A guest post by Ms. Cary Randolph Fuller -

In the words of the poet Murphy Lee, “the Lou is more than the Rams, Cards, and little Arch.” It’s also a city full of great American bars. No frills, just baseball on the flat-screen, girls in jeans, and extensive, exhaustive menus. As a rule, if Mike Shannon can fry it, you can eat it, and you’ll pair it with a big cold pint of Bud Select.

A chain with some rather dubious locations… not least of which Mansfield, CT, where I ate these nachos… Coyote Flaco has an old school vibe. The food is typical 1980s/early 1990s Eastern Tex Mex, heavy on cheese and sour cream, light on nuanced flavor. Still, there’s something comforting about essentials. These are the nachos we grew up with. Cheese meets chips, topped with grilled chicken, beans, and the three amigos of sour cream, salsa, and guac. Wildly filling. Wildly damaging to ones gastrointestinal system.

Over all a 5 on 10. True to our motto – “Any nacho is better than no nacho.” But, also true to one of our regular faults – if fajitas had been ordered, the meal would likely have been better.

Something to keep in mind though, Coyote Flaco serves the second best nachos within striking distance of UCONN’s Gampel Pavilion. The best will be reviewed in the very near future.

Our first attempts at making nachos involved round chips, a bag of shredded cheese, and the family microwave. At ages 9 and 6, respectively, Christopher and I spent several months perfecting a rudimentary nacho recipe. Cooked for 1 minute, we had creamy melty (to steal from Taco Bell) cheese. Blast for 2 minutes, we had a type of nachos we referred to as “crispy” – the cheese loosing all moisture and hardening.

A Pittsburgh’s contemporary art mecca, the Mattress Factory, nachos are made using the first of the Nacho Hunter’s two microwave cooking method. Round chips are topped with ample cheese and finished with a healthy portion of veggie chili. The microwave, in this case, can be forgiven for two reasons. The first, simple enough, is that the Cafe doesn’t have an oven. The second, a bit more complicated, is that the overwhelming surprise of having nachos available at a museum cancels out complete lack of building technique.

These nachos are adequate. Delightfully basic, the nachos fill a single man’s hunger and prepare him to look at art.

Ultimately, while just a 5 on 10, nachos at the Mattress Factory do succeed in ranking highly among least likely places to eat nachos.

A visit is recommended (for the art, primarily).

Given our previous misadventures anytime nachos and English people are combined, it is something of a marvel that these unique nachos are prepared at a restaurant, Perro Salado, owned by Brits. It is an even greater marvel that they are produced in the WASP bastion of Newport, RI.

Perro Salado’s Duck Nachos are heavy. Some of the heaviest nachos encountered in the many years we’ve engaged in nacho hunting. Thickly sliced duck breast joins duck confit to form a robust topping. Such topping requires firm chips… achieved here through use of blue corn tortillas. However, the nachos are served in a bowl makes for one immediate problem… a soggy base. The juice of the confit and the duck breast combined pools significantly in the chosen dish. These are, for better or worse, knife and fork nachos. Another deficiency comes in the mingling of ingredients. The cheese doesn’t quite melt into the duck. These leaves coverage of chips mixed… and if you know us, you know we crave fully loaded bites, each and every bite.

In idea, Perro Salado’s Duck Nachos are an 8/10. They bring a regional bird to the dish, and a touch of gourmet flavor. In execution, they fall to a 4/10. Balance of ingredients fails, as does the composition of the plate.  Don’t discount for technique though, the Duck Nachos have terrific flavor. Our final thought – one which may again appear – are these truly nachos, or a very special taco salad?

Visit Perro Salado for yourself to join the discussion. We hear they now offer an ambitious brunch nacho as well.

NOTE: SOMETIMES, WHEN HUNTING, ONLY A BLACKBERRY PHOTO IS POSSIBLE. APOLOGIES FOR THAT.

What do Nacho Hunters do with thanksgiving leftovers? Make fucking nachos, that’s what.

Christopher kindly supplied the family with more than enough expertly roasted turkey from Torrisi (famed for having the best turkey sandwich in NYC), which we cubed for the purposes of the nachos. Rather than add beans or any other heavy accompaniment, we simply carmelized a few onions. For cheese we used cheddar, pepperjack, and Habenero jack. Store bought chips served as base. We baked all at 350 for 30 minutes.

We finished the nachos with a drizzle of warmed “Harvest” salsa from Brooklyn Salsa Company. The sweet pumpkin and squash mix hit perfectly with the turkey and carmelized onions.

Images follow.

These nachos are inspired by Christopher’s trip to Cambodia. There he ate nachos with gloriously spiced ground chicken. Here, we took a rather simple larb recipe… with ample lemongrass and hot chili… stolen from Foodnetwork and paired the meat with a very thin cheese sauce prepared with Habanero jack. Our initial desire was to use freshly fried wantons. However, a sample batch proved the wanton too weak to handle the heft of our topping. As such, we reverted to our preferred chip – freshly fried corn tortilla wedges.

The pictures after the jump tell the full story.

And with that, expect the Nacho Hunters to get cracking on new content soon.

While San Francisco’s Mission district is full of amazing taquerias and home to the nations best burritos, I opted to take the hunt to Russian Hill. Why? Because I was lured by a name, Nick’s Crispy Tacos. Few Mexican ‘straunts bear my name, and I was staying in the neighborhood, making it a two for one kind of strike. Nachos and a namesake. Would the decision fail me?

At $6.75, a plate of Carne Asada nachos at Nick’s was ample for two. The build was average with chips piled up and covered in a homemade cheese sauce. Given my love of cheese sauces outside the yellow goop norm, this was an exciting discovery when the nachos emerged from the kitchen. Sadly, seasoning did not match anticipation. To call the sauce bland wouldn’t be a knock, just a truth.

Double thick freshly fried chips provided an ideal base for the hearty toppings. The carne asada gave much needed flavor to the cheese sauce. A very smooth guacamole and chunky pico granted a range of texture with each snatched chip. These were clearly quickly thrown together nachos, yet maintained an individuality through a well conceived interplay of components. Tender meat, smooth sauces, crisp tomato, crunchy chips. Textures at Nick’s became more important than taste.

And then, there were the surroundings. Nick’s is really just a corner stand within a velvet covered bar. A rather odd daytime feel for such street foods. Unlike the sublime nachos at Bar 89, which fit the environment to a T, nachos at Nick’s are a counterpoint. Quick and dirty food vs. glitz and glamor drinking.

The singular achievement of the dish at Nick’s came in the form of the carne asada. It took the plate from average to slightly above. Managing to cover, but not overwhelm, the chips, not a cube of meat was left on the plate after careful consumption of each chip. For this, Nick’s gets a 6.5 on 10.

This odd contraption is the “Nacho Wallet.” Designed by Anat Safran, an Israeli, the wallet follows our belief that people in Europe and the Mediterranean have no idea about nachos. This design is more aptly a taco. Yet, in our quest to find nachos the world over, we also search to define nachos the world over. Why are there so many misconceptions? Why is such a delicious foodstuff not understood? Why would anyone want this product?

What, you do? No fear, head here.