The Nachos

The International Day of the Nacho occured last week, and how better to celebrate than a post on nachos?

Nachos are probably my favourite pub food. I wouldn't pretense to call myself a connoisseur, but I've had a lot of nachos and have many fine memories of some of the best like my friend Jeremy's multi-layered Super Bowl nachos or The Gem Bar & Grill's refried bean dip covered nachos. I also have bad memories of the worst nachos I've ever had: at a crappy place on St. Clair Street that will go unnamed. Even though I didn't know that International Day of the Nacho was last wednesday, I ended up having quite a few nachos last week. First up, I made myself some bareboned nachos in the hotel room using nacho chips, cheese and salsa. There wasn't a grater, so I sliced the cheese up with a sharp knife. They were okay, but they didn't have the wide range of toppings that the professionally done nachos I had at two different restaurants:

Christie's Carriage House Pub
Christie's had an impressive number of beers on tap, including the awesomely titled "Back Hand of God Stout". It was a tough choice, but I ended up going with Phillips Blue Buck, a local Victoria beer.

The name came from a contest after a lawsuit was threatened over their previous name "Blue Truck" (it was alleged as being too similar to a Vancouver craftbeer named Red Truck). While Christie's had a fair number of vegetarian options, I decided to go with the nachos:

I liked the nachos, but they had a central flaw: the cheese was baked in. Now, I'm all about baking nachos, but I think that nacho cheese should have a gooey consistency. This was the opposite, the cheese was embedded into the chip. In one way though, the picture doesn't do them justice as you can't see the jalapeños and tomatoes that were in the dish. Still, definitely not the best nachos I've had.

Ein-Stein's
'Stein's does not have the range of beer that Christie's has. Indeed they are the "local drinking hole" I mentioned here that prompted me to give up cheap beer. One thing that 'Stein's does very well though is pub food. Naturally, we had to order the nachos:

They were amazing. The cheese was perfectly melted. This was no accident, such is the dedication to detail of the chef that after baking he runs the nachos through a microwave to get that desired consistency. There was a good selection of toppings such as jalapeños and olives and they were well distributed. At some places after a while you start just getting plain nacho chips. At 'Stein's there is an abundance of cheese and toppings and no chip is left behind. We ended up ordering another, bigger, plate of nachos later in the evening. Traditionally, if my friends and I are ordering pub food at 'Stein's we get the party platter but I think that nachos should be the new paradigm. They are excellent.

Christie's Carriage House Pub
1739 Fort Street, Victoria, British Columbia

Ein-Stein Café and Pub
229 College Street, Toronto, Ontario

Scalloped Potatoes

Scalloped potatoes have always been a 'comfort food' dish from my childhood, but I don't really get an opportunity to make them (I don't usually have both cheese and milk in the house at the same time). Luckily, I was over at my friend Megan's for dinner tonight and they were on the menu. I was feeling like having dairy (some readers may be able to guess why) and, serendipitously, I got my wish. We started by having an omelet with orange peppers and onions (inspired by this video, albeit not in form) as the scalloped potatoes baked.

Scalloped Potatoes

6 potatoes

1 onion

Cheese

1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 375°. Slice the potatoes into ovals (cut the bottom first so it doesn't slide on the cutting the board), ring the onions and grate the cheese. In a casorolle dish, add a layer of potatoes, a layer of onions and a layer of cheese until you reach the top. The top layer should be cheese, but before you put it on, add the milk. Cover in tinfoil and bake for an hour, then remove the tinfoil and bake for 45 minutes.

Serves 3 (or 2 for hungry folk)

Sunday Frugal Sunday

Hello, my neglected readers. When I started this blog I mentioned I had created this as a summer hobby (in lieu of getting a goldfish named Pushpanathan¹). Since that time the blog has gotten literally tens of hits²! While traffic has not been noticeably down during September, my posting has been. Whycome? I was really busy in September (September included the first couple weeks of October just as the 60s actually continued until 1975³). This not only meant that I didn't have time to post but also that I wasn't eating very interesting food: lots of pasta with tomato sauce and cans of chickpeas (that's not pasta with tomatoes and chickpeas, but two separate items: I actually more than once just had a can of chickpeas for dinner). However, things have calmed down a bit. So I'll resume blogging, but probably the once-every-day posts some periods of the summer had won't return. Here is what I will do: try to make sure to post every Sunday. That doesn't mean I won't post in the rest of the week necessarily, but that there will be a type to check and see new content.

In lieu of a recipe or restaurant review, here is fascinating look at the history of modern ketchup (via a comment thread on home-made ketchup at The Paupered Chef)

1 I have since found out that Pushpanathan is not pronounced Push-pan-a-than but Push-pa-NA-than. This disappointed me greatly and my hypothetical goldfish will need a new name.
2 Actually I've gotten over 1000 pageviews. But I like that expression.
3 Many decades are like this. For example, the 50s lasted from 1948-1963.