The Loaded Bloomin' Onion

The Outback Steakhouse's specialty is a caloric monstrosity called the Bloomin' Onion. It is absolutely terrible for you healthwise, but don't get me wrong, it is delicious, dangerously delicious. I love them.

Outback has made it worse, and that is to say, better. They now have a Loaded Bloomin' Onion. It's the standard Bloomin' Onion, but topped with the Outback's Aussie Fries

French Fry Diary 681: Funyuns Steakhouse Onion

I love the Bloomin' Onion from the Outback. I love the wannabe versions at other chains. So when I saw this new Funyuns flavor on the shelf at Wawa, I had to try them.

There's a big picture of the Bloomin' Onion on the bag, and while they can't actually call it that, you know that's what it is. The back of the package promises the zesty flavor of a steakhouse onion blossom and dip. Hmmm… dip? I'm not crazy about the dip. Maybe this was a mistake. Oh well, I guess there's only one way to find out...

Opening the bag, they kind of smell like the dip, but the immediate taste is definitely Funyon, with maybe a little bit of a smokey spicier kick, nice. The dip - a sour cream vibe, verified by the ingredients list - does come in as a cumulative aftertaste though, but not enough to discount these babies. I like them.

I would probably prefer the regular Funyuns over these, and definitely would rather have have a real Bloomin' Onion, but these Funyuns Steakhouse Onion Flavored Rings were really good.

French Fry Diary 648: Ore-Ida Bold & Crispy Garlic and Pepper Steakhouse Fries

One of the new fries in Ore-Ida's new Bold & Crispy line are these Garlic and Pepper Steakhouse Fries. They immediately got my attention because of their lengthwise crinkle cuts, closer to the old Gulliver's type than Famous Dave's. I was looking forward to trying these.

When you first open the bag, the garlic aroma is very strong and will remain so as they bake, but not so much when they're done. Your kitchen will smell nicely garlicky for about ten minutes or so, but it's a good thing.

These lengthwise crinkle cuts allow for extra crispness, but I would watch and adjust the heating directions as appropriate for you. My fries were done with seven minutes to spare by their instructions on the bag.

While the smell is good, I thought I had cooked the garlic out of these fries. Mind you, you'll still need a breath mint after having some, but nowhere near as garlicky as one might think. And while I can see the pepper and seasoning on the fries, they don't have much of a kick, so I get the 'crispy,' but not the 'bold.'

French Fry Diary 645: Laundromat Luncheonette

This memory is a very old one. When I was a little kid, my family didn't have the kind of things that other families had. We weren't poor, we were never poor. But let's just say we were a bit slower on the curve from everyone else.

It was a long time before we had a color TV, a stereo, a microwave oven, a dishwasher (well, maybe we had one of those, it was me), cable TV, an air conditioner, and a washer and dryer. Actually a few of those things we never had, but for the purposes of this entry, it's the washer and dryer I want to talk about.

No washer and dryer meant weekly (at least) trips to the local laundromat in the next town over in Berlin. All the dirty clothes would be put into pillowcases, packed into the car, and a few hours would be spent at the laundromat. There are many things to remember about that place. There were the full color picture Bibles chained to the bottom of the chairs, the Canada Dry Sport Cola in the soda machine, meeting an African-American boy for the first time and playing under the folding tables, and the penny gumball machines that also had peanuts and pistachios in them.

Despite all that, it was easy for a little kid to get bored. Sometimes I would go watch the car wash, and sometimes I would walk around the entire strip mall building the laundromat was in. It also included a dry cleaners, a paint store, a luncheonette, a liquor store at one end and a Sears pick-up center at the other. Honestly I think only the laundromat still remains, everything else has changed.

There's an AutoZone where the Sears used to be. I have fond memories of the Wish Book catalog at Christmas, and my dad getting his boat there, with what my childlike memory says were S & H Green Stamps. Bonus points if you remember them. And the liquor store at the other end of the strip is now a Risqué Video.

Every once in a while my mom would send me up to the luncheonette to get a snack to share while we waited for the laundry to get done. The snack? What else? The favorite fried food. I still remember the luncheonette, like a tiny diner squeezed into a strip mall-sized store - a store length counter with maybe half a dozen small booths along the opposite wall. The name however escapes me. Was it Nan's Luncheonette? Maybe. It could've also been Pat's, or Lynn's or something completely different.

The crinkle cut French fries, probably deep-fried, in a small paper box - circa the very early 1970s, were thirty-five cents, a quarter and a dime. At the time, with a comic book costing a quarter, this seemed like a fair price. It certainly beats the eight-dollar fries at the Old Homestead Steakhouse.

This is a very old memory, sharing French fries with my mom at the Berlin laundromat, but it's a very good one. I'm going to go do some laundry now, and maybe have some fries too. And I definitely miss my mom, and my childhood.

French Fry Diary 642: LongHorn Steakhouse

We've been here before. It might not seem like it, but we have. The deep fried breaded onion snack followed by beef is a gig we've done before, both at the Outback and the questionably named Texas Roadhouse. Even the Lone Star Steakhouse, sadly no longer in our immediate area, used to do that.

It makes me wonder if all three are the same restaurant, but no, each onion is trademarked. So each restaurant is just a competitive twin. Are those onion things really that good? Yes, decadent, but good.

My buddy and podcast partner Ray and I had been making an accidental tour of steakhouses lately, so the LongHorn Steakhouse seemed as good a place to go next as any. I was a bit tentative as the Cherry Hill location has gotten some bad word of mouth. I decided we should see for ourselves.

That is of course, once we got there. Ray set his GPS to the Lone Star Steakhouse, which as I mentioned is nowhere to be found around here. It took a while for us to meet, obviously. While the parking lot was full, the dining room was not. Not sure if that's good or bad.

The menu, supposedly brand new at the time, was huge, and thick as a textbook. The decor was very wooden and old school. There were some cowboy and western motifs, but the big attraction (or at least what my eyes went to) was the huge chandelier made of antlers. Don't know if they're real, but wow.

We got the Texas Tonion, trademark, but it doesn't need the trademark. It really doesn't need it. It's nothing like its counterparts, it's just a long plate of just meh onion petals. For the price, a little over seven bucks, comparative to the Bloomin' Onion, I feel ripped off. An order of onion petals, and only okay onion petals for that matter, is not worth the price of the exotic wheel of deep fried death and goodness I expected. I was not happy.

My chopped steak came with thinner longer onion straws. They were better than the steak. The fries were natural cut regular cuts, only warm but okay. The baked potato was very hot and very good. There's not much else to say about the food. The service was okay. There was nothing though that I would come back for, even though Ray said the LongHorn near him was better. That's too far though. And I'm still a little steamed about that Texas Tonion...

French Fry Diary 640: Ponderosa Steakhouse

There was a time when you couldn't turn a corner in this area without running into a Ponderosa restaurant. They have all gone away. I think I'd have to drive all the way to New York state or Virginia to find one now. I don't know what we did to offend them, but they're gone. One particular old girlfriend and I used to go there all the time, we loved it.

Ponderosa was part buffet, part cafeteria style, part self-serve, and part service restaurant. They were not as classy as, say the Rustler Steak House or the Bonanza, the latter of which is owned by the same company, but it's not like a Burger King either, ya know?

I would always get the same thing, the two grilled chicken breasts and a side of fries, sometimes the chicken would even come with a barbeque sauce. And when I wasn't in the mood for fries (it does happen), Ponderosa made absolutely awesome baked potatoes. As crazy as this must sound, and as many times as I was there, I don't think I ever once got a steak. Or if I did, I went right back to the chicken, I liked their chicken that much.

The fries at the time, this would have been waaay back in the 1980s, were simple regular cuts, and as I remember you got a pretty good portion. Looking at their current menu online, the baked potatoes look just as awesome, and the fries are pretty much the same, just natural cuts with the addition of some pepper as well as the salt.

From all indications, Ponderosa seems to be more of a buffet type place now, as opposed to what it once was - more Golden Corral than Rustler. Maybe someday I'll get up to NY or down to VA, or maybe on the next trip to Orlando because I saw one there too, and find out.

French Fry Diary 568: Steak 38

My friend and GAR! Podcast partner Ray and I had been talking about going to Steak 38 for quite some time but somehow plans have never worked out. If you know Ray, you know why. His work and play schedule is a maze of madness that would make even minotaurs crumble from the pressure. Anyway, with a coupon that expired that night, Ray finally made time to go to Steak 38. Yeah, coupon. Priorities, baby.

The coupon was a godsend as Steak 38 is a classy restaurant, classy equaling expensive. Classy as in I might get The Look when I ask The Question. You know what The Question is, right? "Do you have French fries?" Well, they'd better, even though they're not on the online menu. After all, they are a steakhouse, classy or not.

I was worried when I realized I had to make reservations earlier in the day just to go to this place. Burger King it was not. Steak 38 is run by two life long friends who met while waiter-ing at Chubby's in Collingswood and whose fathers worked together at the legendary Latin Casino. These two know restaurants, and are very serious when it comes to Steak 38.

However, classy aside, it is near a reputed bad area. Once inside the restaurant however you would never know. Inside is very, very nice, and the service was professional and attentive. Like on the Disney Cruise, we had two people waiting on us, and serving our every need.

Our orders were brought to us on a cart. I got the chopped sirloin, which was huge and covered with onions. It was perfectly cooked. Perfect. It came with lightly frizzled onions, very tasty, and a twice-baked potato. They were both very good. I would have liked more frizzled onions and less of the sautéed kind, but still both were terrific.

No one blinked or flinched when I asked for French fries, test passed, no Look after The Question. The fries came as a side and were regular natural cuts. A little bigger than regular regular cuts, they were very good while hot, and still good while warm. All in all this was a great meal for potato products and side orders.

The crowning achievement for the meal was dessert, which Ray insisted on, and I'm glad he did. He ordered the Bananas Foster for two, which made it kinda seem like a date. And I think the folks at Steak 38 already assumed we were a couple. He ain't The Bride, but Ray's still a good date, heh. The cool part is that our waitress made the dessert at our table. Awesomeness. Food on fire is always a plus, and it was delicious.

All things considered, this was a pleasant dinner well worth the price. I would definitely come to Steak 38 again, highly recommended.

French Fry Diary 78: Fleming’s Steakhouse & Wine Bar

After more than a few recommendations of the fries at Fleming’s Steakhouse & Wine Bar, I decided to give it a shot. Although, I went just for the fries. As many good reviews of the fries I had gotten, all the reviews of the other food, the wine and the prices were not so complimentary. So planning a quick bite The Bride and I only intended to grab a stool at the bar and just get snacks – but surprisingly there was no wait for a regular table, so we were seated quite quickly.

The Rosemary bread we started with was quite interesting. Hot tasty bread with some intriguing spreads was good but left an uninteresting aftertaste in your mouth. It’s a good thing our waiter Adam was very good with refilling our waters and soft drinks. Fleming’s is a wine bar and it should be noted that the menu is mostly wine, and comes with another wine list as well. Adam wasn’t bothered however when we said we wouldn’t be having wine.

I ordered the seven and a half dollar Double-Cut Shoestring Potatoes, and The Bride got the nine-dollar French onion soup. When he asked if that was as our entrees, Adam seemed genuinely panicked at our yes. He was nothing but nice and courteous however, and was left a healthy tip he definitely deserved – even though we refrained from ordering steaks and wines in the couple hundred-dollar range.

The fries arrived in a wax paper cone and wire frame holder in the Belgian style. Inside however, were not Belgian fries. These were extra-thin (thus the 'double-cut') natural cut shoestrings and in a huge portion – the cone was filled completely. They were a beautiful golden brown, but nowhere near as crispy as they looked. Had they been that crispy, they would have been perfect. A bit greasier than I would have liked, but had they been crispier, I wouldn’t have minded that. All in all very good, but not great.

French Fry Diary 76: Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak Flavor

I just saw these new Herr’s chips the other day at my local Wawa and decided I had to try them. Their full product title is Herr’s Kansas City Prime Steak Artificially Flavored Potato Chips. My first question about these is do they taste like the meat or the stuff that tastes like the meat?

Upon reading the back of the bag I learned that Herr’s tops them "with the flavor of thick and juicy steak," a bold flavor hard to find "outside of your favorite steakhouse." Interesting. How exactly does one do that?

First things first, the picture on the bag is misleading. The chips are not wide ripples but tight thin ripples, not waves but ridges in other words. Waves are better for dipping in my opinion, just saying.

The chips do in fact have an interesting taste. The pepper is strong and they do have a steak vibe, it’s just not a taste one would expect on a potato chip. It is similar to the phenomenon of Jelly Bellys that have Buttered Popcorn or Bubble Gum flavors – yeah, it’s good but there’s something weird about it in that form.

Thee are tasty and different, but maybe not on a regular basis. Well worth a try though.

French Fry Diary 06: The Steakhouse, Harrah's Atlantic City

For my birthday this year, the Bride used up her comps at Harrah's Atlantic City and took me to The Steakhouse there, a place I had always wanted to go. Well, that’s not exactly true. I like steakhouses, so going to any steakhouse is someplace I always want to go, but perhaps not that one in particular, but still.

The Steakhouse, as it is simply called, is a well-to-do place, one that if it were not in the middle of a casino would definitely have a dress code. On our visit we saw evening wear and jean shorts and sandals. The steaks were to die for, so juicy and tender, a knife was hardly needed to cut it. There was also a interesting variety of breads available before the main course.

And now we get to the, pardon the pun, meat of the meal – the fries. I was a bit tempted by the onion rings, having seen them brought out to another customer. They were thick, crunchy and served vertically on a stick a la Red Robin, but our waiter, when asked what he preferred, suggested the fries. "When else will you have a chance to have real Belgian fries?" True, true, and so I was sold.

I cannot deny that I was impressed by the presentation. The fries came in a wax paper cone, just like Belgian fries are supposed to, and this deep cone came in a specially made metal container. The cone was stuffed with natural cut fries, not exactly Belgian fries, but close. The problem was that the ones on top, the ones I could see at first that were bursting from the cone, were barely warm and kinda crunchy. And not good crunchy, mind you, crunchy as in rock hard and unbreakable by fork or teeth.

The good news was that the fries underneath, kept from the air by the 'bad ones,' were quite tasty and everything promised. And the cone and metal container were deep enough that there were quite a few of these. I then did what I should have done at first, just dumped the whole cone onto a plate and ate from there. I’ll know for next time.

So, Harrah's Steakhouse fries – A+ for presentation, B for taste and D for continuity. Worth a try. But I’m still getting the onion rings next time too.


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