Location: 3333 Georgia Ave. NW

Readers’ pick: Tonic

Beef. Cheese. Heartbreak.

Those were the three things on my mind when I first stepped into Midlands Beer Garden this past Valentine’s Day. The Petworth locale, about 40 minutes from campus on the Metro, is a half-indoor and half-outdoor brewpub and bar food extravaganza, with Washington Commanders fans galore each Sunday during the NFL season.

Dim fairy lights in the outdoor area illuminate the path past a series of wooden picnic tables to the Midlands entrance, where visitors order from a rotating list of more than 20 beers below a glowing yellow sign with the restaurant’s name and bee logo. Inside the bar, banners for every NFL team drape down from the ceiling as wall-mounted televisions play the night’s biggest sports events. More picnic tables fill the room’s interior, the dull fluorescent lights from above obscuring the amount of beer left in any given glass.

When I first visited the beer garden, ashamedly with a Miller Lite in hand, I was there to commiserate. A friend had asked me earlier in the week if I was free that Friday, and I was puzzled: that day was Valentine’s Day, and I thought he was in a five-yearlong relationship. I learned at Midlands he and his girlfriend had broken up the week before, and wallowing over a giant plate of Midlands Nachos with me was his bounce back.

The Midlands Nachos, $12 for a half-tray and $20 for a full one, came lathered in heaps of real freshly melted cheese, hunks of beef chili, salsa, onion, parsley, pinto beans and a generous drizzle of sour cream. I’m no statistician, but I’d estimate there was a four-to-one ratio of toppings to chips. Every time I reached into the dripping, greasy pile, I risked the future of my unfortunately chosen white shirt.

Nachos live and die on the quality of their cheese, and their cheese is where Midlands Nachos soar like the bee in their logo. The generous helpings of brackish goodness tasted like the bar’s owners visited France, picked out a gouda variety of cheeses and threw them all together in a pot to make one orange-yellow sauce. Each time a drop of cheese fell off the chips back onto the tray, I felt I was personally betraying the fine munster makers of the world.

The nachos’ other flavors admittedly get pushed a bit to the side by the sheer amount of cheese (apparently, you can add extra cheese for $2, a thought which terrifies and excites me at the same time). But the bites of beef chili and pinto beans added an almost-sweet earthiness.

My friend and I devoured the platter within minutes. Much to my dismay, we were forced to use forks by the end after the chips were too soaked, almost soggy, in cheesy goodness to hold the nachos de-bries. Maybe the night out didn’t heal his heart, but it certainly did mine. In my multiple trips to Midlands since my first endeavor, every bite of nachos has been grate-er than the last.