I learned a very valuable lesson early in life: if you spend the better part of a year eating nachos at 11pm while you study for the anatomy final you were doomed to fail from the beginning, because when you enrolled in a university level dance program no one told you you’d have to spend Monday mornings looking at cadavers, you inevitably gain some weight. (Sorry for the run on sentence... I should probably have edited it out, but I kinda like it.) Never mind the freshman fifteen, for me it was a few pounds upwards of the freshman twenty. And I was dancing every single day. For hours!
Anyhow, the subsequent work I had to do to lose that weight did not detract from my love of nachos and my quest to find the best nachos wherever I go. (It did stop me from eating them two or three nights a week right before bed though.) So it should come as no surprise that I have been on that same quest here on the west coast of Ontario.
Nachos are surprisingly easy to mess up. They shouldn’t be, but they are. And so many restaurants fail. Here is my main criteria for a good plate of nachos:
1. If there is not enough cheese it is over even before it begins. Chip coverage is important. Honestly, if I wanted a plain old bag of chips I can find it at Sobey’s.
2. Layers! A huge nacho fail is not layering the chips with the cheese. Another is not ensuring an even melt throughout the layers. If you can’t layer it well, that’s cool! Just do one layer. One of my favourite’s is the cheese nachos with guacamole baked in at Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto. Seriously! If you go there do not get distracted by all of the fancy options with all of the things. Sometimes simple is best. And this one wins. It is just one big pizza tray filled covered with one layer of chips, cheese, a lot of guacamole, and a delicious red sauce. Get some hot sauce on the side and flavour to taste. It makes me happy every time.
3. The chips have to be fresh. I get that people don’t want to waste and so they throw on the end of the stale bag. Please don’t do that. Just don’t.
4. Provide a good amount of salsa and sour cream for dipping. Don’t make me ask for more. Why? Especially if the nachos cost more than twenty dollars. Give me the sauce!
5. Finally, a couple of bonuses include: having a personal size option (we already know I will eat too much), and providing jalapeños as an option.
So, with all of this said, I have tried my fair share of nachos here on the west coast of Ontario in the last year, and I have a winner. If you’ve been to this restaurant and had them already, the title gives it away. I was honestly skeptical at first. I mean, who uses Doritos as their chip of choice? Hawg’s Breath Saloon, that’s who! And let me tell you, they are delicious. My favourite nachos in the area so far. There is always a healthy amount of cheese and they never use the stale end of the bag. I should know, I’ve had them often enough that one of the bartenders called me the nacho lady.
On that note, I can’t say enough good things about the staff at Hawg’s Breath. Another one of the servers always remembers me, even after I had only been there once. She remembers what I like to drink and that I don’t eat meat. It’s kinda like going to Cheers… except I can’t go every day. As much as I love going out and writing by myself in a busy public place, I learned my lesson in that first year of university. I don’t know if I’d be able to control my nacho eating.
Have you had some nachos I need to know about? Send me an email to hello@sadietellsstories.ca
P.S. Sorry, the picture isn’t great. I always feel strange taking pictures of my food. It’s weird, right?!
