Pringles Thanksgiving?

As I actually haven't been able to find this in any store in my area, I will just leave these two images for y'all to ponder. More details can be found here. If anyone is able to taste test this potato crisp cornucopia, please let me know your thoughts. And Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy National Fast Food Day

Today is National Fast Food Day, have a good one, and don't forget the fries!

Random Tater Pic of the Day #288

Today's random tater pic of the natural cut fries with Old Bay seasoning from Joe's Crab Shack comes courtesy of my bro-in-law Bruce, thanks!

Happy Halloween!

French Fry Diary 783: Shake Shack Plushies

Now this sort of thing doesn't happen very often, but believe it or not, it does happen. Stuffed French fries, and no, I don't mean being stuffed with fries, I mean stuffed animal-ish things in the style of potato-ey products. One such occurrence included the tater tot superheroes at Sonic some years back.

Recently, a couple weeks ago at the New York Comic Con, a new plushy arrived that was just as cool - Shake Shack Plushes from Yummy World and Kidrobot. They have burgers, and fries, and they are adorbs. While I have yet to actually get to a Shake Shack, at least I can play with them. Seriously they are awesome.

Special thanks to friend Pixie for the signal boost and kind words when I was looking for images of these goodies, and to her friend Karina Hamalainen for the second pic seen here, thank you! You rock!

Halloween at MoonDog Grill

Don't forget to get over to the Moorestown Mall Food Court to try MoonDog Grill's Walking Dead Dog, an all-beef Sabrett hot dog topped with chili, cheese sauce, spicy red pepper relish, atomic BBQ sauce, jalapenos, onions, and sriracha… oooh, hot and scary. They also have new Italian sodas in ten assorted flavors, but the real reason to visit MoonDog at any time, not just Halloween, is the fries, and now there's a twist.

You can not only get MoonDog's fabulous fresh-cut and twice-fried French fries, but you can get them as a Fry Bowl. They start with eight ounces of fries and come in four varieties – Chili Cheese: all beef chili, cheese sauce, and onions, Barbecue: pulled pork, shredded cheese, and BBQ sauce, Mexican: salsa, jalapenos, tomatoes, onions, and shredded cheese, and Buffalo: buffalo wing sauce, jalapenos, blue cheese dressing, and celery salt.

Stop in and check them out, some of the best fries and dogs in South Jersey!

French Fry Diary 782: Wise Finger Lick'n Ribs Potato Chips

I love Florida, and I'm glad we moved down here from South Jersey.  Florida has many awesome things going for it like Disney, sunshine, and grilling - but it's not all good.  There are also alligators, sand hill cranes, Trump supporters, and a seriously sad variety of potato chips.

I was very surprised by that last one.  Tom's is a company we didn't have in NJ, and generally Wise chips are easier to find - except for that elusive potato chip grail, the Wise BBQ Ridgies - but other than that, it's pretty pitiful.  It's so bad that sometimes on a late night snack run, you'll just skip the chips.  Yes, it's that bad. 

These chips, the Wise Finger Lick'n Ribs BBQ Flavored Potato Chips (crazily not even shown on the Wise website), were found in a Dollar Tree.  A dollar for a 4.5 ounce bag of BBQ meat chips?  What could I lose?  I could only gain a review for the blog, right?  The bag promised no preservatives, gluten, MSG, or transfat, awesome. 

Upon opening the bag there was a faint BBQ aroma, but nothing as pleasant or strong as the Wise BBQ or Honey BBQ.  The chips are good and thick, but not as darkly seasoned as the two mentioned above, if anything they appeared sparsely seasoned, maybe a dozen flecks per chip. 

There is that meat flavor, but not overwhelming or unpleasant like some meat flavored chips.  This is more barbecue than ribs, but it's good, and if I'm being honest, a bit addictive.  And that's kinda the problem, in that the more you eat, the more cumulative the ribs taste is.  Still, I would definitely get these again, good chips. 

Happy National Taco Day

Happy National Taco Day from French Fry Diary

The Big Belly Burger Commercial

We've talked about this fictional burger chain in the DC Universe before (here and here), and now it's moved from the comics to your television screens in the last few years. In the comics, a favorite of heroes like Superman in Metropolis, and on the small screen, beloved of the characters from "The Flash," "Arrow," "Legends of Tomorrow," and "Supergirl."

I've never been able to pinpoint exactly what kind of fries they've had until now - it's regular cuts and curly fries just in case you were wondering - when they have debuted their own commercial. Here it is, the Big Belly Burger commercial, enjoy!

Random Tater Pic of the Day #287

This edition of Somebody Else's Fries comes from friend Deb, taken as she enjoyed Red Robin's Bottomless Steak Fries.

French Fry Diary 781: Lamb Weston Super Crispy Crinkle Cut Fries

Last year ConAgra Foods, one of the world's biggest French fries manufacturers, acquired Lamb Weston, another of the world's largest fry manufacturers. Recently they spun Lamb Weston off as its own frozen product line, and they're just now starting to show up in stores. 

Any fry from Lamb Weston should be great, as most fast food franchise fries probably originally came from them anyway.  Ideally it should be a superior product as you're cutting out the middleman, right?  I've seen four different varieties of frozen grocery fries with the Lamb Weston name on them - Crinkle Cut, Hand Cut, Thick Cut Hash Browns, and Diced Hash Browns, the last two obviously breakfast selections. They also have Steak Cut, Shoestring, and Potato Puffs.

I picked up a bag of the Super Crispy Crinkle Cut Fries.  There's a giant Grown in Idaho symbol on the bag that also proclaims 100% Real Potatoes.  Upon opening the bag I was surprised to see natural cut fries.  The skin-on crinkle cut French fry is indeed a rare beast.  And even though I have become accustomed to almost exclusively air-fried fries, I put a serving of these babies on a pan to bake, per their official cooking instructions.

The fries needed a minute or so more cook time than the directions indicated, but in any case they came out great, super crispy as promised, hot and soft inside.  I really enjoyed them, and they were just as good when air-fried.  Thumbs up.

Gordon Ramsay's Fish Fingers and Chip Butty

From "Gordon's Ultimate Home Cooking" on YouTube, here Chef Gordon Ramsay gives us a quick lesson in a British classic - Homemade Fish Fingers with a Chip Butty. Fish fingers, obviously are what we might call fishsticks, although much bigger and seasoned here a little differently, more like tenders, or fingers, because of their size. The chip butty is actually a bit of a French fry sandwich, and it just doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Random Tater Pic of the Day #286

Today's Somebody Else's Fries comes from dear friend and frequent FFD contributor Robin Renee. Crinkle cut French fries with garlic powder, cayenne, and truffle salt (plus a tomato and peppers from the garden and volunteer dandelion greens).

McDonald's Bacon Potato Pie

There's been a lot of talk recently about whether or not McDonald's really has a secret menu, officially or unofficially, but here's something that we can't get here in America, secret menu or not - the Bacon Potato Pie. Only available in Japan, this is bacon and mashed potatoes inside a deep fried baked pie covering. Not sure if that would be good or not, worth a trip to Japan? Maybe, maybe not... what do you folks think?

French Fry Diary 780: BurgerFi Appetizer

BurgerFi is one of those places I have been meaning to go to for quite some time. When I saw one nearby on a business roadtrip with The Bride, I had to stop in, while she did other important stuff.

The first thing that struck me about BurgerFi was the prices.  This place doesn't play, it's expensive, or at least more expensive than other comparable places. Any size single order of fries or onion rings border on around five bucks.  I was startled, only happening upon the place by chance and just wanting a snack.  This was an expensive snack.  I settled for the Cry + Fry, being a combo of fries and rings... at $5.47. 

I had been meaning to go to a BurgerFi for some time since one opened in the Philadelphia Convention Center but that never happened while I lived in New Jersey.  I was happy to find one here in Florida.  It was nice with an open-air patio, Coke Freestyle machines, and a pager to take to your table so they can bring your order out.  They also had Mexican Coke in bottles and Boylan Sodas as well. I thought the latter was a bit odd as it's a Pepsi product.

The Cry + Fry was almost exactly as advertised in the pictures in store and online - three gigantic onion rings atop an order of natural cut fries.  They came out fairly quickly and we're very hot, so probably cooked to order.  All things considered, the portion size was very generous so perhaps I shouldn't have bitched so loudly about price. 

The fries were on par with, if not better than, Five Guys, and yeah, that impressed me too.  They were more than a little addictive as I ate more than I intended without realizing it.  The rings were crunchy and juicy and battered with an orange color.  I was expecting a spicy kick based on the color but it wasn't there. 

Both the fries and rings were very good, thumbs up, I'll have come back when I'm hungry for a burger.  Until then, BurgerFi is highly recommended. 

Random Tater Pic of the Day #285

I love when two things I love come together, as with this cartoon sent to me anonymously of the Legion of Super-Potatoes.

For those who know me, I'm a semi-regular writer over at the Legion of Super-Bloggers, dedicated to Legion of Super-Heroes fandom.  Links to some of my Legion reviews and articles can be found here, check them out.

French Fry Diary 749: Bobby's Burger Palace 2017

We recently flew up to North Jersey for the wedding of a friend, and with time on our hands, and empty stomachs from the flight, we went in search of a quick snack. The intent was to find some place that we had not been before so I could write about it, and also some place not readily available in our new home in Florida, for much the same reason.

Our search was becoming fruitless (and fryless) between the time restraint getting tighter and not finding anything in the Bergen NJ area, when suddenly we came upon a strip mall with a Bobby's Burger Palace in it. It was getting late, and I had always intended to give the place a second chance and also try the onion rings, so we figured why not?

We wanted just a snack so The Bride ordered the bacon cheese fries with scallions, and I got the buttermilk onion rings. We also got shakes. They were thick and good and small, but while there were some very interesting flavors, we noticed there wasn't a chocolate or vanilla on the menu, so I got a black and white. They were small, but expensive, and had real whipped cream that really could have used a bit more whipping, but there you go.

I should note that the seating did not improve at this other location. Be forewarned, the booths are small and the counter seats are tight. Whether it's Cherry Hill or the Bergen, Bobby Flay does not like bigger folk, which based on the menu suggests there are not many return customers. I guess a lot of people must 'outgrow' this place.

Based on our order the girl at counter asked if we were getting any food. Even if that wasn't rude, it did not instill confidence in our sides for snacks since they weren't food. You can see into the kitchen through the pick-up window, it should be noted, and I could see our 'food' there for quite some time. When it was finally brought to us, we got a tutorial on sauces while our food got even colder. Not cool.

My order of onion rings was big, in a misshapen paper cone containing five rings total, but they were huuuge (as the big dumb Ooompa Loompa might say), big and thick, with a bit of a spicy kick to the batter. They had a big onion taste and were very good, but I wish they had been hotter - and they probably were, just not when they were in front of me.

The Bride's fries were just as warm, natural cut fries with bacon, cheese, and an awful lot of scallions - probably more scallions than bacon or cheese.  Maybe they should have been called scallion bacon cheese fries?  

This was not a bad snack, but it could have been so much better. I might try Bobby's Burger Palace again, but they should keep in mind, three strikes and that's an out.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #284

A shelf in a store in the path of Hurricane Harvey. What does this really say about how people feel about Chicken & Waffles Potato Chips?

Image sent from reader, but originally from Tyme Powell on Twitter.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #283

 From the June 2017 Disney Cruise on board the Dream, these are bacon roasted potatoes, with chicken schnitzel, and buttered green beans, from dinner at the Enchanted Garden.

French Fry Diary 748: Cabanas, Disney Dream, June 2017

On the last day of our June 2017 Disney Cruise on the Dream I hit Cabanas for lunch. While it's not always my first choice, we were close and both The Bride and I were hungry. Cabanas, as you can see from this search of the blog, is primarily the best place for breakfast, and not necessarily for lunch… but I was in for a shocking surprise.

Expecting of the favorite fried food the usual fare of Disney natural cuts, as by the last day they are usually out of steak fries, I came upon a glorious oasis in the buffet line… perfect British chips, or perfect French fries, depending on your perception. These were ¾ inch thickness square, and three to four inches long. They had been under a heat lamp for a bit, but still hot and soft like baked potato inside, and crispy on the outside.

These French fries were perfect. I loved them. So if you're on the Disney Cruise, and on the top deck buffet, keep your eyes open, they were fantastic.