Nachos in Paradise: Leonard's House of Love

A couple of years ago while day drinking in Waikiki, I met a lovely couple visiting from Australia. Orianne (originally from France) and Liam (originally from England). They had stopped in the pub for lunch and there we were. Whatever plans they had for the remainder of the day were gone and now they were pub crawling with us. They even came to our nacho night at Growlers later in the week. We were instant best friends. While chatting with them online one day I looked at plane tickets to Melbourne and they were ridiculously cheap, like less than $400. I booked a ticket and started planning my adventure down under (there's some fun pics of the adventure at the end of the blog).

We adventured the shit out of Australia even camping at Bimbi on the Great Ocean Road with wild koalas. Orienne and Liam showed me the best time ever and I am eternally grateful for their friendship. During my stay, we kept thinking about where we would have a Melbourne nacho night. We did some research and settled on a pretty rad looking place called Leonard's House of Love. The menu online looked great and I am a little partial to the name House of Love because of my first apartment with Chris and Derek. We were teenagers that had no business being on our own in the world, had zero money, but we were very happy. Our home was filled with love and we took care of each other, always sharing the little bit of food we had. Those boys saved me from a really dark part of my life and I will never forget them. Back then we had an answering machine (yes one of those machines with a little cassette in it) and we recorded a house message that said (in a deep, relaxing Barry White voice), "Hi, you've reached the House of Love. There's nobody here to love you right now, so leave a message and we will love you later." I miss those times!

Back to Nacho Night.... We arrived to the restaurant on my last night in town and had invited several other friends I had made in Melbourne during my stay (see below for stories on how we met). The place was super cool and totally reminded me of a divey Nevada saloon bar. Everything was made of wood, there were animal skulls on the wall, beer mirrors were hanging everywhere, and they even had a Nevada license plate. It was super hipster and fun. We scored the last big table in the place and ordered some drinks. Then we looked at the menu. There were no nachos on it! You had one job Liam! LOL. Apparently they had changed the menu and what we saw online was an older version. I really liked the place and they did have about four versions of loaded fries (one had all the nacho ingredients on it) so we decided just to stay. There's not many rules when it comes to the nacho blog. If it has nacho cheese or nacho toppings, it counts. Sometimes the nacho cheese delivery mechanism is just a fry instead of a chip.

First to arrive and the one who scored us a table was Hai Lee, whom you will remember from the Margarita's nacho night. She met Nacho Libra while traveling in Texas and then when she visited Honolulu, it was just the right timing for a nacho night. She even crossed the river to come south to see us and eat nachos. By the end of the night she was best friends with my best friends.

Also present that night was my newly acquainted friend Tracy, her neighbor, and her visiting friend. I had met this trio of fantastic ladies while having some lunch at a pop-up bar outside of an art gallery in Melbourne. I offered to buy her bottle of water while in line for some wine when her card was giving some troubles at the register. I sat down and enjoyed my lunch and wine by myself. About 10 minutes later, they came over to ask if I wanted to join them. Why not! We soon became fast friends and Tracy decided that she was going to call out of work and take me on a proper pub crawl. We went back to her apartment where she insisted on giving me some vegemite and biscuits (not so bad, super salty), drank some wine, and got ready for a night on the town. First stop was a burger with a guy I had met on the bus in Waikiki about 5 years ago. Then we popped around to a few places and ended up getting in a bike taxi around the river to go home and meet her neighbor. A little more wine, a little more makeup, a little living room disco dancing, and we were ready to go to the casino to have some dinner and dance to the lounge band. I had the time of my life. We danced till 2am to an 80s cover band that was so much fun.


Tex Mex Fries ($15 Australian) - Cheese sauce, guacamole, coriander & salsa with jalapenos

Liam (3) - PRESENTATION: Tasty. SOMETHING RAD: The amount of cheese sauce makes these tex mex fries look awesome. SOMETHING LAME: More spice! TOPPING TO CHIP RATIO: 4, The fries underneath seemed a bit lonely. I would have expected a beef chilli topping for tex mex fries and a little more heat with the fresh chillis on top, good portion sizes though!