  In general, Swiss just doesn’t melt as well as your standard cheddar or jack, and therefore did not do a good job of sticking to the chips or the other toppings.  Hungry for a challenge (and more nachos), we tried to improve upon them with the second batch.  We mixed the rye crackers with pita chips for more texture and variety, doubled all of the toppings, and combined Swiss cheese with shredded cheddar for increased gooeiness. With an extra layer of dressing in the middle, these were just what the doctor ordered (us not to eat).

With a little learning curve, Reuben nachos were a delicious success!  Our first foray into making our own specialty nachos completed, we are eager to start on the next.  So many other foods to convert to nachos, so little time…

Joshua Tree is one of many bars in the area that expends a great amount of energy trying to look like a classy night club. They have a valet service, but there’s always a line 15 slutty girls long. The bathrooms have mute colors and elegant fixtures, but the whole downstairs area has a distinctly rape-y aura and we have it on good authority that there is often vomit in the urinals. The upstairs decor is chic sports bar, but you still get your beer in a 16oz plastic cup. For these reasons and many, many more we’ve managed to avoid reviewing the nachos at Joshua Tree for two years. Today, however, we sucked it up (in the name of Stump Trivia) and ordered their Buffalo Chicken Nachos with buffalo chicken, cheddar cheeese, tomatos, and blue cheese dressing.

• Appearance: (5) There is absolutely nothing interesting to say about the appearance of these nachos. They had three colors–the red tomatoes, the green onions, and the yellowish everything else. As such, the entire plate seemed rather regurgitated and boring. With something like buffalo chicken, there’s an entire array of color a chef could add with a rich buffalo sauce and a sprinkle of blue cheese crumbles. Instead, they looked just about as oily and dull as they tasted. Which brings us to our next point…
• Quality: (3.5) It’s still a mystery to us how some restaurants avoid soggy, greasy chips while others–like J-Tree–leave us with soiled fingers and aching arteries. Perhaps it’s the use of this particular cheddar cheese, but the chips of the buffalo chicken nachos were almost stale with oiliness. We were similarly displeased with the chicken, which was tough and sinewy. One expects something moist and falling off the bone from good chicken wings. These just tasted like Shaws $3 chicken tenders. As a final point, the tomatoes were overripe and there wasn’t enough buffalo sauce to truly judge the taste. What a mess. If there was one highlight, it had to have been the blue cheese sauce, which most certainly came from a bottle and, thankfully, wasn’t house made. We can only imagine the salmonella if it was.
• Distribution: (4) Something is wrong with cheddar cheese. For whatever reason, it always ends up thick and solid after a few moments on the table, leaving us with globs of cold cheese melded with hunks of boring chicken, as guest patroller Tim so artfully demonstrates.  The blue cheese sauce was on the side, and could have perhaps been integrated into the plate to solve the damning problem of the uncovered chips at the bottom of the plate. Also, there was a sad lack of the buffalo flavor that it supposed to make up buffalo chicken nachos–not enough chicken and definitely not enough sauce.
• Price: (6) Charging $11 for something this crappy is a sin, even when you split it 6 ways.
• Overall: 18.5/40

Once again we’re reminded why we spent so long avoiding J-Tree.

• Appearance: (6.5) Me oh my! Not the traditional color palette and the pitas look a little burnt around the edges, but did you see that avalanche of melted cheese nearly spilling off the plate? Days later, we’re still drooling.
• Quality of Ingredients: (9) Even when overdone, the pita chips are still delicious, thick and hearty enough to really handle the spinach artichoke dip on top.  The cheese was excellently melted, and the tomatoes and olives did a nice job adding some variety in texture and flavor.  The spin dip was delicious but we were a little weirded out that it was cold, not warm.
• Distribution of Toppings: (7) Last time we ate these, we had to ask for some extra spin dip on the side because there was simply not enough to go around.  We should have remembered that this time because once the glop on dip on top was taken care of, we were left with scores of blank pitas. Had the dip been warm, it might have spread out a bit more and been slightly more accessible, but as it was, there simply wasn’t enough to go around.
• Price: ( 8 ) $8.89 is a steal when compared to the $12-$13 nachos, and as an appetizer, there was certainly enough to go around.
• Overall: 30.5/40 Once again, a specialty “nacho” makes a serious mark on our official nacho tally. Maybe they’re not as good as Sunset’s nachos, but if you’re in the mood for something a little more creamy, the spin dip might just be the the appetizer for you.

• Appearance: (6) Through the dim lights of our booth, it was hard to fully grasp the beauty of these nachos. Bolognese sauce isn’t exactly the pique of culinary artistry, but we liked the varied reds and green provided by the banana peppers. Sadly, the chips were rather burnt…See that wing of darkness in the foreground of the picture? That’s pure carbon.
• Quality of Ingredients: (7) The bolognese sauce was decent.  The ricotta was a nice touch, the Italian version of sour cream, but with a much more interesting texture and flavor.  The corn chips were not nearly strong enough to hold up the heavy bolognese sauce and ricotta, and became immediately soggy. We appreciate the pop added by the spicy cherry peppers
• Distribution of Toppings: (6) When these first graced the table we wondered if they had forgotten the ricotta.  But then we looked deeper, into the eye of the island (ahem, nachos)  and found a heart of cheese (fun fact: ”Heart of Cheese” is our favorite Neil Young B-side).  It was as if the whole plate was constructed around an initial glob of ricotta.  Not a traditional arrangement, and with good reason: we had to use forks to get any ricotta on the chips.  There was, however, a heartening (and by “heartening” we mean “heart-stopping”) amount of the other mystery cheese.  The bolognese is definitely a sturdy topping, perhaps too sturdy; it was too heavy for many of the chips.
• Price: (7) At $11, these were a little overpriced for both the quality of ingredients and the rest of the menu.
• Overall: 26/40 Perhaps we’re suckers for ingenuity, but it’s a rare day when a specialty nachos disappoint us. While the individual flavors were delightful, the plate as a whole lacked the structural integrity necessary to pull at our nacho heart strings. Nothing is more depressing than when you pile up a melee of ingredients onto your chip only to have it crumble, face down, back onto the table. In the future, we’d hope Anchovies moves up a weight grade and gets a sturdier chip (pita chips?). Cut down on the time spent in the oven by about five minutes, and maybe–just maybe–we’ll have a winning specialty nacho.

We’re going to make a little change to rating system for Nacho Avg. Monday: instead of wracking our brains for interesting ways to say “cheese sauce=good distribution,” we’re eliminating the distribution score all together and trial-running a 1-10 “innovenuity” tally (the juxtaposition of innovation and ingenuity). Past Nacho Avg. Monday reviews will be adjusted accordingly.

Now, only the business at hand.

February 22nd: a beautiful day transitioned into a cold, cold night. BU students, wearing only sweatshirts, were out in force and looking confused. Sad news of a friend left us in a somber mood and ski jumping  stole any remaining strand of rational thought we had (how do they get so horizontal!?!?). Nonetheless, we persevered, excited to try a nacho sporting two of our fantasy ingredients, brie and mushrooms.

The fare: Arugula and spinach gently tossed in grilled portobello and truffle viniagrette–grilled crimini & tear drop tomato salsa, basil and garlic cheese sauce, brie cheese crumbles & jalapeno citrus roasted beet guacamole.

• Appearance: (9) Look at those colors! We credit the beets and tomatoes for the amazing color palate Mr. Poe presented us with tonight. After all, how often do you see the wonderful creamy purplish pink of beets on your nachos? Splashing in a fleck of green from the spinach and arugula and the pop of a few cherry tomatoes, it was a great (and delicious) change from the traditional dark reds and yellows.
• Quality: (8) The cheese sauce actually tasted different than normal (and by that, we mean it had a taste).  We loved the juicy, rosemary-suffused mushrooms, which served as a meaty stand-in for the usual carnivorous main ingredient.  The beet guacamole was hearty and delicious, providing a chunky guacamole texture with a fresh yet earthy flavor.
• Innovenuity: (9)  Who knew you could turn beets into guacamole?  What’s next, water into wine, lead into gold?  We loved this unexpected take on a beloved food. Beet alchemy!  Our one complaint: a large, completely unnecessary dollop of sour cream on top of the whole thing.  We aren’t huge fans of sour cream in general, and especially on top of nachos, where it hampers distribution and masks all the other flavors.  On these nachos, it was especially unwelcome and cloying, leading us hope that it was placed there by accident, not on purpose.
• Overall: 26/30.  Unexpected, innovative, and delicious.  What more could one ask for?

This week Poe’s Kitchen offered New England Nachos: clam chowder puree, fried Ipswich clams, bacon, celery and onion salsa, and a thyme vinaigrette. As Mya would say, it was “like woah.”

• Appearance: (6) a little blah, and when you factor in the strange black stuff in the fried clams (we try to avoid eating filter feeders whenever possible) and the grayish color of the batter, we felt ourselves only slightly repulsed. Setting that aside, we thought the splash of color provided by the salsa offered a nice contrast to the creamy off-white chowder.
• Distribution: (7) We’d love for the Rattlesnake to pay a little more attention to distribution. With a mass of chips, it’s easy to end up with a situation in which the sauce takes over while the other ingredients fall to the wayside (or our bellies). There was certainly enough of everything (and by that we mean, not enough bacon), but it wasn’t where it mattered most. That is all we will say on the matter for this week.
• Quality: (6) Let’s preface this by saying, Nacho Patrol are fish people. We’ve been advocating for calamari and marinara on nachos since the dawn of time. Recently, we’ve been devising methods to put salmon and a delicious creamy dill sauce on chips. So, this isn’t a matter of saying, “well, they just don’t know how to eat fish.” Fried clams on nachos just didn’t work. They just aren’t flavorful enough to carry a nacho plate.   On another note, we’re told the clam chowder at Rattlesnake is delicious–but with so many other flavors blended in it was hard to get an unadulterated look at the sauce. And as always, the salsa and vinaigrette could do us no wrong. If we had it our way, we’d put bacon on everything. Once again, a bottle of cholula was kept close at hand to compensate for the general lack of salt/flavor.
• Overall: 19/30. Our least favorite so far.  But we have reason to be hopeful for next week….