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That would make nachos an American knock-off of a Mexican snack.

The generic nachos recipe is simple. Cover tortilla chips with cheese and chilli peppers, and bake until the cheese melts. From there, pile on goodies of choice, including olives, beans, tomatoes, guacamole, salsa and sour cream.

While Hong Kong is woefully short of Mexican food, numerous styles of nachos can be found in Western restaurants.

With the origin in doubt, it is tough to say one restaurant makes more authentic nachos than another, but surely some are superior to others.

The differences lie in the quality of tortilla chips and roster of additives piled on.

So then, who turns out the best platters of these addictive finger-food snacks that demand beer, margaritas and other thirst-quenching beverages? Our quest began at La Placita Mexican Restaurant in Times Square, only to be told that since nachos are not authentic, they are not on the menu.

With scarcely a handful of Mexican restaurants left, we went next to Zona Rosa in Lan Kwai Fong where we indulged in Tex-Mex nachos ($78), served with charming adobe in a rough wood Mexican ambience.

The kitchen starts with the real thing: homemade, hand-cut tortillas, baked, not fried, into crisp chips. Fresh baked chips are not as crispy or salty as commercial varieties, but taste more genuinely of corn.

Fanned out with melted cheese, the chips circle a centrepiece of dips: mashed black beans, guacamole, sour cream and spicy tomato salsa. Zona Rosa's nachos taste more Mexican than American.

The cheery little Mexican Mess, a canteen club hidden away in Tsim Sha Tsui behind the YMCA, serves a different version ($40).

Using commercial tortilla chips, each is carefully crowned with spicy ground beef, cheddar cheese, tomato, guacamole and sour cream. These spunky nachos are bite-size, neat and tidy and make addictive snacks at an addictive price.

LA Cafe in Admiralty starts with thin, crispy tortilla chips, layering them heavily with treats - cheese, olives, tomatoes, chillies, fresh tomato and onion salsa, and big scoops of sour cream and guacamole ($80).

Served crisp and hot, these California-style nachos carry a welcome jolt of heat.

Catering to the 'big is better' American motto, Al's Diner in Lan Kwai Fong sets out a giant platter of taco-flavoured tortilla chips baked with layers of cheese ($60).

The mound is then sprinkled with green onions and olives, and finished off with dollops of guacamole, sour cream, tomato salsa and green chilli salsa. For a very nice price you get lots of flavour, lots of nachos and lots to share.

At Post 97 in Lan Kwai Fong, the scene is vertical nachos ($80). Looking like something from a milliner's shop, tortilla chips are stacked tall with melted cheese, then topped off with re-fried beans, tomatoes, guacamole and a smear of sour cream.

The only way to attack such a structure is to carefully pull chips from the stack and dig into the toppings. One waitress admitted to some fear of toppling the nachos when delivering orders from the kitchen to the table.

Look to California, again in Lan Kwai Fong, for the pure version: a warm pile of tortilla chips, melted cheddar cheese, feisty jalapeno peppers, fresh guacamole, tomato salsa, and a decorative grid of sour cream squeezed over the top ($96). Simply spicy, super.

Dan Ryan's in Pacific Place and Ocean Terminal builds a lighter, more manageable stack of nachos using all the right basics and then some: crispy tortilla chips, cheddar and Swiss cheeses, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, olives, green onions, guacamole, sour cream and salsa ($68). A nearly perfect balance of parts.

Depend on the wild and crazy Planet Hollywood to serve trendy nachos with a glamorous look, using today's hip ingredients to produce a bold taste ($62). Piled individually on to deep-fried won ton skins are smoked chicken, grilled onions, barbecue sauce and two cheeses.

Served on a stylish black plate, they surround bowls of salsa, guacamole and sour cream. This is a unique taste for nachos that somehow works.

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