French Fry Diary 692: Chocolate Covered Potato Chips

Chocolate covered potato chips. As it says on the bag of Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate Covered Potato Chips, "Can you imagine?"

I remember the first time I saw such a thing. I was maybe nine and my big sister Bobbie had taken me to Strawbridge's in the Echelon Mall and among the other exotics inside the glass candy counter like rock candy and fancy cashews and orange jells (the last both still favorites), were rippled potato chips covered in chocolate, both milk and dark. Can you hear the trumpets?

Nowadays you can find them at most indie and chain candy stores, and at Trader Joe's. Of course Joe has them, he even has, wait for it, chocolate covered orange jells. I know, madness. And it's supposed to be a health themed grocery store. Shhhh... don't let the secret out.

Joe's chips are also ripple chips, very crunchy and salty, and drenched in luscious milk chocolate. These are so good. You get about a dozen chips in a bag, which is fair, but my favorite way to eat them makes more (well, maybe). I put 'em in the fridge then smack the bag on the counter - instant bite-size pieces.

These are great, a terrific sweet and salty snack. Recommended.

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 600: Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen is one of the few big chains I haven't yet reviewed here at French Fry Diary, mainly because they have been so hard to find. The just ice cream versions of Dairy Queen are everywhere, but it's been darn hard to find one that serves hot food, a Brazier. There are a couple down in the southern South Jersey area, but you have to navigate the traffic hell that is Route 42 and the Black Horse Pike to get there, not an easy task.

Decades ago, when I was just a wee one, back in the late 1960s, early 1970s, there was a Dairy Queen walking distance from where I live now in Cherry Hill. There's a strip mall there now. At that Dairy Queen I remember, a picky eater even then, raising a fuss because I didn't want those things on my hamburger bun. After trying them however, and until even today, I like sesame seed buns better than regular seedless buns. Oddly, they don't seem to have sesame seeds on most of their burgers at Dairy Queen now.

After braving the traffic hell one day and actually finding the Dairy Queen, I got down to the business of reviewing them. The burger was good, and nothing beats real ice cream as a dessert compared to other fast food places that have dessert as an afterthought. Dairy Queen does ice cream, and it shows. Best fast food dessert, hands down and thumbs up. Sundaes are awesome, as are the shakes, and if your taste turns toward smoothies, DQ also owns Orange Julius and you can get that here as well.

Now on to the main event, I got two small orders of French fries and onion rings each, and they came in small cardboard boxes reminiscent of White Castle containers. The French fries were thick shoestrings with a slight batter covering for extra crisp, soft and very hot inside, a little greasy but not enough to be worrisome. These fries are substantial, excellent for shake dipping. These fries are good, but wow, they pale in comparison to the onion rings.

Dairy Queen onion rings are heavenly, medium sized slices of onion, with bread crumb batter just enough to make them crispy. With a hot succulent delicious whole onion inside, they have a lightly baked quality, and that's even though I know they're deep-fried. They don't taste deep-fried. Seriously, these are superior onion rings, too good for a fast food chain. Highly recommended.

French Fry Diary 583: The Mystery of Burger Chef

I've been doing this French Fry Diary in one form or another for over a decade. And even before then I considered myself something of a connoisseur of not only French fries but also fast food. I have always known the ins and outs and even the arcane knowledge of the fast food joints in the area. Imagine my surprise when I found out about a local chain that I not only never heard of, but I had also been inside of, and dined at. This is the mystery of Burger Chef.

AMC's "Mad Men" has brought this specter back to life recently in their final season, as Burger Chef is actually one of their potential clients. The weirdest part for me is that the local Burger Chef was a stone's throw from where I live now. Burger Chef in Marlton NJ was right behind where Kohl's is now. The big store was formerly a Bradlee's, a Jefferson Ward, and at the time of Burger Chef - a Two Guys. Man, the nostalgia is killing me.

Burger Chef started in 1954 in Indiana, and from there expanded throughout the United States until 1982 when General Foods, who owned the chain, sold off all the restaurants to Hardees. They had a very distinctive sign, stylized like McDonald's or In-N-Out Burger, instantly recognizable. They created the first fast food combo meal, and before Roy Rogers did it, they offered a bar where you could dress your own burger. They had their own animated mascot called, what else but the Burger Chef, and his sidekick Jeff. They had a ball at Halloween, and engineered some great promotions with properties like Family Circus, King Kong, and Star Wars, among others.

Apparently blocked out of my memory is the fact that I had actually been to the Marlton location, and perhaps the Hammonton one on the White Horse Pike as well, as a little boy. My big sister and her husband/then-boyfriend used to take me. Even then I was a catastrophically picky eater, and Burger Chef offered a burger called a 'Plain Jane.' It was as you may have expected, a plain hamburger that you could (if you wanted) dress at The Works Bar. I don't remember it at all, but I wish they were still around.

You're waiting to hear about the favorite fried food though, aren't you? Well, it's hard to say, as I don't remember. From fuzzy images online and even fuzzier ones on video, they look to be either shoestrings or regular cuts, and while they look good, who knows? This was several decades ago. Below is a YouTube montage of some of the Burger Chef television commercials, and if you're interested in the Marlton NJ location of Burger Chef, click here for an entire website about it, cool stuff.

French Fry Diary 562: Rustler Steakhouse

From 1968 to about 1985, Gino's had an upscale restaurant partner called the Rustler Steakhouse. It's a thing of the past now, but where they had a Gino's, somewhere pretty close by there'd be a Rustler Steakhouse. That was the case in the 1970s during my childhood, the local Gino's by the Lindenwold Speedline had a Rustler about a hundred feet away.

I remember going, twice. I confess, I didn't really grow up in a normal family. We hardly ever went out to eat, ever. When I was eight or nine, I spent a few weeks of the summer with my cousins, and got a taste of a semi-non-dysfunctional home. One night they went out to dinner at the Rustler Steakhouse, and they took me with.

Rustler was very similar to other steakhouse restaurants of the day like Bonanza, Sizzler, Ponderosa, and even the fondly remembered York. Classier than a fast food place, it was run cafeteria style, you ordered your entree then picked up your side items and then your steak was brought out to your table.



I don't recall what kind of fries they had, but I know they had killer baked potatoes. I especially remember the chocolate pudding for dessert. Anyway, once I was home, I must have raved about the Rustler Steakhouse so much that my parents took me. I remember my dad hating it so much we never went back.



When Marriott bought Gino's in the 1980s, they didn't do the same for Rustler, and they slowly faded away. Anyone else out there remember the Rustler?

Hostess Potato Chips

Does anyone else remember this? I'm drawing a blank, and I'm wondering if it's just me…

French Fry Diary 452: Ponzio's Diner, Cherry Hill NJ

Ponzio's Diner-Bakery-Bar has been a landmark in Cherry Hill, in one form or another, for decades, located at the Ellisburg Circle, and now the convoluted intersection that used to be the Ellisburg Circle. A family business since 1964 when the owners of Ponzio's Brooklawn purchased this location, and it went from being the Ellisburg Diner to Ponzio's Cherry Hill. There have been numerous renovations since then, most notably the latest in 2005.

The Bride recently visited here and I talked about the fries she brought home. Now here's the in-restaurant review, as we had chosen the new Ponzio's as our meeting place for our annual holiday get-together with friends.

Back in the 1980s when I was in college I had been here a few times. What I remember most is that it was very dark, and the bar was small and dark as well. It might have just been that decade that was dark. On this day, it was very bright. There was a diner section that looked very diner-y, a bar where I remembered it, but bigger and brighter.

The rest of Ponzio's was quarantined off into different rooms named after local Cherry Hill neighborhoods. It reminded me a lot of Mastoris actually in that way. After a bit of a wait, even though we called ahead for a large group of eight, we ended up in the Barclay Room. Continuing the comparison to Mastoris was the selection of cheese breads we were served before the meal. They were not as good however.

As far as my dinner goes, I went traditional. Regular readers know what I ordered - a plain burger and fries. This of course seemed to confuse our waitress. I wanted the Johnny & Feef's Famous Bay Fries that The Bride had brought home a few months back. They only come in a giant-sized portion separate from the meal. Hoping not to confuse her any more I just ordered onion rings as my side, and got the Bay Fries too.

The burger was hot and okay, but had a bit of an aftertaste that didn't make me feel so good. The onion rings were heavily battered, very crispy, and big and thick. They were very tasty, only Panko could have possibly made them better. From the offerings on others' plates, I could see that Ponzio's regular fries were regular cuts. No complaints about them from our table.

There were also Eggplant Fries and Green Bean Fries on the menu, but I wasn't feeling that adventurous that night. I did not see the rumored Asparagus Fries that I had been told about here on the menu however. Maybe they are a myth, or on a secret menu, a la In-N-Out Burger.

The Bay Fries were quite a disappointment in restaurant sadly. They were hot (in places) and spicy, but a bit limp. My friend and fellow Disney Cruiser Dom sat across from me and sampled these fries. His response was to ask if they were supposed to be cold. I didn't get what he meant until I myself popped a cold fry into my mouth. This was not good. The ramekin of cheese near Dom had cheese so stiff and cold he couldn't even push a fry into it. As a whole, the fries got worse as they got even colder.

All in all, it was a great dinner with much missed friends. Conversation was fun, if a bit overloaded with Doctor Who and the question of whether an éclair is a donut or not (I still say it's not), but great company. We really should see each other more often than once a year.

As far as the food and service at Ponzio's goes however, we probably won't be going back. I think we've decided on the tried and true Medport for next year's holiday gathering. I already can't wait.

French Fry Diary 450: Allen's Clam Bar

Allen's Clam Bar, on Route 9 in New Gretna, New Jersey used to be my late father's favorite restaurant. Now, keep in mind, my father was a man who did not go out to restaurants. Once he was retired, he went to McDonald's in the morning for coffee and gossip with the other old men, and would grudgingly accompany the family out when my sister from Nebraska would swoop in once a year - but other than that, he was not a restaurant guy.

My father was a woodsman and a hunter, a farmer and a country boy. I could see how this place in the middle of nowhere would appeal to him. And as I accompanied him on many instructional and fun walks and rides in the woods, I can easily see how he would enjoy the one to two hour drive through the Pine Barrens to get to Allen's.

He and my mom would go there on summer weekends to enjoy the air, and the ride - and I suppose also the food and the ambiance. I had the opportunity to go to Allen's twice. The first time I think was my dad trying to show me what he thought a 'real' restaurant was like, and second was the truly painful experience of the parents taking me and a girlfriend to a 'real' restaurant. I miss my parents a lot now that they're gone, but even in hindsight, this latter trip holds no joy.

Allen's Clam Bar is a place out of time. If I recall correctly, and this is going back nearly three decades, the place had a dirt parking lot and a wood floor porch. The inside was more of a small but empty general store out of the 1920s that someone had awkwardly set up tables and chairs in. Cramped and dusty, although not on the tables, I was greeted by a very simple menu, printed on the placemat. As I recall, the waitresses also exude a rustic Piney charm - take that any way you want to.

The menu consisted of a variety of seafood items, most of them fried, that all came with two sides, the only one of which this catastrophically picky eater would eat was the favorite fried food. On both trips I got the fried scallops and two sides of French fries.

Each of my orders - the scallops, the fries, and the fries - came on a big paper plate, so I had three piled high paper plates. I remember that the scallops may as well have been Mrs. Paul's (nothing wrong with that, I love Mrs. Paul's scallops) were it not for their large size. The fries were definitely from the grocer's freezer (regular or crinkle cut, although pics online may indicate they're now natural cuts) and deep fried in the same oil as everything else, so they had that unique fishy tinge - not necessarily a bad thing.

Allen's Clam Bar is still there, but I haven't been back. I understand why my dad liked it, and I'm sure my folks had good times there. I found some pics of the place online. It doesn't seem like it's changed much. I don't remember the shark though. Maybe I'll get back there someday, and have some fries for my dad.

French Fry Diary 447: My Big Brother

Me and my big brother circa 1967.  I'm the good looking one.

I apparently have a reader who works with my older brother Warren. He is always asking, and thus prodding my bro to ask, why I never mention Warren in this blog. The truth is that Warren didn't have much to do with my French fry obsession growing up, and that's probably a good thing. A recent harassing phone call from my bro on this topic has prompted me to publically humiliate him on the blog. I guess you don't know what you don't want until you get it, eh?

Warren's a good guy, and the best big brother I could ever hope for. He gave me one of his kidneys, one of the reasons I can still eat French fries, hell, he's one of the reasons I am still walking around breathing. Over and above that, I love the guy, hey, he's my brother. And I do talk about him frequently on my other blogs. Regarding my comic book review work, he's the main reason I still love The Flash and Justice League so much, and over at my pop culture blog, Welcome to Hell, I just recently mentioned his "On the Radio" 8-track in my Donna Summer obit more than a few months ago.

One memory of my brother and French fries comes from the time when he had just started driving and had purchased his own car. I was just a stupid punk kid at the time, no future as a foodie blogger in my mind at all. Heck, the concept of a foodie blogger didn't even exist yet. Anyway, with a car comes freedom, and with freedom comes the ability to go wherever you want whenever you want.

Bottom line, Warren could go to McDonald's any time he wanted. And he rarely forgot his little brother when he would bring home a snack. He would always share his fries with me, or more accurately, give them to me when he was done with them. Hey, I never said he was a saint. I still remember that. Like I said, he's a good guy. Maybe when he's living at the old folks home, in a rocking chair, with an afghan on his lap, I'll let him have the rest of my fries.

Just kidding, Warren, they're my fries. Lol.

French Fry Diary 401: Wildfire BBQ Co.

The Wildfire BBQ Co. is built on the site of the old Stratford Friendly's on the White Horse Pike. I remember that I went to dinner for my sixth grade graduation there, and also one of my first dates as well, but it's not a Friendly's any more. The new restaurant has been there about eight months. Once I walked in I was struck by how much smaller it was than the old Friendly's but then, I just kinda fell in love with the place. I like the decor, it's very warm and cozy, a rocker biker vibe, all from the owner's home.

Our waitress Melanie was on skates and well beyond helpful and friendly. Her roller derby name is Rabbit. Coolness. She knew everything about the restaurant and the food. Before we even looked at the menu I was happy.

For our appetizer, we got the Wildfire Fries - French fries with melted cheese, smoked bacon, sliced cherry peppers (yikes!) and BBQ sauce. This had both regular fries and sweet potato fries in there, good combination. The bacon was perfect and the sauce sweet and hot. The banana peppers added a bit of a kick flavor-wise, and I was told by Melanie this was the regular BBQ sauce. Now I'm a bit worried, I ordered the hot for my meal.

The soda size (Coca-Cola products, so that's a plus) is terrific, and you'll need it to put out the fire of the Wildfire Fries. I went through several glasses of Coke fighting the heat of my buffalo sauce. Our friends got the Twice Baked Taters, very loaded, very cool. Quite a treat.

The fries are natural regular cuts, probably deep fried, well salted and quite good. The real thing here is the dipping sauces. The regular sauce I liked quite a bit. The hot was a bit hotter, but still good for me. The buffalo wing sauce is burning hot, and gets hotter over time. That's the one that was killing me. The Melt My Face BBQ sauce is like the wing sauce but made me sweat. Sooo good but sooo hot.

I really loved this place. The owner does everything onsite and all of the sauces are his formula. We have also heard that they do an awesome breakfast, so we will be back for that, and for more lunch and dinner as well.  This place rocks, highly recommended.

French Fry Diary 368: McDonald's Hash Browns

Back in the early 1970s, McDonald's revolutionized, and quite possibly created the fast food breakfast. With the introduction of the Egg McMuffin, they had one food item that contained an entire breakfast, almost. The only thing missing - a breakfast potato product. Enter the McDonald's Hash Brown.

McDonald's Hash Browns are a pinnacle of culinary engineering. Crunchy crisp oval, deep fried with super-diced Russet potatoes inside. Unlike hash browns that came before these held together into one unit as opposed to being loose pieces. This was a miracle at the time in several regions of this country.

Now, as with anything at fast food restaurants, the quality and taste depends on who's at the fry station and how well they can follow directions. Often in recent times, I have noticed that Mickey D's Hash Browns have become greasier than they were back on church Sundays when we used to go after services when I was a kid. The diced Russets have become smaller and more compact I have also noticed.

Just like McDonald's famous fries, many have attempted to recreate this breakfast item, but few even come close.

French Fry Diary 355: Friday Night Fish Food

When you're a little kid you sometimes see patterns but you don't always understand why they are until years and years later. This is one of those things, and of course it's got to do with the favorite fried food.

When I was little, my mom worked second shift so my big sister Bobbie - a notorious but loved early French fries enabler in my life - would make dinner every night. A favorite meal was what my small mind called 'fish food.'

Fish food consisted of a variety of Mrs. Paul's products, then not as soul-crushingly expensive as they are now. Usually there would be fish sticks, deviled crab cakes, fried scallops (my favorite, well, second favorite) and of course, French fries. The fries were usually regular cut or crinkle cut, really the only ones available back then. These were all baked together, despite the various temperatures and times instructed in the directions. They usually all came out all right.

I loved this meal, and still do, as it brings back good memories of my childhood. I didn't realize at the time that this meal usually fell on a Friday night, a holdover of the old Catholic (Mom was raised Roman Catholic) fish on Friday thing during Lent.

Later as an adult living at home, I would make this meal. I got more scientific and precise about temperatures and times. I also found that I liked shoestrings better with the various 'fish foods,' and enjoyed the aroma mix of everything together.

Still, Friday or any time, I still remember and love the fish food meal. Mmmm... fries...

French Fry Diary 324: 25 Burgers

Like Smashburger, 25 Burgers is mostly a North Jersey phenomenon, but with one location in my area, in Woodbury. The claim to fame of 25 Burgers is that you have at least twenty-five choices, including angus beef burgers, chicken breast burgers, and other specialty burgers. They've been around since 2009, and have expanded their franchise since.

The day after New Year's Day was a day off for most folks, so The Bride and her folks decided we'd make a road trip to 25 Burgers, as I had wanted to for some time. Over the last couple years I have gotten several recommendations for their fries, so I was looking forward to it.

25 Burgers, other than Boardwalk Fries, also offers cheese fries, chili cheese fries, sweet potato fries, onion rings, and potato pancakes as sides as well. For this trip, I ordered the rather inexpensive Boardwalk Fries, along with my usual plain burger. Notably, this is a Pepsi place, no Coca-Cola products, but they did have Orange Crush on tap. Bonus points.

The restaurant itself reminded me of Five Guys in color scheme, very red and white and checkered. The overhead music was oldies and the walls were covered with pics of Marilyn, Sinatra, Elvis, and other icons of the 1950s and 60s. The staff was very friendly and helpful.

The burgers can be huge, depending on what you order. Mine was small, others were big, and all were (no choice) well done. And like Tony Luke says, it's all about the roll - and the rolls are fabulous. The burger, other than being a bit more than well done, was fairly good. The Bride got the Maui Burger, which she liked, but found unwieldy to eat. It might be better without the roll, and with a knife and fork.

The fries, very golden brown, were regular natural cuts, and very spicy. I found them similar to the fries at Checker's, spicy with the crunchy coating. The difference though is the size, these are shorter than Checker's fries, which are pretty long. That said, we might have just gotten to the end of a batch. Quite addictive, but have a drink close by as they have time delay heat. The mother-in-law liked them a lot.

All around, it was a good lunch with the family. I don't know if we'll be rushing back any time soon, but it was pretty good.

When the Burger King Wasn't Quite So Creepy

French Fry Diary 308: The Original Burger King French Fries

When I was a kid, fast food was slow coming to my hometown. In fact, even today, Atco has no fast food restaurants in its city limits. The first to show up in the area was Gino's in Berlin, the next town over, which I've talked about before. We'd had McDonald's up in Lindenwold and down in Hammonton, but that was it as far as choices until the mid-seventies. That's when the McDonald's opened in Berlin, and everything changed.

Where there was McDonald's, there was Burger King, because the burger wars always escalate, and Burger King opened right across the White Horse Pike from the McDonald's. Taco Bell, Wendy's, Arby's, Roy Rogers, etc. all followed in Berlin, but when it comes right down to it, it's always about the big two.

Today, we're talking about Burger King however, the Burger King of my youth, and their original French fries. Burger King recently changed their fries, ending a reign of crappy fries they had had since the early nineties, but before that, they had really good fries, really good fries. When I first encountered BK, I fell in love with their charbroiled burgers, so much better than McDonald's. This is also where I started dipping my burger in my milkshake, BK being best for this practice, and notably best with a plain burger and a black and white shake. This remains the case to this day.

Burger King is also where I started stacking or planking. Those two words might mean something else these days, but to me, and in reference to French fries - stacking and planking, also known as sandwiching is the act of putting fries on your burger, creating a layer of potatoey goodness across your burger. In my years of doing this blog, I have happily found I'm not crazy, and I'm not the only one who does this, or shake dipping for that matter. BK's original fries were perfect for sandwiching.

About those original BK fries, they were shoestrings, similar to McDonald's, only less crispy and slightly more greasy. They were just short of a limp shoestring French fry, but unlike Wendy's new fries, BK's were substantial enough for dipping in shakes without breaking or bending. They were also delicious, and addictive. Whereas the old BK fries, I could barely eat one or two, the originals I would sometimes finish off two orders in a sitting. They were that good. They are still very much missed. I wish they'd bring them back.

Unfortunately, the original Burger King fries, being pre-internet, are extremely hard to get images of, so I have compensated with this blog entry. Find below a vintage BK commercial from the 1970s, plus above a glass featuring the old animated and much-less-creepy Burger King, as well as one of the BK ashtrays that everyone in my high school had snatched from the restaurant and had one in their bedrooms - smokers or not. Enjoy the nostalgia.

French Fry Diary 300: Wise BBQ Potato Chips

There are few that come close. Herr's are everyday good, and rule with the different with their honey barbeque and baby back ribs flavors. Michael Season's honey barbeque are healthy good and darned hard to get except by mail - do they have them in any local stores? But truth be told, Wise is the king of the barbeque potato chip.

Now I'm not a big fan of the Wise regular chips as I find them too thin, and are often spotty and greasy. This, happily, is not a problem that their BBQ variety has. Now this might sound stupid, but I like these chips so much that I remember when I first had them. I was… very young, and my enabling big sister had gotten a bag at one of the local neighborhood stores, Valenti's. The bag was white cellophane, about the size of a $3.99 bag today with the old trademark Wise owl on it and a price tag of thirty-nine cents. I was smitten. Wise BBQ Flavored Potato Chips are among my absolute favorites.

Some folks say that pretzels are what you dip in ice cream, that it is a natural match, so much so that they make cones out of pretzels. Now I'm not going to say they should start making potato chip ice cream cones, but darn it, chips are much better for dipping in ice cream in my opinion. And the best are the Wise BBQ chips, the hot and cold, sweet and salty contrast is terrific.

Even my old cat Badger thought so. He loved ice cream and Wise BBQ chips. Many times I would have a bowl of ice cream on the table, open a bag of chips, then get up to get something - didn't matter what - and Badger would hop up on the table and start lapping up ice cream, and then invariably stick his head in the bag of chips. When I would come back, he'd know he'd been caught and run - unfortunately the bag would be stuck on his head. He'd leave a trail of chips around the house before getting out of the bag. Man, I loved that cat, my buddy for seventeen years, but wow, he took a lot of ice cream and especially Wise BBQ chips from me.

And I know that Bobby Flay is famous for this now with his Crunchburger at his Burger Palace franchise, but I was doing this decades ago. For an extra crunch, and flavor, I put Wise BBQ potato chips on top of and under my burgers. I also use crushed Wise BBQ potato chips as a fried chicken coating much the way Planet Hollywood used to use Cap'n Crunch for their World Famous Chicken Crunch - and again, I think I was doing it before them. I also sometimes use Frosted Flakes, but that's a completely different story - and favorite fried food.

The Honey BBQ Flavored Potato Chips from Wise came out just a few years ago and quickly became a favorite of mine. They are sweet, and have just the right amount of honey. Sometimes I like a bit more, and when I do, I go for the Herr's Honey Barbeque, but far more often it's Wise. Even if you just lick the seasoning off these, it's good. Although these aren't as good on hamburgers as the regular BBQ, these are equally good for dipping, especially in ice cream. Whereas sometimes the regular BBQ get hot and you need liquid refreshment just to go on, these go down smooth and sweet.

Speaking of sweet, the Sweet Heat BBQ Flavored Potato Chips from Wise just came out, as you can see from the pic, they are brand spanking new. These chips seem innocent at first, with just more visible seasoning than the two types above. They're tasty and sweet, and just as addictive - you will have eaten at least a half-dozen before your mouth catches fire. Yeah, these are hot, but it's a good hot, similar to Lay's Tangy Carolina BBQ potato chips. And that's a good thing. These chips would be very good for dipping into ice cream, because the cold might put out the fire.

Now it should be noted that I can't really have most of Wise's various BBQ chips all that often because of the salt content and especially the MSG. Hey, Wise, isn’t it about time you start trying to make these without MSG? Please? I'll be your best friend...

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.