NachoQuest

An unfavorable ratio of chips to toppings, congealed cheese sauce, globs of brown guacamole, tough chicken—any of these moving parts can break, torpedoing the ship before it sets sail from plate to gullet. Since sports, beer and nachos go together like beans, cheese and tortilla chips, we sampled nine popular Portland nacho plates to help you make an informed decision about where to exchange sloppy high-fives with your best buds this Super Bowl Sunday.

THE BEST

The Conquistador *****

2045 SE Belmont St., 232-3227.

Price: $8, $10 with guacamole.

Ingredients: Queso fresco, cheddar cheese, jalapeños, olives, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, sour cream, choice of salsa (pico, tomatillo or house hot).

While Old Portland bemoans barmageddon claiming their beloved Matador, the rest of us quickly moved on to its sister across the river. While its gaudy iron accents and gold lamé couch conjure visions of mustachioed men inhaling mountains of cocaine with Steely Dan's "Do It Again" playing in the background, it's the holy grail of bar nachos that brings Jack back to do it again and again at the Conquistador. The ingredients list looks pedestrian, but the flavors are bold, bountiful and accented perfectly by the house hot sauce that's generously applied to most other items on the menu. Perfection is hard to grasp with a dish as messy as nachos, but the fact that you're likely to run out of nachos to cart the mounds of guacamole and fresh tomatoes speaks volumes about the unparalleled greatness at the Conquistador.

ALSO AWESOME

Breakside Brewery ****½

820 NE Dekum St., 719-6475, breakside.com.

Price: $11 regular, $15 Imperial.

Ingredients: Melted cheddar jack, jalapeños, grilled chicken, Buffalo IPA wing sauce, celery, carrots, ranch, Smokey blue cheese crumbles, green onions.

Is combining wings and nachos cheating? Is goosing the Buffalo sauce with Breakside's Great American Beer Festival gold medal-winning IPA akin to Bill Belichick deflating footballs or stealing opponents' defensive signals? Should we care? Breakside's Buffalo chicken nachos are in a league of their own in flavor and ingredients, but the idea of faulting the brewery for playing a different game is silly once you've tasted the creamy, red-hot glory. The "regular" size is easily dinner for two, and the peril of running out of toppings before chips is mitigated by a texture and flavor that stands up without an excessive amount of trimmings piled on top.

Fat Head's ****

131 NW 13th Ave., 820-7721, fatheadsportland.com.

Price: $10.99.

Ingredients: Housemade potato chips with smoked chicken, cheddar cheese sauce, pickled jalapeños, tomatoes, scallions, cilantro. Sour cream on request.

Leave it to the enterprising Midwesterners behind Fat Head's to skew their approach and knock one out of the park. A purist would split hairs over the Pearl's newest brewpub's wild defiance of Universal Nacho Law—that nachos must use nacho chips—but the housemade potato chips are a sturdier, if also saltier, upgrade to their corn-based brethren. The confluence of sour cream and smoked chicken tumbling off the top layer creates impressive plate coverage with a tangy finish that endures one explosive bite after another. The cheddar cheese sauce actually tastes like cheddar, making it a massive upgrade over the congealed gas station-grade goo most other bars use to hide their mistakes. The only knock is the massive amount of salt that punctuates each bountiful bite, but it makes sense given they're in the business of selling beer.

GOOD ENOUGH

Grand Central Restaurant & Bowling Lounge ***½

808 SE Morrison St., 236-2695, thegrandcentralbowl.com.

Price: $11.95

Ingredients: Black beans, spicy chicken, melted cheddar and jack cheese, grilled tomato salsa, guacamole, jalapeños, tomatoes, chipotle aioli, cilantro sour cream.

This is a generous spread for a sports enthusiast who's fed up with the table-jockeying and elbow-bumping at either Blitz location in Portland. The chicken and neon-green jalapeños mingle perfectly with a glob of guacamole to create a zesty top layer with a smooth finish, but this heap is, unfortunately, not in it for the long haul. Things go south when you crack the second layer of cheese sauce masquerading as "melted cheddar." The cilantro sour cream is a nice flourish, but there isn't enough of it to account for the missteps of the cheese situation, which is the glaring downfall of an otherwise serviceable pile of salty fan fuel.

Santeria ***

703 SW Ankeny St., 956-7624, thesanteria.com.

Price: $7.50 small, $10.50 large; $6.50 and $9.50 without protein.

Ingredients: Beans, cheese, sour cream, pico de gallo, guacamole sauce, choice of: vegan or chicken tinga, cochinita, asada, pastor, chicken, pork or beef (shredded or ground).

Being the adjunct kitchen for Mary's Club and Bailey's Taproom makes Santeria an automatic inclusion, but its heavy hand with beans was a major letdown. The chicken tinga's smoky flavor did wonders for the few bites it was a major player, but the soupy remains of the bean drippings render the bottom third of the plate thoroughly unappetizing. Using bottled guacamole sauce over the real stuff is also questionable.

The Fields ***

1139 NW 11th Ave., 841-6601, thefieldspdx.com.

Price: $9; add chicken, shredded pork or kalbi beef for $3.

Ingredients: Pepper jack, black beans, olives, green onion, pico de gallo, guacamole, sour cream.

As one would expect from a high-end sports pub in the Pearl, the Fields offers a paltry portion of local ingredients on the kind of rectangular plate you'd find at a post-makeover TGI Friday's. The sweet-hot flavor of the kalbi beef was a standout among protein options across the board, but the presentation left us confused and unsatisfied. Washing down a rectangular plate of high-end nachos with a tallboy or Rainier would feel gauche. This is not a head space you want to be in while consuming sloppy finger food.

NOPE!

River Pig Saloon **

529 NW 13th Ave., 266-8897, riverpigsaloon.com.

Price: $9, $11 with bacon or chicken, $12 with pork.

Ingredients: Pico de gallo, pickled jalapeños, black olives, nacho sauce, green onion, cilantro-lime sour cream, colby, Cotija, cheddar.

When the jalapeños stand in defiance of an otherwise flavorless dish—even after spending $3 to upgrade to pulled pork—you have a fundamental nacho problem. The Cotija cheese was as pungent as it was daring, but the end result was little more than a bizarre funk that would've sullied the top-layer flavors of a competing spread—if that spread had any flavor to begin with.

Lompoc Hedge House *½

3412 SE Division St., 235-2215, lompocbrewing.com.

Price: $6 small, $9 large.

Ingredients: Pepper jack and cheddar cheese, black beans, tomatoes, pickled jalapeños, scallions, salsa, sour cream.

Choosing Lompoc's quaint Division Street location was a misclick—it's the only location of five Lompocs that doesn't offer a protein. But it's hard to imagine the addition of mole pork or spicy chicken would improve a below-average spread that offers little besides a hearty amount of cheese keeping dry, mealy chips stuck together. The jalapeños are a bright counterpart to the blandness of the salsa and chips, but there aren't enough to go around for the bottom half of the pile.

Rialto Poolroom Bar & Cafe *

529 SW 4th Ave., 228-7605, rialtopoolroom.com.

Price: $7, $8 with beef or chicken, $9.50 with guacamole.

Ingredients: Cheese, black beans, pico de gallo, jalapeños and sour cream.

This retro pool hall's attempt at nachos is a wholly American experience: It's not very good, but gosh is there a whole lot of it! A recent visit during a busy game day yielded burnt chips and crusty bits of chicken that may have been products of an overworked kitchen. But the delicate science of baking a pile of meat and condiments until it's appetizing to drunk football fans leaves little room for error in even the most extreme circumstances. Can Rialto do better? That's debatable. But you, the noble nacho connoisseur, should aim higher in your sloppy conquest. 

WWeek 2015