TantricNacho in London

So we are a little behind on our blogging but there is no time like the present to get caught up!

Last March we took a trip to London to visit one of our friends (Mollie!!!) who is living and going to school in London. We had a great trip filled with lots of memories, many of which involved food as we were very excited to try some of the traditional London fare. Having only a short time in London to do and see as much as we wanted, we knew we would be tight on time so in our busy days we really only ate one large meal each day.

Our first full day in London had been jam packed with sightseeing and walking. We got an early start that day and had not stopped. It was mid afternoon when it started to get cold and rainy. I know, it is hard to believe that in London of all places it would be raining...but it happened! We had spent the day walking along the Thames river. When the rain started we were cold and hungry so we stopped at a pub that had a view of the river. Being the stupid Americans that we are, we found a small table in the busy pub and sat around waiting for a server to come over and take our order. After about 10 minutes with our stomachs growling and mouths parched we discovered that WE infact had to go up to the bar to order. Oh the life of luxury we live here in America. Once we got the ordering situation straighted out we had a lovely, filling, comfort meal.

To start we ordered some beer (of course) that was a little warmer for out liking but it still hit the spot.

One of us was a little excited and thirsty and drank half of the beer before the picture was taken. This person shall remain nameless...

We both decided that we wanted to try some traditional food so we decided on:

Meat pie with mashed potatoes and veggies

and of course fish and chips:

The meat pie was amazing! It was in a puff pastry crust with a perfect balance of delicious meat filling. It was so warming and comforting and because we had walked for hours and hours and climbed the 600 stairs to the top of St Pauls it was pretty guiltless.

The fish and chips were exactly what we expected. The fish tasted fresh and had a nice crisp batter. The fries were general steak fries but the tarter was good and we even tried them with some vinegar.

Our friend Mollie really wanted to give us the "London experience" so she was dying to take us to her favourite (hey we were in London we will use the correct spelling) fish and chips place in the theatre district. We arrived after a nice stroll and came upon a very small hole in the wall type place and boy was it packed! A lot of people go to get take out (wrapped in newspaper of course) but one of the women who worked there showed us to the downstairs level where there were more tables so we could sit down and enjoy. The downstairs level was still small and had awesome pictures of sharks all over the walls.

A little disturbing especially because shark was on the menu but I guess it is effective because we all chose the cod and chips to order, no shark.

The fish and chips were very good and we were both glad we got to experience the traditional fare, however fish and chips twice in a week was enough to hold us over for the next year, if not more!!

On the last sightseeing day of our trip we grabbed a quick bite that was probably our favourite thing we ate while on vacation. Sadly we did not get a picture. We were in a hurry to fit in quite a few museums that day so we got off the tube at Victoria Station and decided to stop at a little stand to get breakfast. This delicious mystery that we will forever remember was a hollowed out croissant filled with a tomato chutney, bacon and melted brie cheese. Again, due to all the walking this was guiltless and so delicious!!!

We had an amazing trip in London!! We were able to see and do so much in the city and some of the best parts of the trip included trying delicious foods!!!

Happy St. Patricks day

TantricNacho would like to wish everyone a HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!!!!!!!

The Pour House

The Pour House

Back in September, we went to Boston to see The Temper Trap perform at House of Blues. We were a little pressed for time before the show but still wanted a delicious meal so we decided on The Pour House. The Pour House it located on Boylston Street right by the Prudential Center. For those who went to school in Boston the Pour House was probably a frequent stop for good beer and late night food.

The Pour House has a large selection of draft beers. They have everything from Sam to Bud Light, Blue Moon to the one and only, Pabst Blue Ribbon. The beers are served in tall 22 ounce glasses and they are very inexpensive. On top of their selection of beers, the Pour House offers good, greasy, inexpensive food. The menu is huge including salads, burgers, chicken sandwiches, and wings. Every day of the week they offer a food special such as 1/2 off burgers or appetizers. Their nachos have been frequently voted as the best nachos in Boston. Naturally, we ordered some.

They offer three different nacho options including a regular order, a nachos grande with black beans and chili or nachos pollo with chicken and black beans. We went with the regular and like the menu said, it was enough to share with a whole table, or just 2 of us.

The chips are piled high with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, olives and jalapenos. They really looked good on top but as we started to dig deeper, we began to notice that they were not nearly as layered as we liked. About half way through we were hitting plan chips. Fortunately, they do offer salsa with the nachos so you are able to clean up the plate if you wish which works out well because the bottom layer is still crunchy.

Overall the nachos hit out taste buds right for the night but not quite deserving of the Best Nachos in Boston.

The Flying Cupcake

In November we took a trip to Indianapolis with our good friends from BurgerSutra. As with any trip we wanted to find some great eateries around the city.

It happened to work out that while we were there, Medium Well of BurgerSutra was celebrating a birthday. As a surprise wanted to get some birthday cupcakes and after some research we found a cupcake shop just a few miles from our hotel. It was a beautiful, warm November day so we set out on a lovely little walking adventure through Indy until we came upon The Flying Cupcake.

The inside of the shop was very cute, small but cute. There was only one small table and a few stools to sit at a small counter. There was a pretty good selection of cupcakes and truffles on display. Most of them had quirky names. We decided on 2 Red Velvet cupcakes named the Red Velvet Elvis, a vanilla "birthday" cupcake that was a simple yet cute cupcake with a little ballerina on top, an oreo filled and topped cupcake, and an oreo truffle (If you didn’t catch it, we like oreos).

Since it was a beautiful day for November, we decided to get our cupcakes to go. We had seen a park along the way to the shop and headed back that way in hopes of finding a place to sit and enjoy our cupcakes. As we made our way back to the entrance of the park, we noticed a statue and because one of us is a history dork (the ginger), we walked over to see who the mystery statue may be. To our surprise it was none other than a statue of good old Baberaham Lincoln!

This had to be a sign that this was the place for us to hang out. We entered the park and saw some sort of event at the opposite side of the park. We thought it might be some sort of concert or performance and we asked ourselves "Could Indy get any better??" As we got closer we realized that this wonderful concert was actually some sort of homeless rally where they were giving away free clothes, supplies, and doing free health checks.......... We realized that this was NOT infact the crowd that we wanted to share our magical cupcakes with so we decided to walk back downtown.

We walked back to the circle in the middle of Indy and sat outside and enjoyed the cupcakes while watching all of the Christmas lights and decorations go up around the circle.

Look at that amazing cupcake!! (Ignore the portapotty in the background and just enjoy the red velvity cream chessy deliciousness.)

As we sat and indulged in our cupcakes we became very excited to see the christmas decorations all lit up at night because our hotel had a view of the circle.

Ok, this isn't what it looked like while we were there and because apparently they don't turn the lights on until after Thanksgiving but you can use your imagination...or just look at the picture...

Overall we had a great time in Indy and look for another post soon about the delicious nachos we found!

The Flying cupcake was amazing and anyone who is visiting Indy should go and treat themselves to a delicious cupcake!

Game On Nachos

Game on is a wonderful sports bar located right under Fenway Park! There are underground tunnels that go from the kitchen into Fenway Park so it is a hotspot for the players to come and hang out after the game.

The atmosphere is fun and the food is amazing!

In addition to ball players coming into the bar there are a few celebs who make an apperance there as well. During some crazy college days one of the members of TantricNacho went to Game On and got to meet one of their childhood idols, JC Chasez from N'SYNC!!! There was so much excitement involved when the introduction happened that this member of TantricNacho blurted out that they knew JC's favorite football team (the Washington Redskins).

It was really one of the greatest nights of Tony's life.

Ok, Ok it was Meg who met JC and she was a little tipsy/obnoxious/ excited that she was holding his hand for an extended period of time.... so much that he actually rolled his beautiful sparkling blue eyes at her. But she was so lost in his eyes that it didn't really matter...

So Dreamy....

So let’s talk nachos. The nachos at game on are monstrous! They come on a huge plate that is piled high with layers of chips, cheese, jalapenos, tomatoes, and topped with your choice of chili (our choice), chicken or beef and guacamole and sour cream.

Everyone has had that time where they order nachos, eat the top and find a pile of plain chips on the bottom. Well we both think that a key to great nachos is the layering. Well the best part of these nachos? You guessed it. The layering. The toppings are not just on top but are throughout so it is hard to find a plain chip on the enormous plate and they are cooked so well that there wasn’t a soggy chip on the plate!

We know its early in the blog but these definitely have to be a finalist for the best in Boston!

This is TantricNacho

Sweet, salty, spicy, cheesy, meaty. These are just a few of the adjectives you can use to not only describe the writers of this blog, but also the food that we so very much enjoy eating and writing about. We got the writing bug from our friends Mike & Heather at BurgerSutra (burgersutra.blogspot.com), a food blog based around finding the best burgers in the Boston area. When you finish this intro and decide that we are both boring and unfunny, you can head there for some actually blogging. But for now, keep reading. We haven’t got to the boring parts yet.

Months ago we decided we wanted to expand our love of nachos and start up our own blog about trying to find the best nachos around the Boston area. In the spirit of mixing food and sex, everyone’s favorite past time, and to rival our fellow bloggers at BurgerSutra we decided to call our blog TantricNacho. The blog also gives us the opportunity to take advantage of nachos in any new city we visit.

There is one downfall of eating nachos all the time. It does not help us keep our girlish figures. When we originally got the blogging bug we would go out for dinner, see nachos on the menu, think about ordering them but would come to the conclusion that we were too fat to eat nachos. Ok that is a bit harsh, but nachos are not our only weakness.

Many of you, most likely meaning 3 out of the 4 reading this, know that we have a dream to open up our own cupcake shop. We both love cupcakes. We love baking, decorating, creating and most importantly, eating them. The latter may be why we can’t eat nachos as often as we would like.

With all the nachos and cupcakes we decided on a new idea for a blog.... a fitness blog!!!! We were all geared up to do a fitness blog but as we went to work out we realized we had consumed too many nachos and cupcakes to actually work out. Kidding!!!!!!!!!!

Now,in all seriousness, if you asked each of us what some of our hobbies were we would both say cooking and traveling. So while the name of the blog may be Tantric Nacho, please do not think that nachos are all we will talk about. We plan to fill this blog with write ups about the food we try when traveling and various meals from our own kitchen. It will include updates on new cupcakes we design as well as our continuous hunt for the best nachos. This blog is going to be a buffet of various good reads about plenty of good eats. So sit back, relax, and enjoy! You may want to grab a bib because this stuff could get pretty juicy, or incredibly cheesy!!!

Welcome to TantricNacho....