Do you have one of those places in your life, some location, that you’ve passed by a million times in the course of your days and always thought, “Man, I should really check that out.”, but you never do? Years go by and it remains a mystery as you continue to think that one day you’ll stop by. You grow old. Your flesh sags. Your bones wither. Your organs fail. The face that looks back at you from the mirror is a stranger. As you’re lying in your death bed, the only things keeping you on this mortal place being the machines with tubes running into your body making it work, the fog of your addled brain clears just long enough for you to think, “Man, I should have really checked that place out...”, and then you die. Your family buries you in the ground and leaving the cemetery they pass that place and think, “You know, I should really check that place out.” The cycle continues.

Smokin’ Bowls was my “that place”. What, you thought it was Finius T Flubberbusters (out of business and now a RV dealership) or Lakeside Bar & Grill (just not good)? Every summer I drove by the restaurant/food truck with the ridiculous name while on vacation and every summer I kept meaning to stop in and check them out, so this year I finally did. I mean seriously, with a name like that how could you not? Vermont is a state known for its “greenery”, and I’m not just referring to their famous mountains if you know what I mean, so “Smokin’ Bowls” fit right in. Would their food be able to cash the check their name wrote?

Perhaps the issue is that I went with the “BBQ Pulled Pork & Cheese Nachos” rather than the “Cheech & Chong Chili Cheese Nachos”, and that’s the reason it wasn’t full of marijuana, which was a disappointment. Also disappointing was that my “BBQ Pulled Pork & Cheese Nachos” contained only BBQ pulled pork, cheese, and chips, which is really on me because they gave me exactly what was advertised. This is not disappointing in that both the BBQ pulled pork and cheese were delicious, but disappointing in that while these are all good things, they could have been even better things with the addition of other tasty toppings. Some pickled jalapenos would have been great, same with sour cream or guac, and really one more of any other topping would have made these pop more. It’s not that these nachos were bad, they weren’t, they were just, like that bad boy kid in your class with a heart of gold, not applying themselves to their full potential.

Sadly, not giving it their all was not the worst nacho related thing to happen to me that day. I had also picked up a cup of peanut soup (because you ALWAYS get the peanut soup if you see a place that has it) to go with my nachos, and thusly had plenty of nachos leftover for a further meal. I was looking forward to them, but the capricious gods had different plans as upon my return home a terror the likes of which I had never before witnessed in all my years of nacho eating occurred.

I think if I had gotten the chili version of this it would have been a better choice. Just chili and cheese and chips is a more acceptable combination without other toppings, albeit a much larger mess to clean up from my step. Also the menu appears to change based on availability so if you want nachos the chili ones might be your only bet if no pulled pork to be found. Most of the time you can’t go wrong with this, but if you always got that peanut soup instead you would NEVER go wrong. Not quite as good to eat spread over chips though.