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 121: Lumpy’s BBQ

We had the day off and The Bride and I planned lunch with the in-laws. We had intended to go to Redstone, a favorite for all of us, but we were diverted by an ad in those coupon saver books for a fairly new eat-in take out bbq place also quite close by. The added bonus of the coupon led us to Lumpy’s BBQ in Cherry Hill NJ.

The first thing I noticed was the menu, or the hand-out that passed for a menu. One of my pet peeves glared out of the page at me. Apostrophe s is not a plural. Please get it right. If you don’t put the care forth on the little things, I have to wonder how much care they put into the actual food and cooking. But I didn’t go for the grammar, I went for the favorite fried food.

The fries were crinkle cuts, frozen grocery type, and deep fried, but not greasy. They were actually really good, and topped with salt, pepper and seasoned salt to add an extra kick. The burger I got with the fries (yeah, I know, the fries came with the burger, but this is my preference) was horrible. It was wafer-thin and tasteless, even the fantastic mild and hot bbq sauce provided, did little to help. The roll however was terrific, following through on the Tony Luke theory of the bread always being important.

Despite my bad burger, which notably was not the one pictured above the counter, everyone else had great food and gave it rave reviews. The ribs were extra excellent, perhaps I’ll have them next time. And yes, there will be a next time. The fries were worth it.