French Fry Diary 287: China 1

If your local Chinese food place has fries, get them, and if it doesn't find one that does. Usually French fries from a Chinese restaurant is a rare find, and a rare treat. When The Bride and I were still dating we frequented a wonderful little hole in the wall Chinese place in Blackwood, sadly since burned down, that had phenomenal shoestring fries, as well as a near-perfect sweet and sour sauce.

The secret is that in Chinese wok cooking, the wok is simply wiped out rather than actually cleaned. The food retains the flavor of all the food previously cooked in it. I know it sounds gross, but it works. And if French fries are cooked in a wok, yummm. It is so worth it. That's the way it was done at the place in Blackwood.

When I saw that China 1, not our regular Chinese restaurant, but one just a little further away, but one that had French fries, I knew we had to try it. The fries came in a little Styrofoam container, more familiar to diner food than Chinese food, and were simple crinkle cuts, probably frozen grocer fries that were deep-fried.

They were clearly not superior as that place in Blackwood or had any care taken with them other than a quick deep fry and dump in the Styrofoam box. It's a shame as they could have been so much better. We'll stick with our regular Chinese place, even though they don't have fries.