Oh Moe, you were doing so good. When it came to casual fast food nachos you were at the top of the game. Being the only place around offering the equivalent of a make your own nacho bar, now that is hard to beat. But you tried, oh lord, you tried to reinvent the nacho game with your Sriracha Nacho Stack, and man did you fail.
Much like the annual October descent into Pumpkin Spice Madness and more recent Red Velvet explosion, Sriracha Sauce is the newest taste sensation to hit the streets. Created in the 1930’s and originating in Si Racha, Thailand (from where it gets its name) the sauce came to America under the auspices of Huy Fong Foods and has became synonymous with the with Rooster or Cock Sauce thanks to the bird gracing their bottles. Restaurants such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Subway, Applebee's, Rogue Brewing, and now Moe’s have all now jumped upon the Sriracha train to Yourmouthsville and in itself there isn’t a thing wrong with that. The people want to try a new flavor, business wants to deliver, that’s the invisible tastebuds of the market for you. But the problem with Moe’s new meal lies not with the Rooster Sauce, but instead with nachos.
It tastes exactly like how you think it would.
Introducing a new flavor to a dish should be the difficult part, but what should be easy is making nachos nachos, or something that reminds you of nachos if it’s a reinvention of them, as in this case the Sriracha Nacho Stack is, or rather isn’t. Moe’s concept of a “Stack” is basically a tortilla wrapped around two flat corn taco shells with stuff inside, and the Sriracha Nacho Stack is just that. So what exactly about that makes it nachos?
Coincidentally, this is exactly what your anus will look like after eating one of these.
Sure, the stuff inside you could put on an order of nachos, but you could also put it in any other mexican dish and that wouldn’t make it nachos. Are the taco shells supposed to represent the chips aspect of nachos, and if so why are they included in every other “Stack” and aren’t given a “nacho” adjective in the title? Is this just a bald faced ploy to sucker in the nacho crowd, because calling the meal the Sriracha Burrito Stack would have been just as, if not more, valid.
Taco Bell has a little something by the name of “The Grilled Stuft Nacho”, which is pretty much a low grade version of this, except there is one main difference between the two foods: Taco Bell’s nacho dish actually has chips in it, you know, like a nacho. And when Taco Bell can one up you in the nacho game, that’s a red letter day, and a really bad one. Hell, even their “Beefy Nacho Burrito” actually has chips and is closer to a nacho just wrapped up in a burrito than the Stack.
I guess this kind of like the leavings of a nacho if you put them in a burrito?
I’m not going to say that the Sriracha Nacho Stack is bad, because it’s not, but also what it is not is nachos. It could have just been called a Sriracha Stack and been equally as good as it is now, but without the stigma of false nachoness. We had a relationship Moe’s, a relationship built on trust, a trust that you’ve just violated. Your regular nachos will always be delicious, but I don’t know if I can ever believe you again when you introduce a new “nacho” product that isn’t just an order of nachos with new toppings. I hope you’re happy Moe. I hope it was worth it.
