Random Tater Pic of the Day #258

French Fry Diary 679: Greektown Gyro Potato Chips

Unlike other years that I have done this, I was able to find two of the 2015 Do Us A Flavor finalists just scant days after they were announced. Usually there is an extensive hunting process but I found the Gyro and Truffle ones at the local Walgreens, so yay to Walgreens and props to the Lay's distribution department. Now if they could just get some BBQ Ruffles to the South Jersey area (hint HINT), I would really be happy.

Do Us A Flavor 2015 Taste Test #1 - Greektown Gyro flavored potato chips, kettle cooked style, submitted by James Wagner:

As a catastrophically picky eater, I have to be up front about this. I am not even sure what a gyro is, let alone what it tastes like, so this one was difficult from the get go. I know it's Greek, and I know how to pronounce it (see, being a Nia Vardalos fan pays off), but beyond that, I am lost. One source I found online indicated it was meat, onions, tomato, French fries (!), and tzatziki sauce rolled into a pita. Fries, eh? Now you have my attention.

Now tzatziki sauce, made from yogurt and cucumbers (I think) doesn't sound all that appetizing to me, and the 'meat' part could be just about anything - beef, pork, chicken, veal, or mutton. I'm getting less excited. The kicker is the picture on the chip bag itself, not a fry to be found. I guess Lay's and James Wagner don't read Wikipedia.

The ingredients list, among other things, and besides potatoes, sour cream, gum Arabic, and the vague and mysterious "gyro seasoning." I am getting less and less excited, but enough procrastination. Oh well, let's do this.

As I've learned in previous years' Do Us A Flavor contests, it's always best to let The Bride try one of the chips first. When I opened the bag, it was a good smell, but I knew I was not going to want any of these. We kinda talked about this on the most recent episode of The GAR! Podcast - just because it smells good doesn't mean you want to eat it.

The Bride said she could taste the sour cream and she could taste the lettuce, and it did remind her of a gyro - but "a potato chip should not taste like that." I tried one tentatively, and thought it too weird and spicy with a bad aftertaste. Some folks might dig this one, but I did not like it. Greektown Gyro would not get my vote.

Tomorrow: Truffle Fries!

French Fry Diary 603: Lay's Kettle Cooked Wasabi Ginger Potato Chips

After yesterday's Do Us A Flavor taste test of *gasp* Lay's Cappuccino Flavored potato chips I needed something to get rid of that awful aftertaste. I thought Lay's Kettle Cooked Wasabi Ginger Flavored Potato Chips might be a nice refresher. After all, if my friend and fellow writer Uriah Young digs them, how bad can they be, right?

Wasabi is not an unknown component in enjoyable potato accompaniments. Oh Yoko! in Cherry Hill rocks the wasabi fries, so this could be very good. It's notable that these are one of two of the four flavors that come in an extra special variation - in this case, kettle cooked. I'm not sure why that is in this case, as opposed to the other three flavors.

The image on the front of the bag had me a bit worried as the Cappuccino chips showed exactly what was going on taste wise. I had to wonder if these chips would taste like sushi. I hope not. A glance at the ingredients betrayed no fish, raw or otherwise, but did indicate a couple different kinds of wasabi seasonings, horseradish, and mystery spices. This could be good or bad.

I learned my lesson with the Cappuccino chips, I let The Bride try one first. One bite and she threw out the rest of the chip. Her words were "I like wasabi and I like ginger, but that just doesn't work." I got kinda a sour cream cream vibe with my first taste, and then a slow burn aftertaste that did not go away quickly at all. These weren't bad, and the kettle cook gave them a good crunch at least.

I think the problem is that unlike last year when I definitely would have not only have given Chicken & Waffles and Cheesy Garlic Bread second chances, I would have finished the whole bag - this year that ain't happening so far.

French Fry Diary 574: The Farm & Fisherman Tavern + Market

The Bride and I were having an impromptu date night, and were undecided on dinner. What we did decide was to try some place new. So rather than take advantage of old technology like the entertainment coupon book she had or the new tech of our phones and numerous apps, we drove around aimlessly. As we passed the former Cherry Hill landmark Andreotti's Viennese Cafe which has recently been replaced by The Farm & Fisherman Tavern + Market (just down the strip mall from my favorite Japanese restaurant Oh Yoko!), I asked, "how about here?" and we were in.

As it was a Saturday night, they were quite busy and crowded. We were told it would be over an hour wait for a table, but there was a full menu if we sat at the bar - so we settled onto tall chairs and sat there. The place was kinda dark, like Keg & Kitchen dark, but eventually the lights were finally turned on during the long wait for our entrees.

The bar staff was great, friendly, efficient - or at least some of the bartenders were. The one who took our order, and our money, ignored us for the most part. And I think we had more room at the bar than we would have had at the tables they had. The tall barstools did get kinda uncomfortable after a half hour or so, but the chairs were the same at the bar and the tables.

As an appetizer, so our wait was not felt for as long as it was, we got the ten dollar Crushed & Crispy NJ Spuds, with thick cut bacon, sour cream, and tarragon. This was a large plate of potatoes in a variety of types and cuts. There were natural cut fries, potato chunks, sweet potato slices, potato wedges, slices, fingerlings, and small very crisp potato chips - made from purple as well as white potatoes. And there was also a bad tasting sauce, perhaps the sour cream maybe? Whatever it was, I didn't like it. I wanted more of the various potatoes, but that sour cream sauce was very off-putting. Maybe if we come next time I'll order the appetizer without the sauce.

For my entrée, I went traditional Glenn, a plain hamburger, but this wasn't just any hamburger though. I ordered The Colonial Burger for sixteen dollars which was grass fed beef from Wryebrook Farm with a Heritage pork belly blend. This burger was awesome, like a sweet steak. Unfortunately while I was loving my burger, The Bride didn't care for her Reuben at all.

And now the reason you're reading this blog - for the fries. These French fries were great natural cuts, twice fried, crispy with a Spanish fries vibe (maybe cooked in olive oil?) and had parsley and tarragon sprinkled over them. They were very good, thumbs up, highly recommended.

All the food was farm fresh, and more importantly locally farm fresh, so despite the bar setting of the restaurant, there was an atmosphere of good local neighborship, you know? This was expressed in the market section on the other side of the bar, sort of a tiny one aisle supermarket featuring all local items. They had North Fork kettle potato chips, Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer (a piece of my childhood), and Mexican Coke (a little piece of heaven). Hmmm, one of these things just doesn't go with the others. How far is Mexico from New Jersey? That's cool, I looove Mexican Coke.

The Farm & Fisherman Tavern + Market was a bit pricey, and there was quite a wait, busy Saturday night or not. I liked it a lot, but we probably won't be back because of the high prices and the wait. The food, that I had at least, was great.

French Fry Diary 489: The Onion Chips

There were some similar potato chips in the bag o' rare chips The Bride got me for Christmas from Anchor Food Finds. In this case, there were three bags of much the same theme - onions.

Deep River Sweet Maui Onion - this would be my second bag of Deep River chips from the bag o' rare chips. These were really not as good as the first bag. No great aroma, no great flavor. All in all, a disappointment.

Grippo's Sweet Bermuda Onion - this was by far the biggest bag of chips in the whole bag o' chips at three and a half ounces. It also had the tightest expiration date, so I probably should have opened it first. No worries, they were still good. However as a regular "Hoarders" viewer, I do feel the need to point out that expiration dates are NOT just a guideline.

Grippo's is a company that's been around for almost a century. They started off making cones for ice cream, moved on to pretzels, then chips, and now make a lot of stuff, including dips, seasonings, and even BBQ sauce. They have an intriguing variety of chip flavors including Hot Dill Pickle and Cheddar Cheese with Jalapeño.

The chips themselves are heavily seasoned, and not flatteringly so. The chips look like you might have to shake it off, there's so much. This is not a happy onion flavor but it's there, and lingers for a while. And saddest of all, it kinda masks the potato flavor of the chip as well. Another disappointment as I really was looking forward to trying these.

Mister Bee Sour Cream & Onion - Mister Bee is a regional family run company recently purchased by the West Virginia Potato Chip Company. Careful inspection of this blog will reveal a complete lack of reviews or even mentions of the popular potato chip flavor sour cream and onion. Easy answer: I don't like them.

That's why I wanted to hand this bag off to The Bride, not in an ungrateful way, but because she likes that flavor. However, The Bride not being around at the moment of writing this entry, I bit the bullet, er, um, chip.

There was a good(?) aroma of sour cream and onion when I opened the bag. The chips however had the same grainy and overseasoned texture as the other Mister Bee's chips I have encountered. Ick. Not a good flavor, and not a good chip either, in my opinion.

Sadly, this was not a good batch of chips this time.

French Fry Diary 454: Fries Seasoning

I found these on Amazon, believe it or not. Gourmet Fries Seasoning from Chef's Fun Foods come in four varieties - Cheesy Cheddar, Garlic Parmesan, Salt & Garlic Pepper, and Flame Grilled BBQ. Or at least those are the flavors I got. There are also Wild Buffalo, Sour Cream & Onion, Salt & Vinegar, and Ketchup - all eight terrific flavoring to add to the favorite fried food.

I got mine about six months ago, have used them quite a bit, and these thirteen ounce jars are still not only mostly full, but also very fresh. All have no fat and no MSG, and contain at least five or less calories per serving. They do require frequent shaking though as the contents tend to clump.

The labels suggest their use for potatoes, veggies, burgers, chicken, or pasta, and urged the consumer to 'be creative!' And I have been creative. A sucker for BBQ, I put that one on almost everything, well, everything except pasta, and garlic bread for which the Garlic flavors are great. I have found the Cheddar particularly good on popcorn. And of course, they are all quite good on fries. Recommended.



And just in case you've ever wanted to make tornado fries at home, Chef's Fun Foods also sells all your supplies, except for the potatoes, for that too!

French Fry Diary 436: Lay's Wavy

I gotta say right up front that I am not a fan of Lay's potato chips. Like Wise's chips, I find them just a bit too thin for my tastes and sometimes too greasy as well. I guess that's why I found Lay's Wavy Original potato chips such a pleasant surprise.

These chips, while being rippled, similar to Herr's 'pink foil,' are substantially thicker than the usual Lay's chips. This means more potato flavor and also a better dipping chip. This is a great party chip.

I was also very surprised by the amount of large and sizable chips in the two packages I picked up (two for one sale at CVS). There were many many more than other bags of chips. When most bags are nothing but crumbs and broken chips, Lay's Wavy still had big whole ones.

I have to admit puzzlement over the 'Original' claim on the package. I understand that these are the regular chip flavor, but by saying that, doesn't it imply there's a Wavy version of say, barbecue or sour cream and onion? If so, I've never seen them. And if a barbecue does exist, bring it on!

Great party chips, great dipping chips, recommended.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #59

This one comes from my friend Terry who's done more than a few guest blogs here. This is "Porterhouse steak, marinated in honey teriyaki, grilled medium rare on my George Foreman grill. Baked potato, rubbed in extra virgin olive oil and baconsalt, topped with cheddar cheese and sour cream. Dee to the lish."

Guy Fieri's Boxty Cakes

For the Food Network Friday before St. Patrick's Day I have something special for you - Guy Fieri's recipe for Irish Boxty.

For the uninitiated, boxty is a traditional Irish potato pancake. The name comes from the old Irish and means poor house bread. Here's Guy Fieri's recipe for it, from the "A Fiery Irish Supper" episode of "Guy's Big Bite"...

Total time 40 min
Prep 20 min
Cook 20 min
Yield: 4 cakes
Level: Easy

Ingredients
• 1 cup peeled, grated raw russet potato
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 (3/4-pound) russet potato, peeled and quartered
• 2 cups fresh cauliflower florets

• 3 cups chicken stock, or more as needed
• 2 tablespoons cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup canola oil, divided
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons snipped fresh chives
•
Directions
Cover the raw potato with the milk. Add in 1/4 cup chicken stock. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, add the quartered potatoes, cauliflower and enough chicken stock to cover. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Once at a boil, cook until fork tender, 7 to 10 minutes. Strain the potatoes and cauliflower. In a medium bowl, mash the potatoes and cauliflower with the cream cheese.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, spices and baking powder and mix well. Add the mashed cauliflower and potatoes and fold to combine. Add the egg into the raw potato mix, and then fold into the cauliflower and mashed potatoes. If the mixture is too thick, add a little more chicken stock.

Heat a nonstick saute pan over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons canola oil. When hot, add 1 cup of the mixture and gently spread out in the pan uniformly until you have a large circle (8 to 9-inches in diameter). Cook until the edges begin to brown lightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Gently flip over with a thin, flexible spatula and cook 2 minutes on the other side. Remove to a plate and repeat with the remaining batter.

Fill half with some Double Jack Stew and fold over. Serve with sour cream and a sprinkle of chives.

French Fry Diary 250: Arby's

I've already talked about my unpleasant experience with the onion rings at Arby's but I haven't actually reviewed the place yet. Arby's has changed quite a bit in the last few years when it comes to the favorite fried food. They used to have very good natural cuts, and as noted previously, terrific Onion Petals, but no longer. No Onion Petals, and the lack of a burger product are why I usually don't come to Arby's. And I'm really not a big roast beef guy.

Arby's started back in 1964, as old as I am, in Ohio. The RB in the name stands for Raffel Brothers, the founders, not roast beef, as most folks think. They are known for their roast beef sandwiches however, and their big cowboy hat logo and their 'horsey sauce.' They're part of the Wendy's company and they serve Pepsi products, and at the beginning, they served potato chips, not fries. They haven't been very successful in my area, however, as many of the restaurants that have opened, haven't stayed open more than five to ten years. Just sayin'.

Usually when I would come to Arby's I would get one of the chicken sandwiches, which is sometimes a pain in the neck to get the folks behind the counter to understand the concept of plain. "Just the chicken, and the bun," and still they get confused. Their shakes are pretty good too. They used to have shake it up chicken nuggets with bbq sauce that were great but no longer. And I would get the aforementioned Onion Petals quite often but they don't have them any more either.

What they do have, and have had for some time are Curly Fries. I believe these are among the first fast food franchise curly fries. They are natural cut and well seasoned. They are very good when hot, but this order, gotten on a Sunday afternoon at the nearly empty Arby's in Oaklyn, were barely warm. The cuts are very nice, lots of corkscrews. I like the corkscrews. I still wish they had the old natural cut fries too - it was nice to have a choice, or to have both.

They also have something called Loaded Potato Bites. Little triangles of potato product stuffed with sour cream, cheese, chives and God only knows what else - these were so not my thing. I did not like them. Sometimes they also have Potato Cakes, sort of a poor man's McDonald's Hash Brown, but not for breakfast. I'll review them on another trip I guess, as this one was not good so far.

Not a pleasant experience this stop, guys. Arby's, please bring back the natural cut regular cut fries and the Onion Petals.

BBQ Potato Skins

With Memorial Day Weekend right around the corner, it's barbeque season, as a matter of fact, I think May might even be National Barbeque Month. Anyway, here's a recipe from the Just-Potatoes group, enjoy!

BBQ Potato Skins

2 large russet potatoes
4 tablespoons butter, melted
Salt and pepper
1 cup shredded Cheddar
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
3 tablespoons sliced green onions
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
Chopped chives, for garnish

Preheat oven at 350F. Clean and bake potatoes in oven for 1 hour. When done, allow to slightly cool and cut into halves.

Preheat grill to medium heat. Scoop out the pulp, leaving a 1/4 inch thick shell for the toppings. Cut the potatoes into quarter wedges, brush with butter and season with salt and pepper. Place on grill and cook until crisp, about 10 minutes. During the last few minutes of grilling, remove potatoes and place on a cookie sheet. Top the potatoes with cheese and bacon and place back on top of grill.

While potatoes are grilling, combine the sour cream and horseradish in a small bowl and mix well. Place potatoes on serving plates and top with the green onions, chopped tomatoes and the sour cream horseradish sauce. Sprinkle with chopped chives, for garnish.

French Fry Diary 217: Kelsey's Irish Pub, Ellicott City MD

We took a weekend away and met friends for a late dinner. When I heard that the place we were going was an Irish Pub, I got my notebook and cameraphone ready for a French Fry Diary review, as Irish Pubs notoriously have the bestest chips this side of Ireland, or at least this side of Cookes of Dublin or the British Chip Shop.

We were there on a busy late Saturday night and sat in the restaurant area. The bar area was hopping with live entertainment but where we were seated was fairly quiet - next to a beautiful fireplace with ESPN on a widescreen over it. The place had lots of Irish flavor, lots of wood, lots of green, Irish music playing overhead, a wide variety of beers - all in all, Kelsey's Irish Pub, in appearance and atmosphere, is very Irish Pub.

The first thing I noticed when perusing the menu was a notable lack of chips. French fries were listed and even at times called frites, but no chips. I was determined however, and ordered the fries. There was something called the Saint Joe Fry Tower on the menu that came with cheese, bacon bits, sour cream, old bay seasoning and gravy - but none of us were brave enough to get it.

When the favorite fried food did arrive, I have to admit disappointment. These were thin-sliced natural cut steak fries, similar to the new sea salt fries at Wendy's actually, but with a disturbing batter covering, yep, you guessed it - Invisicoat. They were also deep fried, and they tasted like they were as well. If they had salt, pepper or any other type of seasoning, it was deep fried out of them. To bottom it all out, they had a warmed-under-a-heat-lamp vibe as well, and that's not a good thing.

The fries looked good, despite not being chips, but they were epic fail on so many levels. Still, it was a nice night out with friends, good times, if not good food.

French Fry Diary 30: Fries Supreme

Taco Bell now has French fries. Or at least at select locations.

Taco Bell has never really officially had fries. If they did it was because they were sharing space with one of the other Yum! Restaurants. The usual side offering would be nachos or cinnamon twists, not fries. The new concoction, called Fries Supreme (which doesn’t appear on TB’s online menu), consists of regular cut fries covered in cheese sauce, sour cream, tomato and green onions.

As I mentioned in a previous post, those must be some soggy fries. I wonder if I could order them plain?



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