Top nachos

Too often cheap pub grub means soggy nachos, cold fries, messy wings and other boring fried food. Not so at the Top of Tacoma — especially the nachos ($8.50). Served on a large baking sheet, it’s as if co-owner Jamie Kay Newton makes the ultimate nacho on each chip then merges them. The nachos arrive loaded with pepperjack and cheddar cheeses, red and green onions, tons of black olives, and jalapenos, and they’re served with fresh homemade salsa, chipotle-cilantro sour cream, with the options of adding pulled spicy barbecue chicken or seasoned ground beef. It’s difficult for two people to polish off. — Ron Swarner

[Top of Tacoma Bar & Café, 3529 Mckinley Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.1502]

Best Mexican Coffee drink

We’re all used to the “third-wave” coffeehouses by now, the post-Starbucks cafés where baristas command more machinery than some industrial chemists, and your morning cappuccino, drawn from a $12,000 coffee making contraption adorned with more chrome than a ‘58 Buick, is decorated with a heart, a leaf or the likeness of SpongeBob’s bud Patrick lovingly coaxed out of foam.

Masa, on a busy corner in Sixth and Pine, is a new kind of third-wave joint: It’s a Mexican restaurant with an espresso outpost — Satellite Coffee — embedded within it. What this means in practice is not just world-class espressos and lovingly brewed coffees from Portland’s Stumptown, but killer coffee drinks, too.

I enjoyed the best Mexican Coffee drink of my life at Masa over the weekend. Freshly brewed French pressed Stumptown Coffee mixed with Patron Silver Tequila, Patron Xo Cafe Tequila Liqueur and Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur served in a tall coffee mug.
I was up. I was down. I was up. I was muy bueno. — RS

[Masa, 2811 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.254.0560]