Posts tagged liquid cheese

Baileys on the Beach

Rating: 2

Cost: $6.25-9.25

Location: Albuquerque (Monte Vista and Gerard)

Customized: Yes, added Carne Adovada

Website

Just across from UNM, on Monte Vista lies a new restaurant called Baileys on the beach. This swanky eatery tries to recreate a beach like environment and offer a variety of sea food and pacific style cuisine. Although I was hesitant from the outer design of the place, I have to admit the inside looks rather fantastic. Their theme succeeds rather well and I feel as though it is the closest an Albuquerque restaurant has come to feeling like San Diego. The best part about visiting Baileys is the kind and knowledgeable staff. They want repeat customers, and they are working hard. The Menu is long and varied, and includes such items as Mahi Mahi Kabob, baked clams, and fish tacos. The food here is different, but In a really good way. It was only a matter of time before I ventured to try their Nacho stylings.

Baileys offers one form of Nacho: The Tsunami Nachos. These nachos are a body of chips covered in “Tsunami Queso”. This is covered with lettuce and tomatoes and comes with sides of guac, sour cream, and salsa. For a $3 additional charge you can add your choice of chicken, steak, carne adovada, or mahi mahi.

When the nachos arrive you will be greeted with an attractive arangement of colors and textures, but you will also notice that the nacho suffers from some serious drawbacks as well. For $9.25 this Nacho is small compared to other Nachos in the $10 price range. Many of the chips have little if any cheese on them at all. The lettuce and tomato portions are so small that they probobally shouldn’t have bothered puting them on the nacho. Most upsettingly, however, is that the carne adovada that I payed $3 extra for is in exremly short supply. I shared this nacho with my friends and found I only had a few bites of meat myself. What made this more sad is that the Meat was without a doubt, the best part of this nacho. The Carne Adovada was amazing! In fact, its some of the best I have had in years. It worked fantastically with the Nacho, atleast the small parts of the nacho that had it. The guacamole and sour cream and salsa were also tasty, and worked well with the nacho. As most of you know, I prefer shredded cheese on my Nacho, but I am always willing to give a fair shake to the liquid variety. The Tsunami Queso on the nachos is made from a double roasted green chile. Sadly, I didn’t really taste the chile in it to much. Rather, I only tasted a strong Velveta-esque flavor. Its unfortunate that these nachos weren’t much better, because Baileys has some amazing things on their menu. Their meat is amazing, and their burgers are fantastic. I highly recomend people try this place out, just not the Nachos. There other food is where its at. 

Serafin’s Chile Hut

Rating: 3

Cost: $5.25-5.75

Location: Albuquerque (Central and Solano)

Customized: Yes, added ground beef

Website

Located in the eastern area of Nob hill is a new little restaurant known as Serafins Chile Hut. This eatery is easy to find thanks to an attractive Zia sign angled over the edge of Central Ave. When you walk inside you will find a quaint little establishment with attractive wall paintings, nice tables, and an excellent ambiance. The menu is small, but well crafted, and includes the majority of New Mexican classics, all at fantastic prices. The staff is one of the nicest I have ever ran into, its obvious they love this restaurant. I myself have had several of their menu items, and I must say they are delicious, particularly the enchiladas and sopapillas. This is one of the most comfortable restaurants I have ever been in, and I plan on becoming a regular.

Serafins offers one form of nacho, which is a standard body of chips covered in liquid cheese and covered in pickled jalapenos. They were kind enough, upon my request to cover these nachos with a generous helping of their ground beef.

For the incredible price of $5.25 i was expecting a tiny snack sized Nacho, intended as a brief appetizer for their other dishes. However, when it came I was shocked at how massive this dish was. Although not the biggest, it is definitely amongst the larger Nachos I have had. I wasn’t sure if it was liquid or shredded cheese when I ordered, and I have to admit I was disappointed to find that it was the liquid variety. As you all know, I prefer shredded cheese a thousand times over. Apart from the ground beef I requested, this nacho looked like a Ballpark style nacho, which wasn’t surprising considering all the Time magazine’s featuring baseball covers adorning the back wall of the Hut. I also noticed that the jalapenos, which were thankfully pickled, were also diced, and spread more evenly amongst the nacho. I had never had diced jalapenos on a nacho before, only cut. I Have to admit I really enjoyed them. They allowed me to enjoy them without them overpowering each bite due to their minute size. The liquid cheese is better than most that I have had in my day, and it penetrated all the way to even the deepest of the chips. The chips themselves were of excellent quality, also better than most other places offer. The real strength lied in the meat. Serafins has some of the best ground beef I have had at a restaurant, and they complimented the nacho perfectly. It was fine and crumbly and spread across the entire nacho. In the end, the Nacho was balanced, layered well, and every chip had every topping on it. For those that don’t like complex nachos, this is the Nacho for you. As I said earlier, its a ballpark style nacho… but to be fair, I wish ballpark Nachos were as good as the one from Serafins. I really enjoyed this, and It stands as a great example of how to make a tasty straight forward Nacho. These are worth eating, but I must first recommend some of their other platters, like the combo plates or the enchiladas, because they will knock your socks off.

No two nacho fans are alike, and thus their taste in nacho’s very. Some prefer the original nachos, others prefer soggy chips doused in liquid cheese, and others prefer mounds of ingrediants that compliment the basic structure.  The original nacho, as invented by Ignacio Anaya in 1943 at a local eatery in Piedras Negras Mexico, are tortilla chips covered in melted chedder cheese and pickled Jalapenos.

Wikipedia Entry

If you are a purist, this is the only way to make nachos, and they are tasty indeed. I however love to experience new things, and Find that I enjoy all nachos, but more complicated nachos often tantilize my imagination more. To help understand my ratings scale, this is what I consider my perfect nacho:
Tortilla chips covered in a spicey red meat (Buffalo and Beef are best). This is then covered in a conservative layer of beans (preferably black beans) and then covered in melted shredded (not liquid) cheese blends. This is then covered in Green Chilie, Guacamole, Sour Cream, and tomatoes.
I don’t always want my Nachos this way, but I usually do.