Travel Missteps: The Legend of the Hubcap Nachos

When I was in middle school we took a family vacation to Hawaii. I…didn’t enjoy it that much. The first day I got the worst sunburn I’ve ever had in my life and was miserable the entire trip. Our cheap hotel was going under major renovations…and smelled like cat pee. (I also think it was a sweatshop, as the 2nd floor was a warehouse room where many women were making cheap jewelry from beads and shells.) I didn’t know you were suppose to barter at the nearby marketplace and spent all of my spending money on a Japanese money cat statue. And we spent an entire morning trapped at a time-share sales pitch breakfast. So it was not a trip I have many fond memories of.

While most of my memories from this trip weren’t that spectacular there is one that I still dream of. One afternoon we went to a mall on Oahu. I was pretty beat, and suggested we get something to eat before heading back to the hotel. We wandered outside the mall until we found this sort of run down restaurant which was on the beach and had great views.

We were wanting to save money, so we agree to split an appetizer. I don’t know why, but something called “Hubcap Nachos” just caught my eye. It was a bit expensive, but we decided to split it. We didn’t have much time to ponder why it was called Hubcap Nachos until this MASSIVE platter of nacho’s appeared, served on an 18 wheeler’s hubcap! It literally was the most food I’ve ever seen. We all just stared at it for a few minutes before digging in.

When I say it was massive, that is an understatement. It was piled high with meat and cheese, so high I couldn’t see my parents on the other side of the table. And I remember being so hungry and that these nachos were the best nachos I had ever experienced in my entire life. In my memory we stayed for hours, trying to eat all those nachos. At one point in my sister and I started to feed birds some of the nachos just because there was so many. The entire time we were there, we were the only customers of the restaurant.

And so I dream of Hubcap Nachos, of the surprise and shock of seeking the big platter come to the table.

Years later in Orlando, I had heard that the restaurant Margaritaville had something called “Volcano Nachos” and I had high hopes that this might rival my memory of the Hubcap Nachos. It didn’t, granted it still was a large shareable appetizer, it will never be Hubcap Nachos. And I waited and waited for the Margaritaville Volcano to go off…before someone else asked and the waiter said it was turned off that day for maintenance. So double the disappointment that day.