French Fry Diary 524: Keg & Kitchen

As we had already been disappointed once that week by A Battered Tartan, so The Bride and I had to find another place to have our actual anniversary dinner. She had received a gift card from a place in Westmont called Keg & Kitchen (or alternatively, Keg N Kitchen), so we were off.

On the edge of the Collingswood restaurant district, and with very little parking out front (there is a backlot), Keg & Kitchen has a very nice pub feel. There is large variety of beers and flatbreads and cheeses, as well as the standard pub fare. Be warned however, this place is very dark. I'm guessing the money meant for the electric bill went toward maintaining the big blackboard of breads and cheeses.

Remembering a very good ground chuck hamburger I had at P.J. Whelihans recently, I ordered a similar burger here, which came with, of course French fries. The burger was very good, juicy and tasty, and the caramelized onions on top completed a great meal. We drank our sodas out of canning jars, which would have been cooler had they been larger. Jars are fun as long as they hold enough.

The fries were natural cut skinny regular cuts, not quite shoestrings but thinner than usual. Unfortunately they were more than a little burnt. This was disappointing because I think these could have been pretty good had they not been so overdone.

We might come back someday if we have another gift card, and we bring flashlights, and they don't ruin the fries. Seriously though, it was the company that counted, not the food.

French Fry Diary 469: Redstone American Grill

The Redstone American Grill is right in town. It's really a wonder why it's taken me so long to review this place. They've been here a long time. The Bride's family used to come here all the time, and the flatbreads were the specialty and the reason to come. For some reason, once I started actively reviewing places for French Fry Diary, we stopped going mysteriously. I don't now why.

I recently came with my friend Dave for lunch. I got my regular, a plain burger. The burger was gigantic and near perfect. I'm hungry again now, just thinking about it. I also got fries of course. They were different from the last time I was here a few years back. They still had the same natural cut shoestrings, but this time they were in a tin box. The fries were very crispy, deep-fried, and in a good portion size, packed into that tin box pretty well.

It's a box, but not quite a box, more of a frame really. It makes it hard to get to the last of the fries, despite the wax paper they are wrapped in. You will eventually have to dump the whole thing onto your plate anyway. It does however keep the fries separate from the other food notably, preventing what I have started to call pickle fries - fries drenched in pickle juice. So the tin frame serves a good purpose. The fries are pretty much the same as previous visits, only the presentation has changed.

Dave got a pulled pork sandwich that came with thin grizzled onions that he seemed pretty happy with. That said, I wished I had known I could have gotten grizzled onions as well. Maybe next time. All in all Redstone is recommended. A good lunch with a good friend.

French Fry Diary 259: The Capital Grille, Cherry Hill NJ

My good friend Ken came up from Kentucky to spend some time with us here in the wretched state of his birth, New Jersey. My job, while he's here, is to ruin his diet. Also, because he'll let me. The problem sometimes with doing French Fry Diary is that many of my friends and family are on diets, and they won't/can't come out to play with me when it comes to reviewing fries. So, sometimes, I save the big ones for when Ken visits. Such was the case with the Capital Grille at the Cherry Hill Mall. We decided to go there for a late winter lunch and see what we could see.

The Capital Grille is a very ritzy place, various ceramic animal heads and a few birds of prey around a classic wood decor and an onsite wine reserve and butcher shop. Regarding that last bit, our server Christopher, who was very friendly and informative, says TCG specializes in dried aged beef. And extra points for Christopher - he didn't discriminate against us in t-shirts and jeans as opposed to everyone else there in office suit attire. We felt very out of place, but he made us feel at home.

I ordered, go ahead and guess what I ordered, folks, yes, a burger. Even in a classy restaurant, this catastrophically picky eater and fast food junkie still goes for the burger. This was a wonderfully rich chopped sirloin burger, but still a burger. Bread came and included a crispy flatbread that tasted a bit sweet. The burger was superb (dried aged beef, remember?), one of the best burgers I've had in a while, but that's not what you're here for, you want to hear about the favorite fried food, right?

The French fries were regular cut natural cuts called Parmesan Truffle Fries. Now truffle is one of the Holy Grail ingredients when it comes to fries, both truffle oil and truffle salt. The third in the triumvirate is of course duck fat. These fries were cooked in a garlic truffle oil with Parmesan and shaved parsley. They were very crispy, possibly deep-fried - very very good, but underneath it all they weren't that special. On the other hand, Ken said they were best fries he'd ever had, and that the spices made them. I thought they were great but if anything the truffle oil might have overpowered them a bit.

So despite the difference of opinion on the fries, my trip to the Capital Grille, and my first encounter with truffle oil, was a terrific lunch with a great friend. Good food, good conversation, good times.