French Fry Diary 737: Robin Goes to Five Guys

Many folks here know my longtime friend and fellow creative Robin Renee, besides being a hell of a writer, and a terrific performer, she's also been a contributor here at French Fry Diary from time to time. She's also a vegetarian, and our collaboration on her current project Blog March 2017 indirectly to her trying Five Guys because of something I posted about President Obama digging the burger chain.

We texted back and forth after she had tried the Eagle Plaza location in Voorhees. She took lots of pictures, found the veggie sandwich just okay, but her fries were "…insanely salty."

I offered her some good advice for ordering fries at other places. Usually Five Guys doesn't count in this as they always cook them to order, but it might have helped in this situation. If you are worried about salt content, always order your French fries at fast food and other chains with no salt. First this will force them to cook a new batch, so they will be fresh and hot, and it also allows you the choice of controlling your salt intake but how much you put on yourself. It's a good tip and useful in these situations.

I of course felt bad and apologized to Robin again for making her go to yet another meat restaurant. I do this all the time without realizing it. The last time, I invited her to a steakhouse (The Pub), which luckily had a fantastic salad bar plus veggie selections. Sorry, Robin, I'm an idiot.

In her own words, "The good thing these days is that there's something veggie just about anywhere now," which is a good thing, because as I mentioned, I'm an idiot.

Please check out the Blog March, it's important. And if you feel so inclined, please join and/or donate to ACLU, vote, or register to vote if you haven't already, support People for the American Way, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, Lambda Legal, and Public Television.

French Fry Diary 714: Burger 21

Burger 21, a chain with most of their restaurants in the Florida area, is now in New Jersey. They currently occupy the same place as The Doghouse in the Voorhees Town Center, opening there about two years back. Burger 21 offers a gluten free menu featuring burgers, shakes, and fries with a variety of dipping sauces, including sweet stuff for their sweet potato fries. All of their fries are cooked in soybean oil. I had been to the NJ location a few times and the quality of the food and service were wildly inconsistent so I was hesitant to write a review that would be on target.

Upon visiting Lakeland Florida house hunting, The Bride and I went to a Burger 21 there, and found it to be quite a pleasant experience. It was nice to see a familiar place in Florida where many things are much different, a good sign especially in the ninety-degree heat. I got a great thick burger on a grilled buttered roll and it was delicious. But it was the fries that were the stars.

The fries were frozen shoestrings deep fried, and were very good hot, but got cold fairly quickly. Not to worry, they were eaten quickly. As I said, the ones in New Jersey were inconsistent both in size and style, but these were near perfect. The Bride got cheese and ale as a side, and many other sauces were available at their amazing sauce bar, such as ranch, ketchup (both Thai and regular), ragin' Cajun, barbeque, mustard (regular and honey), chipotle mayo, apple cider, and toasted marshmallow.

To top it all off, the waitress who took our order was very friendly, and we found we had "Doctor Who" in common. She made a joke about our house hunting and to look for a home that was bigger on the inside. We took it as a good omen for that day of looking at homes. And we'd definitely come back to Burger 21, in Florida.

French Fry Diary 683: The Tot Cart

While I'm very close to the city of Philadelphia, I don't get into the city all that much, so there's a whole world of food - specifically the favorite fried food - that I don't get to talk about all that often. I'm talking about food trucks and carts. Unfortunately for the most part they are a city thing, but every once in a while, one will amble over t this side of the bridge.

National Night Out is one of those times. As part of the event, the powers-that-be tried to get everyone to go to what's left of the Echelon Mall, or as they like to call it, Voorhees Town Center. Face-painting, an outside viewing of Cars, and a variety of food carts and trucks were part of the bait. The food cart in question was The Tot Cart. Their motto is "Gourmet Tots, Straight to You" Come on, how could I resist?

In what is already a flustercluck in parking at the best of times, the powers-that-be made parking into a nightmare by blocking off most of what is usually an empty lot. Is it any wonder the Echelon Mall no longer exists? Malls aren't passé, but inept mall management is. Enough about what used to be a viable mall, we're here for the favorite fried food, in this case, tater tots.

I was joined by friend, fellow South Jersey Writer, and sometimes FFD contributor, Sarah Hawkins-Miduski. She had visited The Tot Cart before at another location, and had been impressed. Sadly that was not the case this night.

The signboard in front of the truck offered such goodies as Boardwalk Tots, Drunk Tots, New Bay Tots, Half-Loaded Tots, and Cowgirl Tots, all under the banner of Gourmet Tater Tots. Lots of promise here, most including The Tot Cart's famous Drunk Cheese. I ordered the Just Tots with the Drunk Cheese on the side, while Sarah got an order of the Half-Loaded Tots. We were prepared for the best, but should have done the opposite.

I had asked if the tater tots were made from scratch, and although the woman in the cart seemed pretty well versed in the making of tots from scratch, she admitted that these were frozen Ore-Ida Tater Tots. I was shocked, and sadly, they tasted like the worst deep-fried frozen tater tots you could imagine. Add in that I suspected they had been cooked quite some time before our arrival, these were pretty bad tots, a solid disappointment.

I did like the Drunk Cheese however, a secret beer cheese, or so they say. The cheese had a thick deep flavor, very tasty and would have gone well with fresh tots, had they been available. This added frustration made me less happy. Sarah was not as unhappy but admitted her previous experience was much better, and she wished she'd had those tots. She also thought the bacon, which was a bit too salty, didn't add much to her tots. It wasn't all bad, we talked about upcoming Disney trips as Sarah is a regular listener of The Make Mine Magic Podcast

I was very excited about this outing, and wished the tots had been better. I hope to sample them again at another time, when circumstances might be different, but as for now, I really can't recommend The Tot Cart, sorry.

French Fry Diary 587: Iron Hill Brewery Sweet Potato Fries

Attending a social event at the Iron Hill Brewery with the South Jersey Writers (quick plug, membership is now open!), I finally had a chance to try the sweet potato fries.

On a previous trip, I was stunned by the amount of favorite fried foods that were served at this chain, and pledged to return and try some of the variations. It was a toss up between the onion rings and the sweet potato fries, and based on the opinions of the folks I was eating with - one a dedicated Iron Hill fan - I settled on the latter.

So while talking about writing techniques and other shop talk, I got my regular, a burger, plus a side of the sweet potato fries. The burger was big, juicy, and very filling, definitely something to come back for again. The fries were also big and thick, soft hot wedges of sweet sweet potato. They were very good while hot, but not as much as they cooled, but I would definitely get them again. Recommended.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #107

This one comes from a brunch The Bride and her family attended, including the nephew. The Healthy Garden Café, in Voorhees, also with a location in Moorestown, is a terrific small town restaurant with a mind toward health and gourmet.

The pic is the nephew lunch, the kids platter, Chicken Fingers and French Fries, featuring battered regular cut French fries. Mmmm… fries…

Virtua Fries

Recently, my brother-in-law (big sister Bobbie's husband) had a brief encounter with the Emergency Room at the new Virtua Hospital in Voorhees. He's all good now, but he spent a few days relaxing in a hospital room that, let's be honest, kinda shamed some of the rooms I've stayed in at Harrah's. It was niiice.

While he was there, Bobbie had a chance to eat at the Café there, so today's Somebody Else's Fries are hers. This is a pic of her lunch one day during hubby's stay. Bobbie said, "…the fries were natural cut, crisp, hot and made to order. And only cost $1.99! Everything in the cafeteria is fresh, made to order and delicious, who knew? Who knew that hospital food would taste so good?" Her words, not mine.