Posts tagged bad nachos

Buffalo Wild Wings

Rating: 2

Cost: ~ $7.99

Location: Albuquerque (Multiple)

Customized: Yes, added chicken

Website

Buffalo wild wings is a massive national chain of restaurants that cater to the Wing loving crowds. With a plethora of wing sauces, there are a lot of options when you come here, including Nachos. The sports bar atmosphere isn’t the most original idea, but they do it with a purpose. The nation wide digital pub quizzes are a nice touch, and I’ll admit their sauces are worth eating. As long as you can get one of the teenage waiter/waitresses to actually serve you, there are quite a lot of options on the menu. It has a very Chilies/Applebees vibe with a wing twist.

Buffalo Wild wings offers one form of Nachos called “Ultimate Nachos.” They are offered with chicken as an added cost of $1.  They are comprised of a bed of chips, Texas chili, pico de gallo, shredded lettuce, jalapenos, queso, and salsa.  Don’t forget the added chicken.

For all the fixings that came with it, $8 seemed like a pretty good deal. When they came the nachos were a respectable size, and quite attractive. The Pico gave it a nice color variation. First bite, however, told a different story indeed. Although the chips were standard fare, the rest of the ingredients were sub par. The chicken was flavorless and cold and the jalapenos were mild (at a place famous for hot sauce). The pico, which is always welcome on a nacho was equally bland, and almost unnoticeable. The liquid cheese queso had an overpowering flavor that lingered on the tongue, and made other flavors undiscernable. The worst addition, however, was the Texas style chili. This chili was below average, and was impossible to escape, is it was the most prevalent topping. This was a pretty lame nacho, the kind i’m sure you would get in areas where Mexican food means “Taco Bell”. Despite its low price, I would recommend avoiding it. Just get the wings, its what they are famous for, and they do alright with them.

El Patio

Rating: 1

Cost: ~ $5

Location: Albuquerque (Harvard and Silver)

Customized: No

Website

El Patio is a bizarre looking hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant right next to the University of New Mexico. Next to its more contemporary looking neighbors, its easy to overlook El Patio and its bright blue fence. The menu is interesting, and the atmosphere screams college dive. They are known for their fish tacos, which I will say I enjoy (as far as Albuquerque fish taco’s are concerned). There prices are relatively cheap, but I must warn all of you, they don’t take credit card. This is quite stupid to do in a University area, and I personally find it unacceptable. We found no signs warning us of this, and even though they do offer an ATM in the back, it has heavy service charges. This alone will keep most people from coming here. No one wants to pull out a $20 to pay for a $5 meal.

El Patio offers one form of nachos on the menu. It is a basic nacho, consisting of a bed of chips, covered in refried beans, grated cheddar, lettuce, tomatoes, and a side of salsa and sour cream. There is no meat offered.

When the nachos arrived I was disappointed at how flat they were. There just weren’t that many chips on the plate. The lettuce and tomatoes are attractive, but the Sour cream is clotted looking. I also noticed that the chips were burnt black. After my first bite it became apparent that the chips were way to heavy on the presence of beans. They overpowered the other flavors of the nacho. It is hard to tell whether the cheese was any good because there wasn’t much of it, and its flavors were more mild. The chips tasted burnt and stale, and the sour cream was pretty sub par. The only saving grace of this nacho was the salsa, which I found tasty and rewarding. I only wish I had ordered chips and salsa instead. This nacho was disappointing in its size, presentation, and quality. Avoid the nachos here, and because of the cash only policy, I would recommend avoiding the place entirely.

El Taco Tote

Rating: 1

Cost: ~ $6

Location: Albuquerque (Multiple)

Customized: No

Homepage

This nacho is not very attractive… and yet still manages to taste even worse.

Although El Taco Tote has been around for some time, I never really made an effort to try them out. In its vacinity their are numerous quality restraunts, each diserving of your patronage. After checking out their menu online, I figured it was worth a go to sample their take on Nachos. It seems as though the restraunts focus is primarily meat. They have several different types of meat, and your dish is based on that choice. This seemed to me to be a rather intriuging choice, since I was no longer choosing between beef or chicken, I was choosing between different types of beef.

I’m not sure why, but El Taco Tote decided not to call their nacho a nacho. No, they decided that it was called Panchos. Make no mistake, it is definatley a Nacho, just with a stupid name. The Pancho is a layer of chips covered in beans, cheese, guacamole and your choice of meat. For this tasting I chose the Sirloin steak.

Before i go into my review, I feel inclined to mention that these Nachos did not set well with me, in fact, I would say they made me ill. No vomiting, just a whole lot of cramps and nausia (let it also be known that I do not have a weak stomach). This alone makes me say that no one should ever visit this place. Their are too many quality restraunts (especially in albuquerque) to waste time on restraunts that can’t make quality food. That being said, I didn’t feel nacious untill just after eating… So I can still comment on their Nacho. First they are not very attractive. As the picture demonstrates, the toppings are not well balanced. Some areas are exccessivley coated with certain toppings, while others have nothing at all. These nachos are also very small compared to most that I have reviewed. This isn’t too problematic, considering they were only 6 and change. The meat, which seems to be such a major component of their menu was extremly dissapoinging. The steak was chewy and unflavorful, not to mention the excessive amounts of grissle. The beans, which were overwhelming on some chips tasted rather funny to me. I definitley did not enjoy it. The jalapenos were standard fair, nothing really to say other than they were few and far between. The cheese was a rather weird issue on this Nacho. It had two seperate cheeses, a very light sprinkling of liquid cheese and large chunks of mostly unmelted white cheese (both of which were poorly distributed). The largest insult of this Nacho came with the Sour Cream. Inside the bag was a small tube of Daisy sour cream, you know, like ketchup packets. This is a mexican restraunt… yet they don’t seem to have any sour cream. If this isn’t odd to you, stop eating taco bell and go to a real restraunt. In the end I have only one good thing to say about this travesty of a Nacho. At least the Guacamole was alright, and their was a fair amount too. I Never eat at a restraunt that makes me sick, so El Taco Tote died on its first chance. Even if it didn’t make me sick, the Nachos sucked. If you want some mexican food and your near the Central El Taco Tote, go 50 feet East to Guichos and get a REAL mexican meal that tastes great!

O’Niells Pub

Rating: 2

Cost: ~ $11

Location: Albuquerque (Nob Hill)

Customized: Yes (Added Ground Beef)

Website

Once again, the lighting is dim, But the Nachos look Pretty Good

O’Niells is located at the very eastern end of Nob Hill, and despite being near few other reputable establishments, draws a large crowd daily. Despite being coined as an Irish pub, the majority of the food is standard American Restaurant fare: Burgers, Sandwiches, Salads, and Pasta. The food is tasty, and the ambiance is nice. On busy nights, the service is often very slow, but they are always very friendly. I recommend O’Niells as a lunch time establishment since I find its primary draw to be its food, and the service is always best when it is least crowded.  Its fitting that I review the Nachos from Oniells Pub right after my review of the Two Fool’s Nachos. Both O’Niells and Two fools represent the only significant Irish Bars in the Albuquerque area, and each has its own dedicated loyalists and defenders. This, however, is not a debate as to which is a better establishment… no, this is only a competition of their respective Nacho making skills!

O’Niells offers a single style of Nacho within their starters section. These Nachos are a body of chips covered in ground beef (added cost), black beans, Tomatoes, green chili, and shredded cheese. It comes with a side of Sour Cream and Salsa.

I am very split on my feelings about the O’Niell Nacho. The portion is great, as it could easily fill two people, or provide appetizer for 4+. Much like Two Fools, I am ecstatic that they included black beans w/ their nachos as it is a great addition to any Nacho. The addition of Tomatoes is also well received. However, that’s really where the high quality elements stop. The green chili applied is minimal, and the flavor is bland compared to other restaurants offerings. Due to the slow service, the cheese had already hardened and was cold. This made separating the chips with cheese difficult (often requiring the use of two hands). No layering was employed in the creation of these nachos, so after the top layer is consumed, there are a lot of plain dry chips below. The sour cream amount provided is laughable, and Guacamole is completely absent from this nacho (and not offered as an add on). The biggest trouble with the O’Niell’s Nachos is that meat was so expensive. The addition of Ground Beef to the Nacho cost an additional $3.25 (just under what a pound of free range gb costs at sunflower). All this added fee gets you is a very small amount of bland ground beef that is almost missed if you didn’t know it was in the Nacho. i find this unacceptable considering the quality and quantity of meat on their fabulous burgers. There needs to be at least a double, nay, triple the amount of meat. I find all of this sad considering the high quality that the other O’Niell’s food has. Normally I would rate this a 3, as an average Nacho, since it is nothing spectacular. However, considering that it is also the most expensive Nacho I have ever seen, I can’t rate it any higher than a 2, since it just isn’t worth it.