Chickie and Pete's Cheesesteak Nachos

Taste	4	Not too shabby!  The cheese sauce seems fresh, and the dusting of "crab" powder plays well with it.  In fact, the mix of flavors -- salty-spice (chips/powder/peppers) and savory (cheese/olives/steak) -- go well together (when they all get together, that is -- see below).
Size	3	A good amount for two people to split if it's an app, but not nearly enough to sate your appetite if you want it as a meal.
Toppings	4	So, "cheesesteak" nachos sound like the nachos God would get if God were getting nachos (and, really, why wouldn't you get nachos everyday, if you were God?).  But, the devil is at work here!  Unlike chili, the shredded and chipped beef that -- well, "covers" would be an overstatement -- this platter loses its heat pretty quickly.  Add in the fact that all the toppings are added without the tray going into the oven to melt the cheese (it's a sauce), and the cosmic crime here is that, like His the humans he created, the toppings on God's would-be-nachos-of-choice never seem to blend together in unity.
Ingenuity	4	A good idea!
IOD	3	Once you get over the fact that you're drinking rich cheese, it goes away pretty quick.
Overall Score	18 (out of 25)	If you're there, definitely worth trying.
Rated By	Mike
Location		11000 Roosevelt Blvd (several locations, though)

The rating scale takes the following aspects of nacho platterification into account:

Taste

How does everything tie together?  Are toppings well distributed?  Did you cry – for joy or woe – at any point while eating?

Size

A good nacho platter can be shared with everyone feeling somewhat sated (or eaten alone in a scheme of hungover self-healing or in a fit of fatty shame).  How does this one stack up?

Toppings

Quality or crappy?  Fresh pico de gallo or jarred salsa?  Shredded cheese blend or Cheez Whiz?  Meaty chili or chunks of God-knows-what?  How about the chip-to-topping ratio?

Ingenuity

Was there anything unique about the platter?  Was it so blasé as to be simply blah?  Or was there something that made this plate stick out in the pantheon of nachos and earn the name “platter”?

Intensity of Disgust You Feel with Yourself Two Minutes After Finishing (or, IOD)

This is a good thing!  If you didn’t want to feel gross and stuffed and like Ernest Borgnine after a fish-fry bender, you would have ordered a salad!

Rating Scale:

1 – Awful.  Like coma patient on a feeding tube, not even strong enough to suck.

2 –  Weak.  Like it’s bringing less to the plate than the Phillies’ power hitters in the playoffs.

3 – Solid.  Like going to the prom with a friend – drama-free, but nothing special in the end.

4 – Good.  Like Michael Jackson:  incredible, but there’s that one bad thing you just can’t ignore.

5 – Excellent.  Like Christmas, and your birthday, and summer vacation all rolled into one.

Return to Philadelphia Restaurants Page:
http://makenachosnotwar.angelfire.com/philadelphia.html