Is there a more lovely experience than walking through a verdant park to find yourself at a restaurant overlooking a perfectly manicured golf course where you are able to sit out on the porch and watch a sunset while enjoying a plate of nachos? Probably, but that is right up there. Fortunately there is a place where you can do that, any while I’m sure there are many such establishments throughout the world in this case I am referring to the poetically named “The Grill on the Hill” in Worcester, Massachusetts.
As it was a lovely day and GotH is a restaurant reasonably within walking distance, I enjoyed a nice walk through the park to work up my appetite. Appetite for what you ask? Why, for the pulled pork nachos that I had seen on their website menu as they are one of the rarer forms of nachos available. Of course because it is my luck in life it turned out that what they had on the website menu was from LAST YEAR, as the restaurant is seasonal being part of a golf course and all and we had up until a few weeks ago upwards of 5 feet of snow on the ground. While both my heart and spirit were crushed, my stomach was not, so I had to order the Stacked Nachos, sadly entirely devoid of pulled pork.
I’m not going to lie, when the Stacked Nachos showed up in front of me, I was not impressed. I didn’t actually read the menu about what was supposed to be on them after the whole lack of pulled pork so at first glance I saw some beans and corn and chips and what looked like cheap guac. LLLAAAMMMEEE. But then I had a bite and had to reevaluate quickly.
The beans and corn turned out to be a little thing called “Black Bean Salsa”, and while it would be generous to call it salsa it would not be fair to call it anything other than delicious. I was honestly taken aback that the beans and corn had a flavor that was so delicious and greater than the sum of said beans and corn. Was there witchcraft involved? Undoubtedly.
If there was malevolent thaumaturgy involved in the salsa, then what I mistook for cheap guacamole must be the pinnacle of molecular gastronomy as instead of it being some nasty stuff from a can it was in fact the lovechild of Guacamole and Sour Cream, Avocado Crème. What is that exactly? My guess would be a bunch of avocados or partially made guacamole mixed up with some sour cream to produce a new previously unknown of food item, or one of those things like liquid crystal or quantum spin liquid which have no definable matter state, Bose-Einstein condensate if you will. Let me tell you, nothing gets my taste buds into gear faster than a nice Bose-Einstein condensate, boy howdy!
So a lot was learned this day. I learned that I should judge a nacho not just by its looks, because these were some pretty good nachos. Would they have been better with pulled pork? Yes, but these were still pretty tasty even with limited ingredients. I also learned that The Grill on the Hill makes a mean bowl of clam chowder with bacon, a perfect side for your nachos as bacon is an ok substitute to pulled pork. Plus I learned that if golf is your thing you can drive right up to the restaurant on a golf cart after playing the back nine. It’s a win-win-win situation, and those are my favorite situations to learn of.
Now that's a view that aides in digestion.
