When the Burger King Wasn't Quite So Creepy

French Fry Diary 310: Boardwalk Grill & Pizzeria, Cherry Hill NJ

Boardwalk Grill & Pizzeria is a place that opened earlier this summer locally in Cherry Hill. A recent lazy Sunday evening led The Bride and I to look for a nearby place that delivered, we chose Boardwalk, mostly because their menu made a pretty big deal of the favorite fried food.

First off, any place that calls itself 'Boardwalk' and has French fries, had better have good ones. It's just the facts, ya know? The menu calls them "Fryz" just to be different, I guess. They claim that "all Boardwalk Fryz are Hand Cut from Russett Potatoes Daily," madcap capitalization theirs. They offer malt vinegar for dipping, but for a charge. They come in regular, Old Bay, Cheese, Pizza, and Loaded.

Deciding on a pizza roll and some BBQ honey boneless chicken wings, along with fries, sorry, Fryz, both Boardwalk and Loaded, we called in our order. Surprisingly for a new place the delivery was rather quick. Score one for customer service. The chicken was pretty good, and the BBQ honey sauce more barbeque than honey, but excellent on the fries and for dipping.

The Loaded Fryz came in quite a generous portion, and was too much for my wife. Besides being very filling, these natural cuts were under an avalanche of Cheez Wiz, mozzarella, bacon and scallions. This came in a big tin foil pie plate, I mention this because it was a huge portion. These guys give you a lotta fries for your buck.

The large order of the regular Boardwalk Fryz were the same natural cut Boardwalk style fries you can find at Pat's or the more traditional Boardwalk Fries and Seaside Spuds. Again, bonuses for portion size, because the large fry-decorated cup they came in had about the same amount as The Bride's serving.

Sadly, I don't think they were cooked to order. While the hot ones were very good, I had a lot of stubs and ends - no big long fries at all, and some were very crunchy as if they'd been cooked more than once and not in a good way. Maybe it was the end of a batch. They did however reheat well when baked in the oven.

I would be more than willing to give them a second chance, as these could be really good fries, maybe just not this time. I would love to try them at the actual restaurant next time rather than their excellent delivery service.

French Fry Diary 309: Looney Tunes French Fries

I am a huge fan of the Warner Bros. cartoons, in fact the six volumes of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (now sadly out of print) are among my favorite DVDs. That said, I have to say I haven't been that much of a fan of Cartoon Network's "The Looney Tunes Show."

It may just be a matter of my not liking the new character designs or how the pacing is slower and less effective in my opinion, but the sitcom setup of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck being mismatched roommates just hasn't charmed me. Notably however, I do like the new CGI Road Runner shorts and the Merry Melodies music videos that appear semi-regularly.

At this point you're probably wondering what this has to do with the favorite fried food - well, I'm getting to that. A recent episode was titled, wait for it, "French Fries," and dealt with a feud between Daffy and Porky Pig over French fries.

Bugs, Porky and Daffy are at lunch. Everyone gets an entree, and Daffy gets a side of fries with his sandwich. We've all been there. You all know what's coming. Sometimes fries are community fries and sometimes they are MY fries. When Porky has some Daffy's, guess what kind of fries they are? Yep, you got it, and Daffy defriends poor Porky.

My personal favorite part of the episode is when Porky calls, Bugs says, "It's Porky," and Daffy says, "Hide your fries!" Great tunes, great fries, I might give this show another shot.

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.

Sunny Anderson's Chicken-Stuf't Potato Puffs

For Food Network Friday this week, we have Sunny Anderson of "Cooking for Real" with her quick recipe for Chicken-Stuf't Potato Puffs. Watch.



You find the recipe here. Enjoy!

Bacon Potato Puff

Here's another great recipe from the [just-potatoes] Yahoo! Group, by way of Taste of Home:

If you're looking for ways to use up bacon, be sure to try this hearty and satisfying side dish. This company-worthy potato dish has down-home goodness.—DeEtta Rasmussen, Fort Madison, Iowa

6-8 Servings
Prep: 20 min.
Bake: 45 min.

Ingredients

1/2 pound sliced bacon, diced
4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon ground mustard
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 cups warm mashed potatoes (with added milk and butter)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

Directions

In a skillet, cook bacon until crisp; remove to paper towels to drain. Discard drippings. In a bowl, beat egg yolks until light, about 2 minutes. Beat in onion, mustard and pepper. Place potatoes in a bowl; fold in egg yolk mixture. set aside 2 tablespoons bacon. Fold cheese, parsley and remaining bacon into potatoes. In a small bowl, beat egg whites until stiff; fold into potato mixture.

Transfer to a greased 1-qt. baking dish. Sprinkle with reserved bacon. Bake, uncovered, at 325° for 45-50 minutes or until set and edges are golden brown. Serve immediately. Yield: 6-8 servings.

Nutrition Facts: 1 serving (1 each) equals 175 calories, 11 g fat (5 g saturated fat), 128 mg cholesterol, 379 mg sodium, 10 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 9 g protein.

Bacon Potato Puff published in Taste of Home April/May 2002, p45

French Fry Diary 307: Mr. PotAto headZ

Here's a great video by PantyMython, check it out…



Here's what the creator has to say about the video: "Mr. Potato Head is like the funnest toy ever.

I spent a week on this. The music is from audionautix. The voice is mine, and the screams are MrCapo68 and I. I bent the pitch on everything, and I did all the sound effects.

The animation is 350 still shots.
Every potato is moving something in every single shot.

It's chroma-keyed (green screen, this is the reason I didn't use any green parts in the video - the hats are exactly the same color as my screen), with a background I made in sony vegas.

My neighbor let me borrow her Potato Head collection for this. thx Monica!

I think the whole thing is pretty explanatory, but for the person who doesn't get it and puts "wtf?" as a comment, this is what this video is about....

One by one, each Potato head brings in a new potato body to put together. Each time they work together to complete the Potato person. But, the last Potato Head is kind of different, he doesn't really have the standard Potato Head parts. Instead of returning to the group with a Potato Body, he returns with the remains of a Potato Body - French Fries. He asks if anyone wants a fry, declares that he has enough for everyone, and that he has them in his compartment. The other Potato Headz are very alarmed at this, realizing that they have a cannibalistic, murderous Potato Head in their midst."

French Fry Diary 306: Burger King Onion Rings

When Burger King changed their French fries for the worse several years ago, that left me in a quandary. I loved Burger King, loved their burgers and their chicken sandwiches and especially their shakes, and sadly their introduction of Coca-Cola products over Pepsi coincided with the crappy fries. So much to enjoy, but no sides to enjoy them with.

Fear not, unlike many of its major competitors, Burger King also has onion rings, and they're not bad. These aren't traditional onion rings however as they're composed of diced onion and shaped into rings approximately the size of a half-dollar and deep fried with a crunchy breaded coating. Over the years the size has varied, getting smaller at times and now the sizes go from dime to half-dollar size in one offering.

As a bonus, because they are cooked at the same station, sometimes a fry will find its way into an order of rings and vice-versa. This is known as a 'ringer.' Once again, like the FryPod, much thanks to Burger King for adding to the lexicon and vocabulary of the mythology of the favorite fried food.

It should be noted that the BK onion ring is also excellent for dipping in milkshakes (although fries and burgers are preferred), and also for stacking in sandwiches. Great stuff. I would rather have had the old original BK fries but their onion rings are a great substitute. Thumbs up.

What Are Your Favorite Kind of French Fries?

If you look to the left, you'll see our current poll here at French Fry Diary - What are your favorite kind of French fries?

The choices are steak fries, shoestrings, crinkle cuts, potato wedges, regular cuts, with the skin on, tater tots, curly fries, waffle fries and the nebulous other. If you want to know the differences between these various types of fries, please check out this early FFD entry.

So far, in the voting, it looks like steak fries and shoestrings have lock tie on first place, with waffle fries and regular cuts trying for a second tie. There's a little less than a month to vote, and you can vote for more than one, so if you haven't already, vote for your favorite kind of fries. And if your answer is 'other,' please drop me a line here and let me know which other.

So what are your favorite kind of French fries?

French Fry Diary 305: The Old Burger King French Fries

A couple days ago I talked about Burger King's new French fries, today I take a look at the previous version that was so bad it kept me from eating their fries for years.

In 1990, about the same time Burger King changed from Pepsi to Coca-Cola products, they also changed their French fries. First they changed the oil they used, changing the taste slightly, and then changed the fries completely. This reformulation of what I thought was a terrific product caused me to stop eating Burger King fries. Yeah, they were that bad. The fry guy wouldn't even eat them, that's saying something. Maybe that's why this month BK is changing their fries again.

Where they were once wonderful if slightly more greasy versions of McDonald's golden French fries, BK went to a crunchier, healthier shoestring variety. These were battered with Invisicoat which not only makes them crispier but also acts as a preservative and makes them last longer. Cost cutting and arguably healthier, these fries were not tastier in my opinion, and put me off of Burger King.

I eventually went back, fast food junkie that I am, but I went back for the burgers, the shakes, the chicken sandwiches, the onion rings, even the Cokes - but not for the fries. Over the years BK has tweaked the fries, or tried stunts to garner new interest. There was the brilliant invention of the FryPod that lets your fries rest comfortably in your car's cup holder, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

BK also tried Shake Em Up fries, also a brilliant idea, one still used in Europe and Asia. The idea is similar to Shake and Bake, with fries instead of chicken, and the powder being anything from cheddar cheese to BBQ to just about any variety of spices. You shake it up and you get spice-covered fries, you could even do it with onion rings. I never fell for it, because it still wouldn't make BK's crappy fries taste better but filed the idea away for home use.

They also tried Chicken Fries, strips of breaded chicken in the shape of fries, packaged in a FryPod. Overseas, BK offers curly fries as well as potato wedges at some locations. The recipe was even tampered with again in 1998, with little noticeable change. None of these variations have made me turn back to the dark side to try BK's crappy fries, until this most current change. I'm still not impressed. I wish they'd bring back the originals.