French Fry Diary 674: The So-Called KFC Rat

So it's happening again. Every once in a while, someone supposedly finds something in their fast food that is a deep fried something that shouldn't be there. Rarely is it true, usually it's a hoax, or an attempt to make money from a lawsuit. Check your Snopes to make sure. But always, always, these things go viral, and the powers that be, that don't like fast food, use it as a reason not to eat fast food.

Today, we have the rat from KFC. It's just a piece of chicken that may look like a rat, that's all. Just like clouds may look like Lady Gaga, I assure you, they are not Lady Gaga. KFC assures us this is not a rat, just as the man who got this chicken tender and posted it to Facebook will not come forward and let them (or anyone else) examine the 'rat.' It's just a tender with the shape of a rat. There's a reason that McNuggets are made in the same shapes all the time, and this is it.

This might also be the place to mention another ugly rumor. KFC is not KFC because they no longer serve chicken, but because of the Health Nazi stigma of the word 'fried.' They are still Kentucky Fried Chicken, as seen in the new commercials featuring Darrell Hammond as Colonel Sanders, and the less said about those commercials, the better...

So KFC is safe, they're not cooking rats. And furthermore, you should go to KFC today, and get some chicken tenders, and a side of fries too while you're at it.

French Fry Diary 173: Gino's Flashback

Gino's was my first fast food experience. It was first restaurant to move in nearby, even though we all knew there was a McDonalds several miles up the White Horse Pike, Gino's was five minutes away, and right next to the Acme where just everyone did their grocery shopping. How could you miss it?

One visit after a long grocery trip to bring home lunch and I was indoctrinated at a very tender age. I remember loving the fries even then, surely an early sign of the mental illness that troubles me even now.

Gino's was huge then. Even the sign, that of a cartoon football player holding aloft a gigantic bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, was huge and one of the highest points in Berlin NJ. The home of the Gino's Giant, the later Sirloiner, and of course the Colonel's chicken held a prominent place in my childhood years.

I remember one traumatic moment when I was five or six when I was given a soda to carry as we left the counter with our take out, and me being a dumb and clumsy kid, I dropped it. I remember it went everywhere when it hit the floor, and I was horrified. Another fond Gino's memory was when a friend had her birthday party 'catered' by Gino's with Kentucky Fried Chicken her parents brought home. That party was the envy of the neighborhood.

The fries at Gino's were long shoestrings, maybe a bit greasy, but always a treat. The novelty of fast food was still a new thing for us hicks back then. The Berlin Gino's eventually closed and later became an Arby's then a Roy Rogers and now it's a Jersey diner, but it has retained its distinctive Gino's structure through the years. Later, when I was in college I noticed they had changed their fries to regular cuts similar to Roy Rogers, not surprising as they had been purchased by Marriott. And then they vanished altogether.

Gino's is still missed, and despite what the new Gino's is trying to do, it's not the same. But I still have my memories. Check out the memories of others here.

French Fry Diary 163: Gino's Is Back!

When folks think of the first fast food restaurant they were exposed to, the answer is usually McDonald's, but for me, and I suspect quite a few folks my age in the vicinity of Berlin NJ, the answer would be Gino's.

Gino's is long gone -until just a few days ago- but that building in Berlin, next to the old now also gone Acme, that was since been an Arby's, a Roy Rogers and now just a regular Jersey diner, will to some folks be forever known as Gino's. It was the first place we all got fast food. It was where most of us had our first fast food hamburger - the Gino's Giant, not the Big Mac or the Whopper. It was the place we first had Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was where we went for lunch after grocery shopping at the Acme on Saturday mornings. It was where the food came from for birthday parties when we were little. And for some of us, it was where we had our first part-time jobs. Gino's left that Berlin location in the seventies, but there was still one or two around, but they all closed in the early eighties.

Imagine my surprise to find that a new Gino's had opened just a week ago in King of Prussia. Opened and looking to franchise by founder Gino Marchetti and his partners the new Gino's is known as Gino's Burgers and Chicken, and you can check them out here at their website, or here at their blog, and shortly I'll be reviewing their fries right here at French Fry Diary. And don't forget to 'like' them on Facebook. Welcome back, Gino's!

And just for the sake of nostalgia, here's one of their commercials from the swinging seventies...