French Fry Diary 591: Bacon Crisps at the British Chip Shop

The Bride and I recently dined at the British Chip Shop, and it was great. We love the British Chip Shop, hell, I love the British Chip Shop. I got my usual, the chicken and chips, accompanied by RC Cola, and it was fabulous. But we got an appetizer that was, at best, confusing.

The first time we visited the British Chip Shop, some four years back, we got these awesome homemade crisps (potato chips for us Yanks) as an appetizer and loved them. When I saw Bacon Crisps on the menu under Pub Snacks, I figured that might be them and ordered.

Described as "Smoky bacon flavoured potato chips served with Sarson's malt vinegar aioli," no matter how you sliced it, it sounded good. I was expecting those homemade chips however, and what I got was… well, no misdirection here, I got what I ordered. It was my misunderstanding that fueled any frustration. I got a small bowl of potato chips, with a serving ramekin of aioli. The chips were warm and wonderfully bacon flavored as promised. They were delicious.

I do wonder however if the BCS might someday bring back those homemade crisps? They were awesome. The bacon crisps were good, but not as good as the homemade ones.

French Fry Diary 522: The British Chip Shop 2013

For our birthdays, and especially our anniversary, The Bride and I planned a Disney vacation - a week long Disney cruise on board the Fantasy, bookended with shorter stays in the area and at the parks. Therefore we weren't really going to do anything big for our anniversary this year, which was the night before we left for vacation.

After getting an email saying they were open again (we were unaware they had been closed) we joked about an anniversary dinner at A Battered Tartan. It had started as a joke because when we had gone before, the thing that had struck us most was how small it was. But the more we thought about it, the more we actually did want to go. We wanted to go so much in fact, we went earlier than our anniversary, on the weekend before.

We should have called, as they actually do suggest on their website. Of course the reason suggested for calling first is to make sure they haven't run out of food, not because they were power washing their kitchen. Yep, that was what the sign that greeted us at their door said when we drove all the way out to Moorestown. We really wanted something edible from that realm, we were off to the British Chip Shop in Haddonfield.

They were open, no problems there, and they were happy to have us. As an appetizer, The Bride got Curry Cheese Chips. These were the near perfect chips (that's French fries for us Americans) that BCS always has, but slathered in curry and cheese. The cheese was Irish cheddar as is only right, and the curry was more in a BBQ sauce vibe, and overpowered the cheese, and the chips were awesome. I'm not one for putting stuff over fries, but this was delicious.

For my entrée, I got my British Chip Shop usual, Chicken and Chips. They were golden brown to perfection. As I said on The GAR! Podcast recently, when I used to be asked who has the best fries ever, I would always say Cookes of Dublin in Downtown Disney, but the quality has gone down the last few times we've had it. Now if you ask, it's the British Chip Shop hands down.

These chips are near perfect, if not perfect. Golden brown crispy shell on the outside and soft and hot, almost mashed potato-ey on the inside. Not too greasy, if at all, always hot, these thicker than usual regular cut natural cuts are the gold standard for fries as far as I'm concerned. The chicken was also terrific: battered, crispy, and succulent. To wash it down, not only has BCS added Coca-Cola products, but also RC Cola, which is what I ordered.

I really have to remember to come to the British Chip Shop more often, it's the best.

French Fry Diary 295: Maxx's Burgers, Shakes, & Ice Cream

I had gotten a few recommendations for Maxx's Burgers, Shakes, & Ice Cream - and since they were fairly local in Moorestown, I wanted to try it. We had tried to find this place once before, but the tiny map on their website confused us enough to give up and go to Elevation Burger. We made a mistake.

We tried again a few weeks later, using the map and looking for cross streets and driving very slow. Despite poor signage (their sign is red on white on red and shares space with a brighter All State sign), we found it. It's little, but worth it.

The first thing that hit me was the soda fountain that offered RC Cola, Diet-Rite, 7-Up and Stewart's soda products. Wow. They also had "Mexican Coke" in bottles, Coca-Cola made with sugar cane - too cool.

Everything us made from scratch and to order. Nothing was started until we ordered. We got our sodas and moved back to the depths of the place to wait for our food. It's built inside a house, so it has many rooms, and is bigger than it looks. There's a guitar and a cymbal on the wall so I suspect that this place might have once been themed after Andy Warhol's Max's Kansas City, but who knows, I saw nothing to definitely indicate that. I was happy, as I haven't had RC in a while, and I had forgotten how good it was, mmmmm...

I got my usual, a burger, and because Maxx's is the original home of Andy's Fries, I ordered them - hand cuts sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and truffle oil. Gourmet style. Maybe...

Let's do the good news first. The burgers are phenomenal, really out of this world good. The burgers are homemade killer good, and come on soft sesame seed buns. Heaven. The Mom-in-Law got the Cruncher, which was close to my heart as it was covered with Ruffles. However, it is notable that they mixed up our fry orders, that's why there are Ruffles with my Andy's Fries.

Speaking of potato products - that's the bad news. The menu tells of hand cut fries, but what I got was frozen grocer shoestrings, deep fried. They were indeed sprinkled with Parmesan and truffle oil, but still, it wasn't the same.

I won't complain too loudly or long, because the burgers were so good. Really, outside of a fancy restaurant or a backyard grill, this was the best burger I've had in a long time, and the rest of the family concurred.

We will definitely be back for the burgers, and the dollar hot dogs are very tempting especially as they have been recommended by a FourSquare friend. We had no room for dessert either after those hearty burgers, so we'll also be back for shakes, sundaes or ice cream. Maybe not for the fries however.