Dollar Fries

I posted about this over on the French Fry Diary Facebook group (and if you're not a member already, why aren't you?) when the deal first started, and thought it needed repeating, especially when combined with other fast food deal news.

Checkers and Rally's, for a limited time, are selling their small, medium, and large famous seasoned fries for only a dollar. The Fry Lover's XL size are excluded sadly, but until further notice, fries are only a dollar at Checkers and Rally's.

Now, if you have the fast food places in your town close together, you could end up getting a very inexpensive fry snack by first hitting Checkers and Rally's for dollar fries, then hitting McDonald's, where for a similar limited time, any size soft drink is only a dollar as well.

Sound like a deal? Yep, that's what I thought. Can't beat it. Enjoy!

French Fry Diary 514: Burger King's French Fry Burger

Burger King announced yesterday that they were coming out with a new burger next week, called the French Fry Burger, it's a burger, (you ready for this?) with French fries on it.

Perhaps Burger King thinks it's reinvented the wheel here, but really, putting French fries on your burger is as old as burgers and fries themselves. I've been doing it since I was a kid, and know dozens of other folks personally who do it. It's officially called planking (no, not that planking) or sandwiching, and I've talked about here on the blog many times before. What is ironic is that Burger King's new fries are as conducive to sandwiching as their older fries. Too little too late, BK.

Now there may some novelty in having someone else do it for you, but that doesn't work for everyone. A catastrophically picky eater would never be able to order this burger plain at Burger King. The clerk's head would explode. It's hard enough getting just a plain hamburger, I can't imagine trying to get one with fries on it…

And it's not just customers who have been doing the planking, some restaurants are also getting into the act besides BK. Rally's/Checkers have been doing it for a while with their Fry Lover's Burger, and fancier places have been doing onion rings and strings on burgers for decades. There's nothing new under the sun, or ahem, under the bun.

Special thanks to my GAR! Podcast partner Ray for hipping me to the BK news.

Introducing the Fry Lover's Burger

Whether you call it sandwiching or planking, putting French fries on your burger has now hit the big time. At Checkers and Rally's they will now do it for you with the Fry Lover's Burger.

"What do you get when you take a perfectly seasoned Checkers & Rally’s burger and top it with our famously seasoned fries? You get flavor awesomeness ... that’s what! Introducing the Fry Lover’s Burger. This bold burger starts with a 100% beef, hand-seasoned hamburger patty, then we top it off with Checkers & Rally’s fries, a slice of American cheese, pickles, ketchup, mayo and mustard. After that we toss it on a toasted sesame seed bun and serve it up to you hot and fresh. Getting hungry? Swing by your favorite Checkers & Rally’s and order one from our money-saving, flavor-craving Cha-Ching menu today!"

French Fry Diary 363: Checkers Undercover

The Bride and I like reality television a lot, probably too much. It's sort of like eating too many French fries (how can there be too many fries??), you know it's bad for you, but you end up doing it anyway. One of the programs we've watching lately is called "Undercover Boss."

The premise has the CEO of a big company going to work for his own company, in disguise, and at the bottom of the ladder doing grunt work. In this way, they get a first hand look at the problems and victories going on in their business from the ground up. While in disguise, they can't break character, at least not until the big reveal at the end of the show.

A recent episode featured Checkers & Rally's CEO Rick Silva (no relation to my friend and fellow writer Rick Silva) going undercover within his company. When he found the conditions at one of his restaurants less than satisfying, he said screw it, revealed his 'secret identity' and shut it down! Go Rick! Yet another reason to love Checkers.

French Fry Diary 362: Checkers Rally's Famous Fries

I was surprised and delighted to find these in my grocer's freezer section as I like Checkers quite a bit, and with Checkers Rally's Famous Fries, now I can have them in my own home without the run through the drive-thru. Props to the Checkers folks.

Now the directions offer the option to either bake or deep fry these spicy batter coated babies, but let me tell you - don't deep-fry them. Just chalk that one up to I did it so you won't have to. These are not good deep-fried.

Now baked is a whole other thing. Not only is there less grease than deep frying (or even from the restaurant if I'm being honest), but these large shoestrings are near perfect from the oven. You can regulate the crispness, and they are always soft and hot in the inside. The seasoning on the outside make any additional seasoning pointless. These are just great baked.

If you're making dinner, these pair well with a burger, and the fries are skinny enough to stack on the sandwich, and also add that great seasoning flavor to it as well. Thumbs up for Checkers Rally's Famous Fries.

French Fry Diary 361: Checkers

Checkers and Rally's are the same place, and essentially the same food, but here in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area, we only have Checkers.

Checkers is predominantly a drive-thru and/or walk-up restaurant, even though there are a few tables outside, I don't think they get much use - its not Sonic. The lunchtime I visited the place was dead, no drive-thru traffic even - which is a shame because the food is pretty good. And notably, the customer service is also very quick, and usually pretty accurate too.

The burgers are big and tasty, although this time it did take some effort to get a plain burger. Speaking of Sonic, I think the shakes at Checkers are thicker and better, and excellent for fry-dipping. They also have the usual fare of chicken, fish, and hot dogs as well, but it's the favorite fried food we're here to talk about.

The French fries at Checkers are long (sometimes very long) regular natural cuts with a thick crispy batter coating, salted and black peppered. This orange colored spicy skin gives them an extra zing and crunch that contrasts the soft hot potatoey insides. These are darn good fries, but make sure you have a beverage handy to balance the heat. It's a good heat though. They're also great for sandwiching and, as I said, shake dipping, which will also cool some of that spicy fire.

The Checkers fries also nuke well in microwave once you get home, at least twice, sometimes three times, making them an excellent drive-thru fry that can be had later. Recommended.