Homemade (somewhat) Healthy Nachos

As a Nacho critic extraordinaire, there are questions I get asked a lot:  “What are the best Nachos?”,  ”What are the worst Nachos?”  “Why are you so handsome?”  But out of all the question I get asked, the one that has bothered me the most is ”Why don’t you make your own Nachos?”  It bothers me because I really don’t have an answer.  I have never made my own Nachos, and one would think that with all my Nacho knowledge I would be able to make some tasty ones.  I think the main reason is that it’s a lot of work.  Really.  I don’t try to think of myself as lazy, but if I am hungry and want Nachos I want them NOW.  I don’t feel like taking the time to dice and slice tomatoes and onion for the guacamole, or melt the cheese for my Nachos.  It’s also very expensive to buy all the ingredients to make your own Nachos compared to going to El Pollo Loco and ordering a number 5 with extra pico de gallo and avocado salsa for $6.  This isn’t a review more than it is a step by step photo gallery of making some Nachos from beginning to end.  If you’ve ever wondered how much work actually goes into making t heaven, then continue reading!

I want to thank the discovery of a new product that encouraged to make these Nachos.  You see, Postal (who you should know by now if you’ve read my previous reviews) is on a special food plan which does not allow him to eat certain foods, including tortilla chips.  As crazy as this might sound he is allowed to eat corn chips, but only one tortilla worth.  This explains why he follows me on my journey but never gets to rejoice (or regret) with me on each of my Nachoxpeditions.  That is until I discovered these:

Healthy and Tasty

 What you see here are one of the new revolutions in Nachos, brown rice crisps (chips).  Ok, maybe they’re not revolutionary, but it is a somewhat healthy alternative for those that can’t eat flour or corn tortillas.  They come in different flavors and they are actually quite enjoyable.  On this occasion I picked the Salsa Fresca flavor (Fresh Salsa).  The only problem I can see with these chips is that the bag is only ABOUT half full, and the rest is air.  I had to buy two bags just to make sure I had enough to go around.  I’ll now start with the preparation of the Nachos.

:-P~

Guacamole is one of my favorite things about Nachos, good guacamole that is.  Good guacamole can make inferior Nachos be worthwhile, while mediocre guacamole just rubs me the wrong way, kind of like using sand paper as toilet paper.  The ingredients for this guacamole are: onions, tomatoes, cilantro, green chiles, avocado, limes, salt and Tapatio hot sauce.  It’s hard for me to give an exact estimate for each ingredient as I measure by taste, especially when it comes to the limes and hot sauce.  If I was to go all out I would have used mayonnaise as well, but unfortunately Postal cannot eat mayonnaise.  One of the things I do enjoy about cooking is that you get to eat the food while you make it.  I probably ate about half the guacamole before finishing these Nachos, which was fine as I made more than enough for this situation.  I know I’m biased because I made it, but it came out great.  Below is the final result.

It’s greeeeeeeeeat!!

Next, the beans.  I know this is going to seem lazy, but I really don’t care.  The beans I used for these Nachos are Rosarita’s Spicy Jalapeño canned refried beans.  I have been eating this brand of beans since I was a youngin’ and they have always been some of my favorite beans from a can.  I was about to fry beans, then fry them once more to make refried beans, so this was the best alternative.

Hey chica, come here often?

I had the choice of pretty much any meat I wanted, and I decided to go with chicken, as I love chickens and chickens are awesome, plus, they taste like chicken. The savvy time saver I am, I did not feel like buying a raw piece of chicken and cooking it myself, so I simply bought a package of my favorite chicken strips for my meal.  Really nothing to comment on this, other than they had a special flavoring.

  Mmm…Southwestern seasoned Chicken Breast Strips with RIB MEAT with smoke flavor added.

 In this time of economic crisis I like to find a bargain wherever I can find one.  In this case, I decide to buy the Nice ‘n Easy brand cheese, as opposed to its Velveeta brand counterpart.  Not only do they taste the same, but the Nice ‘n Easy is actually about 1/3 the price of its doppleganger.  Our taste buds could not taste the difference and my wallet was happy.  What else could I ask for?  So to start off I had to CUT THE CHEESE (that was for all the immature readers out there).

:-P~~~~

After that I added non fat milk and threw it in the microwave.  Due to a mistake on my calculations I ended up using way too much milk and the cheese was turning out to be too liquidy.  This simply could not do as the consistency of Nacho cheese should be somewhere around slimy.  Not to fear, I quickly fixed this by adding the whole 2lb package of cheese into the mix.  It might have seemed like a waste at the time, but considering how hungry we were getting it was worth it.  I usually recommend indirect heat as the prefered method of melting cheese for Nachos, but in this case it would not really matter as considering how hungry we were the cheese would have no time to get congealed.

 I’m a regular Julia Child

Everything was just about done.  I put the beans and chicken in the microwave while I put together the rest of the ingredients.  Now that my cheese was saved I was able to pour a few layers all over my chips.

 Nice ‘n Cheese ‘n Slimy

Next, the guacamole was placed on one side of the plate, the beans on the other and the chicken down the middle.  Postal and I LOVE LOVE LOVE cheese.  Whether it’s cheddar, jack, provolone or hoop cheese, they are always welcome on our table.  So since simply using generic Nice ‘n Easy would not cut, I proceeded to cover the chips in FOUR different types of cheese.  I’m really not sure what kind of cheese I was adding, but it did not matter, the package said FOUR on it. 

 Quadruple your cheese, quadruple your fun

 So there you have it.  The only thing missing was sour cream.  It was party my fault for forgetting to buy it, but it didn’t matter too much as Postal cannot eat that either.

Heaven covered with cheese

So looking back at it, maybe these Nachos were not totally healthy, but I tried.  The milk for the cheese was fat free though, and the chips were brown rice…other than that it was pretty much the same artery clogging mess we all come to love so much.  Postal seemed to enjoy it and has even asked me to make them again, and I plan on doing so.  Oh, and the best part about these Nachos?

They’re Pink Panther approved

- iwst99

NachosUK - Henry J. Beans

(Editor’s Note:  Please welcome our guess contributor, NachosUK!  Not only will we be bringing you the latest Nachos reviews of L.A. but thanks to our new friends we will also be bringing your reviews from across the ocean).

As part of our public service here at iwst99, we bring you the latest in our review of Nachos from throughout the UK.

This edition is a review of the nachos at Henry J. Bean’s, an “American” style eatery located in ritzy-hoity toity Chelsea, London.

Normally I steer away from any kind of restaurant’s with a “wacky” name consisting of abbrevations (see TGI Friday’s for another example), but we were there for the UT Longhorns football game (currently ranked no. 1, beyoatches) and there was something ironic about watching American football in an American style cafe in London, England and being served by a bunch of Polish people. It was something I felt that I had to experience.

Not actual Henry J. Bean’s Nachos

Needless to say, I was more than a little bit let down. First of all, this place continued in the long and glorious British tradition of USING CHILI FLAVOURED CHIPS for the nacho base. WTF?!!! YOU DON’T HAVE TO FLAVOUR THE CHIPS!!! THAT’S WHY I’M GETTING NACHOS!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The cheese was okay. Actually, cheese here in the UK is pretty damn good. But what fucked up the nachos even more and outweighed anything good that the cheese might have brought to the dish was the fact that the “sour cream” was some wierd runny combination of mayonnaise and hollandiase sauce.

Here’s the main thing I don’t get - if you’re going to have an “American” style eatery and serve “American” food, you might - at some point - want to get an actual AMERICAN in there to fucking try them out. I couldn’t imagine one American, even someone from one of the fake states thinking this plate of bile would pass for nachos.

(NOTE: The Nachos pictured above are in no way representative of the nachos I was served at this establishment. I just needed to look at a picture of good nachos to get the abomination that was Henry J. Bean’s nachos out of my head while I was writing this.)

NACHOMETER: 2 out of 10 (only because UT won the football game)

Donkeys Can’t Cook

They all say that

Upon sitting down and enjoying our most excellent views (as old school Keanu would say), I took a look at the menu and found the prey that I would be devouring for lunch, Grande Nachos.  Soon thereafter we were greeted with what I’m assuming were supposed to be chips and salsa.  To me, however, it looked like a bunch of tostadas and salsa.  I don’t have anything against this (I’m not that lazy that I can’t break up my own chips), I was just hoping this was not going to foreshadow my soon-to-come meal.  I could not tell you if the “chips” were any good, as neither Postal nor I eat chips.  Well, kind of.  Yes, as weird as it sounds, I only eat chips for Nachos reviews and not at any other time (don’t ask).  Along with the salsa we also received what would be considered the rest of the salsa bar. 

The Three Amigos

About ten minutes after staring at our hybrid tortilla chips, the waiter arrived with our food.  Upon receiving the Nachos I have to say they did make my mouth water.  Guacamole, sour cream, shredded American and Jack cheese and shredded chicken.  There was something that looked like pico de gallo, but it was only composed of tomato squares, so it gave the illusion of delicious pico de gallo.  There was also a well-hidden layer of refried beans under all the chips.  Appearance has a lot to do with Nachos.  I want the food to look appetizing and to taste just as good.  It might not seem like a big deal since it all ends up in our stomachs as a big mush, but it does.  Call me a Nachos sexist, but if I’m going to pick a plate of Nachos to work for my company, I’m going to pick the best-looking ones.  These were definitely easy on the eyes.

Could have worn a shorter skirt

I poured the salsas and hot sauces and proceeded to make these Nachos end up on the side of a milk carton.  I tasted the guacamole, which was only avocado and lime, and didn’t think much of it.  The shredded chicken was pretty bland and tasteless.  The cheeses were not bad, although they were not completely melted on spots.  I think they meant for them to melt with the heat of the chicken and beans, but a lot of it didn’t.  The beans did taste fresh, and although they were at the bottom of the chips they weren’t so hot and greasy that the chips would get soggy.  I can’t complain about the tomato squares…they tasted like tomato squares.  The sour cream was also your regular sour cream.  As I kept inspecting the ingredients I picked up a particular chip.

Ok, seriously, I know I said I wasn’t lazy enough to break up my own chips, but those were free “chips” and salsa.  This is the meal I paid for, and how do I get treated?  With deformed looking chips that are in no way small enough to be considered chips, I’m allowed to complain about these.  I don’t want to break up my own chips, nor do I want the elephantine chips to take up all of the toppings leaving the rest of the chips dry.  At first I thought this might have been a fluke and I could let it slide, but then I looked at one of the other chips.

t(>_<t)

Seriously, how hard is it to break up tostadas into chips??  Just Chris Brown them a few times and I guarantee you they will get that chip consistency.  That’s just lazy.  Look at the picture above.  That’s nothing but a rolled up fried tortilla.  It can’t be considered a tostada or a chip, just a rolled up less of a chip impotent tortilla.  It turns out that most of the chips were 10 times too big.  Bleh.   I ended up eating as much of this bland mess as I could and breaking up most of the fried tortillas.  I kept looking at the beach view and telling myself it was worth it (it wasn’t).  In the end, the only thing I ended up with was a few humongous greasy oversized chips.  Although they didn’t stand a chance, it was kind of like beating up an oversized child with Down syndrome.

Stupid “Chips”

Next time, I should remind myself to not expect quality Nachos from a restaurant that has pictures of thumb-less animals serving food.

Those chips are false advertisment

-iwst99

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Columbia Nachos

I am running out of places to review during my lunch break and will soon need to go further than the Compton area.  The next place on my Nachos reviewing spree is Columbia Burgers located in Carson, California.  Don’t get confused by the name Columbia Burgers, this place is actually a diner type of place that sells everything from onion rings and tacos to Greek salads and Oreo cookie shakes.   Delicious desert items aside, we all know I’m here to eat and review one thing, Nachos.  Or, “Nacho Grande” to be exact.  

Black Olives??

But just so no one confuses these Nacho Grande with all the other generically named Nacho Grande at every other restaurant in the country, Columbia Burgers added a suffix that will make you think twice before comparing them with any other.  Nacho Grande Supreme.  I looked at the picture on the menu and tried to figure out what made these Nacho Grande supreme.  Was it the black olives on top?  The lack of guacamole?  The fact that the sign was being held by a freaky looking chef-guy that in no way resembles anyone I would ever want cooking me up some Nachos?  Whatever it was, I would soon find out.

Ronald McDonald has got nothing on him

As I perused the restaurant and tried to keep my shoes on my feet on the way-too-dirty and too sticky floors, I glanced over to what would be considered the salsa bar.  It contained some of favorite hot sauces:   Cajun Chef hot sauce, Tapatio hot sauce, habanero flavored Tabasco, and of course, mustard.

It wasn’t even the spicy kind

I took some of my favorites and sat down at my table and waited for my Nacho Grande Supreme.  When they arrived, I was greeted with enough chicken for me as well as the three hobos that were wandering outside the restaurant.  With the exception of the sour cream, which was dabbed on both the left and right hand side of the plate, all other ingredients were hidden under the chicken coops-worth of meat.  There were some jalapeños, tomato squares, refried beans and Velveeta cheese.  These Nachos were lacking the whole black olives that the menu showed but at least they were truthful about their lack of guacamole, which made me sad.  Well, I had my Nachos, but I wasn’t sure what made them supreme.

Super Mega Nacho Grande Supreme

I tasted some of the chicken and was greeted with an interesting flavor.  I could see there was some type of red sauce on the chicken, which at first made me think it was so fresh that it had just been killed right there in the kitchen.  To my relief (or maybe dismay) the closest flavor I could identify it to was enchilada sauce.  This might work for enchiladas, but I wasn’t sure about Nachos, but I decided to give it a shot.  The refried beans were fresh but mainly covered in enchilada sauce due to the chicken, which took a little away from the taste.  The sour cream and tomato slices tasted just like they should have tasted, nothing special.  The cheese had a really generic taste to it, but again, it was typical generic Velveeta cheese.  There was also a lot of cheese and it was enough to make all of the bottom chips rather soggy.  The chip to topping ratio was at the highest it could be, a little over ¾ per chip.  This may sound like a good thing, but not when that ¾ is composed of mainly one thing.

I almost grew wings

It didn’t really matter what the rest of the ingredients tasted like, since all I could taste was enchilada sauce.  I’m all about trying new toppings and tastes on Nachos, but one always has to be careful when putting ingredients together so individual ingredients can be tasted.  I was already not feeling this enchilada sauce and the fact that everything ended up covered in it didn’t help.  I would recommend this for a group of hungry friends with only $7 between them, as they will each get enough nourishment to stay alive.  However, I would not recommend this for someone on their own looking to pig out on some delicious Nachos, as the enchiladas are cheaper and that’s the only thing you will taste.  Of course this is me speaking, so group of friends or not, these Nachos did not stand a chance.  Oh, and the only Supreme thing about these Nachos was the Supreme feeling I had running to the bathroom a few hours later.

A Supreme disappointment

-iwst99

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Ranking System (From Nacho Patrol)

The ranking system I use was created by The Nacho Patrol in Boston.

My reviews come in two categories:

Full Reviews:  Full reviews are indepth reviews.  These reviews are not just about the Nachos themselves, but include the location, atmosphere, backstory and pictures from each location.  They are really more for entretainment purposes, although the Nachos will always be fully reviewed.

Ranked Reviews:  These reviews use the Nacho Patrol ranking system.  They focus mainly on the Nachos and not so much the location/atmostphere.  Using this ranking system, all locations can be categorized from worst to best.  The ranking system is as follows (from the Nacho Patrol site):

Nachos will be judged based on several categories and given a final rating between 1-10. These categories include:

• Presentation: are the nachos aesthetically pleasing? Are they packed on a plate that is too small?
• Quality of toppings: canned chili or fresh salsa?
• Distribution of toppings: is the cheese piled in one place, leaving the rest of the chips naked? Is it spread evenly and in layers throughout the chips? Does the restaurant skimp on beans or cheese?
• Price: is it worth it? Is it a rip-off? Restaurants will on a whole be graded in this category.
• Overall/Taste: arguably the most important category, are the nachos tasty and fulfilling?

All rankings will be listed on the sidebar from worst to best by a point system, 40 points being the highest.

-iwst99

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Nachos Locations Map

View Nachos Map in a larger map

-iwst99

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Tacos Y Mas! - Compton, CA

Appearance(7):  The Nachos had a generic look to them, not that this is necessarily a bad thing.  All the ingredients that make these Nachos what they are were there and I was ready to start digging in. Cheese and carne asada and pico de gallo were spread throughout and there were plenty of jalapeños to be found.

Quality of Ingredients(6):  On this occasion I ordered the carne asada Nachos.  The carnes asada was cooked medium and had no special flavor to it.  The refried beans didn’t have too much to them, but they got the job done.   The Velveeta cheese was nice and melty, but again, it had a normal taste to it.   There was shredded American cheese that was straight out of a bag of preprocessed cheese.  There was also pico de gallo throughout, which was mainly composed of onions but had a decent taste.  Although not on the Nachos, the salsa bar contained, among salsas and chiles, some of the best guacamole I’ve had in a long time.  It had just the right amount of cilantro, lime, salt and mayo and was the chunky kind.   The chips had probably been sitting out for a while, but they weren’t too stale.

Distribution of Toppings(6):  Although the carne asada and refried beans were nothing special, there was plenty to go around.  The salsa bar had plenty of pico de gallo and delicious guacamole, so you could serve yourself as much as you wanted.  The cheese was distributed just enough to cover most of the chips, although I did have a few dry chips left over.  They also included a side of chips with the Nachos.  Sure, this may seem like an odd side but considering you could get as much guacamole as you wanted, this didn’t seem like a bad thing.  The chip to topping ratio varied depending on how many extras you put on, but you could easily put a little over 1/3 of toppings on each chip and have enough to go around.

Price(7):  For $6.69 and the amount of actual toppings that was available, the price was actually pretty good.  If you were too share these Nachos everybody would get plenty of the good stuff (if you consider generic ingredients good stuff), but the best part to me was the guacamole.  I can’t stress how good it was and how awesome it was too be able to eat as much as one wanted.

Overall(26/40):  The Nachos were not great, but they were not tasteless either.  However, thanks to the help from the salsa bar these Nachos made it out of the generic category to a step above.  Considering there are not too many delicious Nacho options in Compton, I would recommended to anyone that’s chillin’ with their homies down there.

-iwst99

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Lunch Truck - Carson, CA

Appearance(6):  These Nachos are served on a Styrofoam plate.  There are small containers with lids that one can use to fill up with salsas and after that you must resort to balancing everything back to your desk (since it’s a work lunch truck).  The Nachos look like a big mess, with all the toppings thrown on top in no particular manner.

Quality of Ingredients(8):  Everything about these Nachos was scrumptious.  The guacamole was composed of avocado, salt and lime, and it was more liquid than chunky, but not enough that you couldn’t dip it on chips.  The pico de gallo was tasty as well and composed of tomato, cilantro, some lime and a big portion of red onions.  Beans tasted fresh and not out of a can.  The grilled chicken had little taste, but this was made up by all the other delicious toppings available.  The chips stayed crispy until the last bite.  These Nachos offered two types of cheeses: shredded jack and the award winning cotija cheese, which was sprinkled on top.

Distribution of Toppings(8):  The beans were layered on top of the chips and the rest of the toppings were distributed all throughout the top of the Nachos.  The guacamole was on one side of the plate and the sour cream on another kind of awkwardly.  The rest of the ingredients were spread out evenly throughout the top and didn’t over power one another.  There was enough toppings to cover every chip at about a ¾ to almost full chip ratio.

Price(10):  Considering these Nachos come to your work and are prepared by one single cook that prepares dozens of other orders at once, the $4.50 price tag was excellent.  Not only because it was cheap and convenient, but they were so delicious.

Overall(32/40):  I am extremely lucky to have this lunch truck bless me with its presences twice a workday.  The price is right, and whether I’m craving Nachos in the morning or afternoon, I know I can rely on my local lunch truck to fill me up with delicious Nachos.

-iwst99

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Cheesecake Factory - Redondo Beach, CA

Appearance(8): The Nachos get top points for presentation. The scoops of sour cream, pico de gallo and guacamole are nicely placed uniformly in the middle of the plate. The chips are spread around in a way that it would be easy to grab any of them without having to dig through any toppings. The cheese melted on most of the chips on top looked rather inviting and so did the shredded chicken. I did see quite too many chips on the bottom that looked dry, which is not good.

Quality of Ingredients(8): The guacamole was composed of onion, cilantro, tomato and huge chunks of avocado, which all tasted fresh. The pico de gallo included the typical tomato onion and green peppers, which were al fresh but nothing special. The chicken was marinated with a citric marinated and had a decent taste to it, nothing to rave about. There were two types of cheeses, jack and Velveeta, which tasted fresh enough, but the consistency (which I’ll get too) was not at all appealing. The chips had a good corn taste to them and didn’t get soggy at all, but this was mostly due for the lack of cheese on them.

Distribution of Toppings(4): The guacamole had huge chunks of avocado. They were so thick you couldn’t cut through them with a chip and, unless you used a knife and fork, you would end up trying to balance a huge piece of avocado on your chip. This caused all the guacamole to disappear rather quickly. The cheese was congealed as soon as the plate hit my table. Whichever chips had cheese from the beginning were the only ones that would get any and every other chip was destined to be dry. Any surrounding chips that were even brushing against the cheese would get stuck together, causing you to lift about 7 chips up when you were really trying to only grab one. The cheese was as thick as the avocado, and again, too thick for a chip to slice thorugh. The pico de gallo and sour cream were only enough for a all chips if you only dipped about ¼ of each chip. The chicken was scarce, there were only about 7 jalapeños and about five grains of corn thrown in for no good reason.

Price(4): I admit that this particular location had some nice views due it being near the marina, which sadly was not enough to make up for the $10 price tag. The ingredients were fresh, but there weren’t nearly enough toppings to cover all the chips. Our waitress came by maybe twice, and one of those times was to bring a bottle of Tabasco sauce I asked for, as that’s the closest thing they had to any type of salsa.

Overall(24/40): I don’t mind paying for atmosphere sometimes if the Nachos are good, but these Nachos were a pain to eat. I had to struggle to separate all the chips every time I was trying to grab just one, and in the end I had way too many dry chips due to the lack of toppings.

-iwst99

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Chili’s - Carson, CA

Appearance (7):  You get the option of either 8 or 12 Nachos on the menu.  Each chip was prepared individually.  The Nachos were decorated nicely around the plate.  It was still a little off putting seeing them individually made and at first it’s a little hard to tell what’s going on with them.  The guacamole was scooped in a small container but the sour cream and pico de gallo were simply scooped over some lettuce shreds in the middle of the plate.  There were also some jalapeños all around the chips.

Quality of Ingredients (7):  The pico de gallo tasted quite fresh as well as the guacamole (that was basically just avocado), but there was nothing setting them apart from other places.  The chicken is grilled and marinated when you order it, and the taste of the Margarita marinate gave juicy taste.  The salsa that comes on the side (if you order it) is quite tasty as well and gives the Nachos a good flavor.  The jalapeños also tasted like they had been recently sliced up.

Distribution of Toppings (7):  Since the chips were individually made, every chip received an equal amount of cheese and chicken.  The guacamole, sour cream and pico de gallo portions left a little to be desired however, as you could only cover about ¼ of each chip with them if you wanted all your chips to receive some.

Price (6):  As tasty as I thought these Nachos were, the price with chicken of about $9 didn’t seem to cut it.  It doesn’t help that the tiny bit of guacamole on the side was and extra dollar making it $10 total plus tax.  There was plenty to keep me full, but not enough of the toppings I would have liked.

Overall (27/40): The Nachos got the job done but they seemed quite pricey for what they offered.  If you were sharing them with friends everyone would get about the same amount of chips, cheese and chicken.  These Nachos also force you to top each chip individually with your fork and are not as fun as eat as regular Nachos.

-iwst99

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