French Fry Diary 648: Ore-Ida Bold & Crispy Garlic and Pepper Steakhouse Fries

One of the new fries in Ore-Ida's new Bold & Crispy line are these Garlic and Pepper Steakhouse Fries. They immediately got my attention because of their lengthwise crinkle cuts, closer to the old Gulliver's type than Famous Dave's. I was looking forward to trying these.

When you first open the bag, the garlic aroma is very strong and will remain so as they bake, but not so much when they're done. Your kitchen will smell nicely garlicky for about ten minutes or so, but it's a good thing.

These lengthwise crinkle cuts allow for extra crispness, but I would watch and adjust the heating directions as appropriate for you. My fries were done with seven minutes to spare by their instructions on the bag.

While the smell is good, I thought I had cooked the garlic out of these fries. Mind you, you'll still need a breath mint after having some, but nowhere near as garlicky as one might think. And while I can see the pepper and seasoning on the fries, they don't have much of a kick, so I get the 'crispy,' but not the 'bold.'

French Fry Diary 613: Birthday Goodies

I have a pretty important landmark birthday coming up later this week, and I wanted to talk about freebies, specifically birthday freebies from fast food and chain restaurants. For the sake of the blog here, I'm on an awful lot of email lists for these restaurants so of course I'm on their birthday list as well. I should add that there's a substantial lack of the favorite fried food for free.

Denny's is the granddaddy of these bad boys with their free Grand Slam breakfast on your birthday. You get two eggs, two pancakes, two sausage links, two slices of bacon - but no breakfast potatoes or hash browns. Sad. IHoP goes one better with a free breakfast that might just include hash browns.

Friendly's will give you a three scoop sundae, Dairy Queen does a Blizzard, Chili's a brownie sundae, and Cold Stone Creamery, Baskin-Robbins, Rita's Water Ice, and Ben and Jerry's all have ice cream in a cone or cup. Also in the cold club are Smashburger and Zinburger with milkshakes, and P.F. Chang and Outback both get you free dessert.

Sonic, Charlie Brown's, Red Lobster, Famous Dave's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Qdoba, and Fuddruckers play it safe and mysterious by saying you're just get a free gift. Maybe it's a watch? Hmmm… all I wanted was fries… Don Pablo's goes right for the wallet with the lazy birthday tact of a gift card.

Red Robin rules with not just a free burger, but also a side of those bottomless fries. Houlihan's gets you a free entrée, Johnny Rockets a free burger, and my friends at Cool Dog Café are good for a free hot dog. Hmmm… I'm thinking Cool Dog for lunch maybe and then Red Robin for dinner…

French Fry Diary 456: Little Louie's BBQ

A family member took a bad fall, so they was rushed to Cooper Hospital in Camden. I went up Haddon Avenue past the Pop Shop, as this was the most direct route to the hospital, I past a restaurant I had never seen before. Once the emergency was over, and everything had settled down, I had more time to investigate this new find. So something good did come of it.

Little Louie's BBQ is up the road a bit from the Pop Shop, just outside the bustling heart of Collingswood. It had its own parking lot so no outlandish parking fees, plus number one, and I had heard the ribs were very good. That put it high on the list for the mother-in-law, my favorite rib connoisseur. So The Bride, her mom, and I made plans for dinner at Little Louie's.

We went in on a Saturday night, didn't need reservations, and I was quite surprised to see that it wasn't crowded. Folks from out of the South Jersey area might not know, but Collingswood is a hot bed of trendy popular restaurants. If it's a restaurant in Collingswood on a Saturday night - it should be packed. And honestly after our meal, I have to say again - it should have been packed. Hope this review can get the word out.

The place has a stark but warm atmosphere, with old western movie posters on the walls, and a great view of Haddon Avenue. Like at Famous Dave's, they had a roll of paper towels at the table as opposed to napkins. Also at the table they had mild and hot barbeque sauces. In my opinion they needed one in between those two extremes.

I got the foot long hot dog, on a toasted long roll. The dog was just the way I like them, very crunchy, very juicy and very good. It was big, not just long, but thick. Well done as if done on a grill, as was the roll, it was a big meal. As sides I got fries (of course) and baked beans, although I got coleslaw instead. No harm, no foul, I guess.

The fries were awesome. These are hand cut, as in individually hand cut, natural cut fries. These were unevenly cut, some thick, some thin, like you would make at home if slicing them up yourself. They were soft and hot on the inside, and crisp on the outside - serious, nearly perfect fries. I couldn't get enough. They come in a larger portion, which will be what I order next time we come here.

All in all this was a wonderful dinner with The Bride and her mom. Terrific big servings on everything, although I could have definitely had more fries. Like I said, these were fantastic fries. Highly recommended.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #11

These are Famous Dave's BBQ Chips.

I got these as a side with my burger at Famous Dave's in Owings Mills MD. These are easily the best homemade barbeque potato chips you will find in any restaurant. Check 'em out next time you go to a Famous Dave's.

French Fry Diary 200: Smashburger

Colorado-based Smashburger opened in 2007, not just French fries but also deep-fried green chilis, pickles, sweet potato fries, banana peppers and fried onions all frizzled up. That last one called haystack onions. They also have veggie frites – flash fried carrots, green beans, asparagus, with sea salt and black pepper. This is also probably why, along with Elevation Burger, and too far out of state contenders Whataburger and In-N-Out Burger, Smashburger is one of the places I get the most recommendations for. Several dozen folks have told me I have to check out the fries at Smashburger, so it's a serious contender.

So we were in the wilds of North Jersey (yeah, "Jersey Shore" land) for a New Year's Eve party, and knowing we were also in the land of Smashburger - I called to see if they were open, so we set out to the Riverside Square Mall for a New Year's Day lunch.

Once we were there (the GPS and the street signs had some real difficulty in determining where this mall actually was), the place reminded me a bit of Cheeburger Cheeburger in design, and similar to Gino's in ordering. You order at the counter, take a number with you and they bring the food to you.

As expected, catastrophically picky eater I am, I got a plain hamburger, and The Bride got something more normal, for sides we got the Smashfries and Haystack Onions to share. The burger was a bit greasy, but very flavorful, and very filling. All things considered, it was the best part of the meal. Notably, the burger was even better with the Smashfries or the Haystack Onions sandwiched under the roll.

Now on to the main event, the favorite fried food at Smashburger - the Smashfries. At first sight, the fries themselves were nothing spectacular, just standard shoestrings deep-fried, as they would have been at any diner or pizza joint. Then the magic happens. They are tossed in olive oil, rosemary and garlic to give them that extra special kick. This is a great trick to trump up the taste of not so great fries and the flavor combination can't be beat. The problem is of course, the fries, tossed in oil after cooking, tend to be a bit greasy.

The Haystack Onions are thin sliced onion rings and onion straws that are positively addictive, much better than the fries, and definitely recommended. I am reminded a bit of the Onion Strings at Famous Dave's. Again, the problem is that they are also a bit greasy. Both these and the Smashfries come in ersatz baskets, and in good portions.

As mentioned above, the grease is the problem. The burger is a little greasy, the onions are a little greasy, and the fries are a lot greasy. Separately it might be forgivable, except maybe for the fries, but together it literally leaves a bad taste in your mouth and stomach.

I would definitely come back however. I would get the burger alone, and maybe the onions, and maybe the flash-fried veggies as well, and definitely one of those tasty looking shakes - but probably not the fries. The large variety of options here at Smashburger was why it was originally planned as a group French Fry Diary field trip. With three or four friends along, we could order and try all the different things on the menu. Not this time, but maybe next time.

French Fry Diary 185: Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que

Black Friday this year was spent chilling with my brother-in-law and my nephew, and before jumping into the crazy world of holiday shopping, the bro treated me to lunch at Famous Dave's. It had been some time since I'd been there and was looking forward to seeing what they had and didn't have.

Famous Dave's is a bit on the darker side of franchise restaurants like T.G.I.Fridays and Applebee's with all the stuff on the walls. It's like hunting lodge from hell décor, with bad country music and southern rock, interspersed with the occasional holiday song. Not the happiest environment, especially with ammo boxes on the wall, but the food is good.

Our waitress 'Famous' Keri happily announced that they had Pepsi products. I had noticed that the various barbeque sauces on the table were in Hank's Root Beer boxes but I was unsure if they offered it - they do. Pepsi worked though, nice and cold to counteract the hotness of the sauces.

Speaking of the sauces, after we ordered we were treated to a 'sauce tour.' A basket of homemade potato chips were served with five empty cups for sampling the five different sauces. They include: Sweet and Zesty, my personal favorite that I even have at home (Famous Dave's also sells these at supermarkets); Texas Pit, kinda hot for me; Devil Spit, this was milder than I thought it be, not bad; Rich and Sassy, was just good bbq sauce and my nephew's favorite; and Georgia Mustard, being mustard, I passed on it.

The sauce tour came with those homemade potato chips, similar to the ones at the British Chip Shop, only not hot, more like traditional potato chips. They were very crispy, but as I said, not very hot, but that's okay, they were for the sauces. I enjoyed them very much.

The burger was very good, just like a burger cooked on the grill at a summer cookout, just the way I like it. The fries that came with them were natural cut potato wedges with ripples on them, thin ones like on Utz Ripple chips as opposed to Utz Wavy chips, ya know? And they go with the fry, not against it like crinkle cuts. These ripples should allow for more crispiness, which I wish they were. Otherwise these were quite good, and the bbq sauces made them even better.

All in all, a great meal with family, and the fries were pretty good too. Thanks for lunch, Matt!

French Fry Diary 118: Alexia Oven Crinkles – Onion & Garlic

Here’s another trip to the grocer’s freezer with Alexia. Their frozen Onion & Garlic Oven Crinkles are standard crinkle cuts, some quite long, and are also USDA organic and have 0 transfat. That ought to make the Health Nazis happy.

These fries are very aromatic when the bag is first opened - very aromatic. All things considered, this is a good thing.

The directions say to put ‘em in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 425 degrees, or until the fries have the desired color and crispness. I gotta say that mine were in there for a good 40-45 minutes. They might want to adjust those instructions in my opinion.


Now when it is finally time to take them out, the aroma from the oven is delicious. It smells like really really good baked garlic bread. To taste however, the onion and garlic flavor is much more subdued than one would expect. That could be because both ingredients were dehydrated. The white pepper does add a bit of flavor though.

As with all organic fry products these also had that freezer burn taste. I tried to mask it with some Famous Dave’s Sweet & Zesty BBQ sauce and that added a bit of a zing, but didn’t help the freezer burn much. Still the sauce was good.

French Fry Diary 79: Burger King at Home 1

As mentioned here at French Fry Diary, Burger King is invading your grocer’s freezer. In fact, they are there now.

The good news is that instead of the crappy fries you can get at any Burger King, these are different. They come in three varieties: King Krinkz – seasoned crinkle cuts, King Kolassalz – bigger crinkle cuts, and King Wedgez – seasoned potato wedges. Thankfully none of the regular ones, but the package itself, in which the fries cook in your microwave, becomes an ersatz Frypod – an "Eazy Tranport Frypod." I gotta give them props for packaging at least.

I tried the King Wedgez first. The directions were oversimplified, with instructions like Shake, Vent, Zap, Cool, Tap, Rip, and of course, Eat. The end result, if you tear it right, does look like the type of package fries used to come in a few years back, but ironically, not really much like what we know as a Frypod.

There weren’t all that many fries inside either, granted they were big, but still maybe only about ten to a dozen total. The King Wedgez were seasoned potato wedges, similar to those at KFC, but with vertical medium ripples. The ripples were not as small as those at Famous Dave’s, but not as big as those on wavy potato chips. The fries were not really very tasty either – a little soggy and not very crisp (or even "Krispy!" as the package itself promises), but with a good pepper aroma that emanates from the microwave while they’re cooking.

All in all, the experience was fun – the packaging, the adventure of making them, etc., but the fries not so much. Ore-Ida microwave fries are better, but not as much fun. Next time we’ll try the King Krinkz and King Kolassalz and see how they are.