Random Tater Pic of the Day #79

Here's one from my friend Joe. His son Ben found an axe-shaped French fry at Wendy's recently. Now all we need is an onion ring shield, some polyhedron chicken nuggets, and an ogre burger, then we could play D&D...

Random Tater Pic of the Day #60

French Fry Diary 396: The Friar's Nook, Magic Kingdom

This place has haunted me since our last visit to Walt Disney World. I had gotten a few recommendations for the homemade potato chips at this window in the wall counter service place in the Magic Kingdom called The Friar's Nook. When I looked it up I saw they also had Teriyaki chicken nuggets and that sounded great to me so I figured I had to try it. Sadly the night we finally made it to the Magic Kingdom, it rained very hard and many places, The Friar's Nook included, had closed down for the night. I determined to get there next time.

Here's next time (this was in March). As you can see from the photo, they are closed. I asked a Cast Member who told me that The Friar's Nook is only open during the summer (and apparently when it's not raining as well). As I stood there in disbelief with sweat pouring off of me, it took a serious reality check for me to realize that in Florida, just because it's ninety-six degrees out, that doesn't mean it's summer. I raised my fists to sky and shouted "Friar's Nook!" William Shatner style. I will have you and your homemade potato chips someday, this I swear...

French Fry Diary 344: Muscle Maker Grill

This is not the usual place you would expect to find here on French Fry Diary. When you think French fries, you think fast food, and when you think fast food, you usually think unhealthy. Well, the tag line at Muscle Maker Grill is "Great Food with Your Health in Mind."

I was enticed to go not by the ad line, or even by the potato products available, but by the teriyaki chicken nuggets. They sounded really good when I'd first heard about them, so the potato side, and the health, they were just happy bonuses.

I was kinda surprised but happy to find Coca-Cola in such a healthy place (again), but oddly, all in all, the menu seemed very fast food junkie friendly. Not on the menu but as a special was a real burger, but alas, I came for the nuggets. Maybe next time. I ordered and sat down in the crazy red neon lit dining area to wait for my food. If it wasn't for the big screen TV with ESPN on it, I might have gone blind from the red.

Nuggets came with crisp celery and sesame seeds on them, nice touch. They also came with a fork and knife, weird, but plenty helpful with the nuggets, and the potatoes. They were really big (you won't leave hungry) and tender but only slightly teriyaki-ed. Not as good as I would have hoped but still good. I guess I could have asked for more teriyaki, but didn't.

The Western Potatoes also came in a bowl the same size as the nuggets. They were chunks of potato, most the size of the nuggets, soft and spicy, and baked. I couldn't quite identify what the spice was though. I do know that I was as fond of the green leaves in the potatoes as I was of ESPN and the red neon. Otherwise the potatoes were quite good. Both chicken nuggets and potato chunks came apart easily with a fork.

At dinner time on a Thursday night there were not many folks in the restaurant, but it is notable that there was a brisk business coming in and out with take out. Also notably they deliver. I would definitely come back, but with a bigger appetite. It may not look like much, but this meal was very filling.

French Fry Diary 280: The Friar's Nook, Magic Kingdom

The Friar's Nook. This was actually where I wanted to go on the last night of my Disney World vacation, but ended up at Columbia Harbour House instead. I had gotten a very good recommendation for their homemade potato chips. They also have teriyaki chicken nuggets that sound good too, but I was mostly going for the chips.

Sudden downpours and storms shut a lot of the counter service places down in the Magic Kingdom earlier in the evening, and The Friar's Nook was one of them unfortunately. I'll get to it when I return in March. Looking forward to those chips. Keep your fingers crossed against rain.

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.

French Fry Diary 46: Nifty Fifty’s

The first thing that strikes one about the French fries at Nifty Fifty’s is the variety. Their fries come in cheese, spicy, spicy cheese, chili cheese, spicy chili, BBQ beef, BBQ beef cheese. I’m guessing you see a pattern here and I know there could be more if they tried, just based on the listed combos. Their chicken nuggets have similar varieties. On first impressions it might seem like they are trying to cover something up with these elaborate toppings – and they are.

The fries are natural regular cuts, nothing spectacular, while similar to Five Guys in appearance they are nowhere, I repeat, nowhere near as good. I got just regular fries with none of the toppings but there was still a hint of seasoning, maybe just bad preparation. The fries were lukewarm and soggy, from both grease and condensation. These were just really bad fries. No wonder they offer so many toppings to cover the fact up.

Nifty Fifty’s also has onion rings. These are big thick chunks of onion rings, obviously ‘home-made’ as advertised and evidenced by the haphazard way they have been battered – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. These were more onion than batter and had a pleasant Italian seasoning to them.

The rings were cold when I got them home (less than ten minutes in a closed bag), much as the fries had been just moments after I ordered them. One just assumes food should be hot when you order at drive-thru. I’ll give NF the benefit of the doubt and say the rings had time to cool. Onion rings rarely nuke well so I put them (seven of them in the one order) in the oven for a few minutes. They’re pretty good, not great. In all honesty I think I could make ‘em better myself at home.

So the rings are okay, and the fries bad, and the chicken nuggets questionable. If any of those are on your stomach’s agenda, I suggest you steer clear of Nifty Fifty’s.