Poll Reminder

For those of you who are unaware, to the left of this post, and all ongoing current posts is a special poll it might be fun to participate in.

The question of the moment regards Favorite Fast Food French Fries, specifically when you are on the road, and you get that craving for French fries, which drive-thru (or if necessary, go inside) is your destination?

Will you hit the first McDonald's you see, or will you go the extra mile for Chick-fil-A, or even do a bit of searching around for that elusive KFC or Checkers? What's your go-to Fast food stop for fries?

You can choose multiple choices if you want, but please vote, and let's see who comes out on top.

French Fry Diary 716: The French Fry Dipping Sauce Poll Results

A long time ago, before I got sick in December, I started a poll here on the blog about what your favorite dipping sauce for your French fries was. In truth, I did it twice. The first time I was chastised for leaving certain dipping options off the list, so I revamped it, but I did keep count of the votes from the first poll and have added them in to the final tally. So now, the answer to the question - What is your favorite dipping sauce for your French Fries?

Overwhelmingly, the biggest vote-getter, with almost half the votes, was ketchup. So, now that we got the unimaginative folks out of the way, we can concentrate on the more interesting choices. But before we do that, let's eliminate those that nobody picked - sour cream and marinara. Both were made as suggestions to add to the second poll, but neither volunteer agreed that they liked them, so there you go.

Oddities that only a few folks voted for in the "other" option included specifics like T.G.I. Friday's Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and Roy Rogers BBQ sauce, both favorites of mine, as well as bourbon mayo or remoulade. I also like the peach bourbon sauce at Red Lobster, which got a vote as well. It seems that no matter how you slice it (or stir it), alcohol is popular in dipping sauces. Taking up the single vote end of the spectrum were also mustard, wasabi, tartar sauce, sriracha, butter, Arby's 'horsey' sauce, and just plain ol' hot sauce.

The next highest vote-getters were aioli and steak sauce, followed by ranch, another of my faves, sweet and sour, and the combined vote for peanut butter and peanut sauce. Next highest performers with 10% each of the vote are two more of my favorites - ice cream and teriyaki sauce. Then come honey, a frequently mentioned Asian treat, and curry, which I have every time I visit the British Chip Shop. Then came mayo and honey mustard, yuck.

The big guns, besides traditional ketchup of course, were cheese - The Bride's favorite, which comes in many varieties (perhaps fodder for a future poll), and my favorite, milkshake. The latter has recently come out of the closet as a strong contender for dipping. Second place went to UK fave vinegar and my personal favorite (tied with shake), barbeque sauce, and I would go along with those who specifically mentioned Jack Daniels and bourbon varieties.

So, do you agree? Did I miss your favorite and you'd like to get a late vote in? Feel free to comment below, I'd love to hear what you're dipping your fries in!

Best and Worst French Fries

The Huffington Post is currently doing a survey of appetizers in chain restaurants. The other day I covered here them looking for the best and worst in potato skins. Now they have reached the good stuff, the favorite fried food - the best and worst of French fries.

And yeah, that's right. The Huffington Post did this. Just when I think I'm wasting my time talking about French fries all the time, an almost legitimate news source proves me wrong by going even more trivial.

I really don't agree with their findings. Of course in any fry competition between the chain restaurants, it's a matter of lesser of the evils. They are essentially all lousy natural cuts except for a couple batter styles. No big shakes if you ask me.

Their goodness or badness depends completely on the foods that complement them, or what there is to dip the fries in. On that basis, I would go for Red Lobster as best. Huff puts them in fourth place. I guess they have never tried the peach bourbon bbq sauce…

Anyway, if you're interested in the Huff Post's findings and opinions, the full article is here. Enjoy.

Who Has the Best Fries in Philly?

In celebration of National French Fries Day this coming July 13th, FooBooz wants to know where you can find the best French Fries in Philadelphia.

You can check out the article, the comments, and vote here.

And special thanks to Allison for hipping me to this!

What Are Your Favorite Kind of French Fries? Poll Results

First off, thank you to all the folks who voted in this poll, and put forth their 121 votes for their favorite fries. It means a lot, I mean, I know there are not many folks who are as passionate and enthusiastic about the favorite fried food as I am.

Here are the results, from least favorite kind of fries to most favorite:

The favorites with 39 votes are Steak Fries, followed by the 27 vote tie of Shoestrings and Waffle Fries.

Regular Cuts came in with 24 votes, followed by Curly Fries with 22 votes. Then we have a three-way tie for fifth place with Crinkle Cuts, Tater Tots, and Fries with the Skins on with 16 votes each.

11 votes went to Potato Wedges, while there were 7 votes for the mysterious Other, and no one sent me any emails to let me know what their other choice was. Perhaps they were matchstick fries or shaped fries or non-potato fries or pixie crinkles - we'll never know.

Maybe we'll have another poll in a few days. Any thoughts on the topic, drop me a line here.

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?

Poll Results

Our latest poll here at French Fry Diary asked a very simple and easy question - "How do you eat your French fries?"

The choices were "With my fingers, it's finger food!" which got 92% of the vote. There was also "With a fork." getting 10% and "With a knife and fork, cutting them into bite sized pieces." getting 5%. Finally "Pour them directly into my mouth." got 17%. A good friend of mine also insisted frequently that he eats his fries with his mouth, not a choice given, but what can you do?

Hmmm... there's an obvious winner with most folks using their fingers, but do you all see what I see here? Google, the fine folks that run Blogger and Blogger polls, seems to have a problem - they are very bad at math. There's no way that 92 + 10 + 5 + 17 = 100. Come on, Google, what up with that?

French Fry Diary 109: Poll Results Spring 2010

The poll question of the moment on French Fry Diary for the last few months has been Best thing to put -on- fries, or dip fries -into-... Your answers are below:

Ketchup got 45% of the vote and cheese got 39%. These are the standards. Everybody likes ketchup (apparently, even though I don’t) and cheese fries are pretty darned popular. Next up is malt vinegar with 27% of the vote. These folks are either from the UK, have visited there or just stumbled upon this one. Similarly also from Europe, we get the mayo vote with 15%.

A notable 11% also like dipping their fries into their milkshakes just like I do. And we’ve talked about this before, I might be an oddball, but I’m not alone. One of my other favorites, barbeque sauce got a respectable 17%.

The pride of Canada, gravy, and disco chili fries each got 13%. Chocolate and maple syrup each pulled in 3%, while mustard, ew, got 11% of the vote. A recent favorite of mine, honey, which I’ve been putting on baked Nathan’s fries while they cook for an extra tasty sweet treat, got 7%.

Now ten percent of the vote went to ‘other.’ Now if you voted for ‘other,’ please do drop me a note and let me know what exactly you had in mind for your fries – I would love to know!

French Fry Diary 33: The Winner

The very clear winner of our “What Are Your Favorite Fast Food French Fries?” poll is McDonalds. Twenty-nine out of ninety-three votes went to Mickey D’s golden fries. Granted they are very consistent, very tasty and very very famous, as well as convenient (where isn’t there a McDonalds nearby?)

I’d really like to hear from the folks who voted for McD in this poll. Let me know why you voted the way you did. Contact me here. Remember, curiosity killed the cat, not the French fry fan. That was cholesterol ;-) but we’ll let the Health Nazis take care of that diatribe.

Second place with eight votes belongs to Five Guys Burgers and Fries, and most deservedly should. Their fresh and hot natural regular cuts are always terrific. Check out my review of their fries here.

Also with eight votes is the ‘someplace else’ category. Obviously I couldn’t list every fast food place in the country so I just went with a handful. Eight folks chose ‘none of the above,’ and just like above here in this article, I’d like y’all to please contact me and let me know who does actually have the best fast food French fries. You’ve got me curious, let me know! ☺

Now on the other end of the spectrum, it should be noted that Sonic (whose fries are not the best), White Castle, Jack in the Box, Nathan’s and Stewart’s received zero votes. I’d love to know why on that point as well. Are those fries really that terrible? I would take serious issue with Nathan’s unique thick crinkle cuts getting no votes as I think those are pretty special. Not the best, mind you, but up there pretty high.

In-N-Out Burger, which I’ve never had, and those spicy long fries at Checkers and Rallys both got seven votes each for third place. Bringing up a tie for fourth place were Burger King, Wendy’s and those tasty waffle fries from Chick-fil-A. Fifth place with four votes belongs to Popeyes which leads me to believe that a lot more folks like those long and spicy battered fries than I thought. Me, I can only have them once in a while. Too much aftertaste.

Sixth place, Fatburger, was what I personally voted for. Whether you get the Skinny Fries or the Fat Fries, I think they are the best of the fast food fries, followed by probably by Nathan’s, Five Guys, Chick-fil-A and maybe Roy Rogers. But what do I know… about French fries?

Whataburger took two votes for the distant seventh place, and Arby’s, KFC, Carl’s Jr., Hardees, Roy Rogers, Dairy Queen and Long John Silver all received one vote each. We’ll do this again at some point and see how folks’ minds may change (or not). Please feel free to comment below, or contact me directly. Until then, mmmm... fries...

Have You Voted Yet?

The poll (found to your immediate left) to find out what your favorite fast food French fries will be coming to a close at the end of the month - have you voted yet?

McDonald's seems to have a very clear lead, but still the battle rages on for second. A tie between Five Guys, In-N-Out Burger and Burger King needs to be broken. Or perhaps there's another fry that should be in the lead? Where are the fans of Sonic? Or Checkers? Or my favorite, Fatburger? Come on out and vote!

As for the folks who have voted for the 'someplace other' option - why not send me a note and let me know where to find your favorite fries? I can be contacted here. Looking forward to hearing from you!

And don't forget to vote!


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Favorite Fries Poll - Status Update

The stats so far in French Fry Diary's "What are your favorite fast food French fries?" poll are as follows...

In first place is McDonald's, followed by a second place tie with Wendy's and Five Guys, and a third place tie with Checker's and Chick-Fil-A.

Come on, McDonald's? Really? Yes, they're good, but come on - ease, availability and consistency don't count for everything, do they? If Fatburger or Sonic were on every other corner, would they be number one?

Be original, be selective, look to your left and get your vote in! Who's got the best fries?


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