French Fry Diary 748: Cabanas, Disney Dream, June 2017

On the last day of our June 2017 Disney Cruise on the Dream I hit Cabanas for lunch. While it's not always my first choice, we were close and both The Bride and I were hungry. Cabanas, as you can see from this search of the blog, is primarily the best place for breakfast, and not necessarily for lunch… but I was in for a shocking surprise.

Expecting of the favorite fried food the usual fare of Disney natural cuts, as by the last day they are usually out of steak fries, I came upon a glorious oasis in the buffet line… perfect British chips, or perfect French fries, depending on your perception. These were ¾ inch thickness square, and three to four inches long. They had been under a heat lamp for a bit, but still hot and soft like baked potato inside, and crispy on the outside.

These French fries were perfect. I loved them. So if you're on the Disney Cruise, and on the top deck buffet, keep your eyes open, they were fantastic.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #282

This is Cabanas lunch from our June 2017 Disney Cruise on board the Dream. These steak fries were labeled as "steak frites," but were decidedly not that at all, still very very yummy though.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #277

Lunch on the first full day of our June 2017 Disney Cruise on the Dream, these are the standard Disney natural cuts from Cabanas.  You can see how tasty they were by how many I actually got.  Not many were eaten afterward either. 

Random Tater Pic of the Day #249

From our recent Disney Fantasy trip, this is lunch at Cabanas, the top deck buffet on board. Not just some sweet juicy ham, but the two potato stars of the Disney Cruise Line - the roasted red potatoes and the steak fries. Mmmm...

French Fry Diary 645: Laundromat Luncheonette

This memory is a very old one. When I was a little kid, my family didn't have the kind of things that other families had. We weren't poor, we were never poor. But let's just say we were a bit slower on the curve from everyone else.

It was a long time before we had a color TV, a stereo, a microwave oven, a dishwasher (well, maybe we had one of those, it was me), cable TV, an air conditioner, and a washer and dryer. Actually a few of those things we never had, but for the purposes of this entry, it's the washer and dryer I want to talk about.

No washer and dryer meant weekly (at least) trips to the local laundromat in the next town over in Berlin. All the dirty clothes would be put into pillowcases, packed into the car, and a few hours would be spent at the laundromat. There are many things to remember about that place. There were the full color picture Bibles chained to the bottom of the chairs, the Canada Dry Sport Cola in the soda machine, meeting an African-American boy for the first time and playing under the folding tables, and the penny gumball machines that also had peanuts and pistachios in them.

Despite all that, it was easy for a little kid to get bored. Sometimes I would go watch the car wash, and sometimes I would walk around the entire strip mall building the laundromat was in. It also included a dry cleaners, a paint store, a luncheonette, a liquor store at one end and a Sears pick-up center at the other. Honestly I think only the laundromat still remains, everything else has changed.

There's an AutoZone where the Sears used to be. I have fond memories of the Wish Book catalog at Christmas, and my dad getting his boat there, with what my childlike memory says were S & H Green Stamps. Bonus points if you remember them. And the liquor store at the other end of the strip is now a Risqué Video.

Every once in a while my mom would send me up to the luncheonette to get a snack to share while we waited for the laundry to get done. The snack? What else? The favorite fried food. I still remember the luncheonette, like a tiny diner squeezed into a strip mall-sized store - a store length counter with maybe half a dozen small booths along the opposite wall. The name however escapes me. Was it Nan's Luncheonette? Maybe. It could've also been Pat's, or Lynn's or something completely different.

The crinkle cut French fries, probably deep-fried, in a small paper box - circa the very early 1970s, were thirty-five cents, a quarter and a dime. At the time, with a comic book costing a quarter, this seemed like a fair price. It certainly beats the eight-dollar fries at the Old Homestead Steakhouse.

This is a very old memory, sharing French fries with my mom at the Berlin laundromat, but it's a very good one. I'm going to go do some laundry now, and maybe have some fries too. And I definitely miss my mom, and my childhood.

French Fry Diary 578: Landscape of Flavors, Lunch

Breakfast at Landscape of Flavors may have been a disaster, but lunch was another story altogether. While waiting for our bags and bus, etc., I had time to kill in the common areas of the Art of Animation resort, including Landscape of Flavors, and at lunch, well, one gets hungry.

I got a really good pulled pork sandwich, which I enjoyed, and I'm not a fan. The sandwich came with these fabulous homemade potato chips. Some were seasoned lightly with a smokey barbecue, and they were excellent both hot and later when cold. Great crunch and thickness.

These chips win the resort, for me at least. I would come back for these in a second. Thumbs up.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #135

From today's T.G.I. Fridays lunch with the brother-in-law, the Jack Daniels burger with a side of fries, natural cuts, with salt and pepper, in a clever paper sleeve. Points for presentation, the fries were okay, and the burger was awesome. Thanks for lunch, Bruce!

French Fry Diary 535: Steak Frites, Royal Court, Disney Fantasy

I was hoping to get another taste of those terrific steak fries that I had gotten at the Royal Court the other day on board the Disney Fantasy, but it didn't quite work out. The menu changed. The burger (gluten-free) was still there, but so was steak frites, so I opted for the new choice rather than the old reliable.

As always the service is incredible, and if I had any problems or concerns, I am sure they could have been remedied, but let's just suffice to say I didn't get my steak fries. They might have been out of them as I didn't see anyone else with them either. Still what I got was very good.

The steak frites was a wonderfully succulent strip of grilled steak with a garlic butter, served with natural cut French fries. Now these fries were the same I have dissed before when talking about Disney before, not bad, but not spectacular either, but soaked in the juice of the steak and the garlic butter, they were very, very good. A wonderful lunch meal, Disney scores again.

French Fry Diary 169: Triton's, Lunch, Disney Wonder

Lunch on board the Disney Magic, at Triton's twin, Lumiere's, was always marked by a terrific burger and some of the best fries around, so I was psyched to try the same at Triton's aboard the Wonder. After breakfast of Day Two (I know, the absolute last time I should be thinking about food) I passed the lunch menu for Triton's and saw the half-pound Angus burger with French fries, and I knew I would be back later.

And I was. Just not for the burger. When I came back and glanced at the menu my eyes were drawn immediately to something else - steak frites. Yeah, I hadda have some of that. I can come back for the burger. When in a fancy restaurant, go fancy, so I did.

The steak was very good, a bit tough, but that's my own fault for asking for very well done. I also got a grilled tomato, not my bag, and also, yeah, there were fries too. These were very tender natural regular cuts, good portion, and not crispy. Not crispy, but neither were they soggy or greasy. Their soft hot consistency actually seemed an excellent match for the steak.

Interesting side note - I was chatting with a fellow passenger while at that first lunch, who happened to be a chef himself. Being me, I talked about the French fries, and how I thought it was odd that I ordered 'steak frites' and yet did not get steak fries. He said that just because they are called something that doesn't mean that's what they are for. He further said the fries I got were appropriate to the meal I got. Ooookay.

I am reminded about what Freud supposedly said, "Sometimes a train is just a train." I guess the same goes for steak fries. Hey, at least they were good.

French Fry Diary 168: Parrot Cay, Disney Wonder 2010

Our first foray into Parrot Cay on this Disney Cruise trip was on Day Two for breakfast. Now of course, like many of the restaurants on the DCL, I'd been here before, but every dining experience is different with Disney, and especially with the cruise. The breakfast potatoes this time around were red bliss potatoes halved and quartered and simmered in a succulent sauce, tender, hot and just right.

Day two's dinner returned us to Parrot Cay. And just for kicks, I did not order any fries. I bet I caught you off guard with that one. There were fried and potatoey stuff on the agenda however. My appetizer, a delicious island jerk chicken came with tasty dried and deep fried shredded carrots, and my entrée came with a yummy twice baked potato. Good stuff, and a nice change of pace.

Day three's lunch got me back to Parrot Cay, and that burger and fries you'll read about in a future entry. The burger I had been hankering for since the previous morning was my Parrot Cay lunch. While ninety-nine percent of the ship was ashore at Disney's private island Castaway Cay, it's my favorite time on the boat. No crowds, just rest and relaxation, peace and quiet. Maybe I'm just a freak, but that's how I vacation. So I had much of the restaurant to myself as well that lunch time.

The burger was a half-pound slab of succulent Angus meat on a toasted roll. Wow. This was the best burger I had eaten in quite some time. The fries were slightly larger than regular cuts, similar to those that first night at Animator's Palate, but not quite. Still very very good.

If I had to say anything negative at all, it had to be that the fries were a bit dry, but that's my fault, because I'm not a ketchup guy. I did surreptitiously slip a few under the bun and on top of the burger (like I might sometimes do at McDonalds), and that was terrific. What a treat, and a wonderful lunch.

Dinner for day three was also at Parrot Cay, which was also Pirate Night, a great event on board the Disney Cruise. Folks, passengers and cast members alike dress up like pirates, sing, dance, eat, drink and shoot off fireworks - not necessarily in that order. Fun all around, but I wish that carried over to the dinner.

Scrapbookers might be upset at one corner Disney has cut in that the Pirate Night menu is no longer a rolled up take home treasure map dealie. That was a bit of a disappointment but I had ordered a side of fries with dinner so I thought things were all good. Don't count on it.

The French fries were regular cuts, and nothing at all what I got just a few hours earlier for lunch. These fries were just bad in comparison with the usual excellent quality on board the cruise line, but just bad, period. We're taking Old Country Buffet under a heat lamp for a week bad. On a good note, the beef ribs that I got as my entrée (and were only just okay) came with a barbeque sauce that was excellent for dipping and made the fries just a bit better.

All in all, despite one off night for dinner, Parrot Cay does remain my favorite of the Disney Cruise Line restaurants, and I do look forward to coming back.

French Fry Diary 65: The Cannibals of the Cherry Hill Chick-Fil-A

The Chick-Fil-A across from the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey does a crazy lunch business. It’s crowded inside and the drive-thru usually wraps around the restaurant.

The place also has a rather large parking lot, with a rear that backs up against a thin strip of trees, dividing the restaurant from the houses beyond. Because so many folks at lunch time just pull up there to eat their lunch, it has become home to a flock of very brave and scary seagulls.

These are no ordinary seagulls though. They sort through the litter and trash that some folks throw out there, obviously too lazy to walk the ten or twenty feet to the trashcan. Regardless of the laziness and ignorance of some people, the seagulls seem to make due with the food they find. Some folks even toss their waffle fries to the birds, which they seem to love (who can blame them?), and try to catch them in their beaks in the air.

The part that kinda freaks me out is that the seagulls also seem to enjoy chicken as well. Brrr... Don’t they know that stuff comes from other birds? These aren’t just carnivorous birds… they’re cannibals too. Come on, I don’t care how good Chick-Fil-A is – that’s just damned creepy!