French Fry Diary 593: Weight Watchers Smart Ones

I'm not a good diet guy, besides the obvious fact that I write a French fry blog, I think many diet versions of foods lack fundamental taste. I don't mind low fat pancake syrup. Regular Jell-O is better than the no sugar stuff but I'll still eat it. Of course, on the other hand anything other than whole milk tastes like flavorless white water, and surely urine is yummier than Diet Coke.

Anyway, I've done Weight Watchers before, and didn't do too bad at it. The Bride currently does a steady diet of WW Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine microwave meals. While shopping for her I found something of interest to both me, and the blog - Smart Ones French fries.

The two meals in question are Chicken Strips & Fries, and the more traditional Fish & Chips. It should be noted that these aren't the regular TV dinner style nukables, but microwave trays like the Ore-Ida Easy Fries use.

The Fish & Chips included 'salt & pepper crinkle cut french (sp) fried potatoes.' Pretty standard crinkle cuts with duh, salt and pepper. The Chicken Strips & Fries included 'ranch seasoned french (sp) fried potatoes.' Other than Weight Watchers' insistence on not capitalizing the word 'French,' these were pretty good. Natural cuts that were somewhere between regular cuts and shoestrings, these were a little limp but still good. They needed seasoning, so obviously I didn't taste the ranch seasoning. These were not bad at all.

French Fry Diary 326: The Aborted Applebee's Attempt

Let's be clear up front. Applebee's neither cares nor has any pride in their French fries. They are not included in their online menu as a side or an appetizer. You have to hunt them down to even see a picture of them on said menu. I guess if you're ordering online, fries just aren't an option.

It's been a long looong time since I've been to Applebee's. This is due to their always consistent customer service, which was bad. The last time I went to Applebee's was for my birthday about six years ago, and even then it had been a while before then we had gone. For my birthday I wanted a certain volcano fudge cake they had so we went, and from the way they seated us, to the food, to the wait time, to the getting orders just outright wrong, they assured us that their customer service was, as I said, consistent.

My memory insists that I have rarely had a good meal at Applebee's. I do remember once getting some really good onion rings, with Panko bread crumbs and shredded cheese mixed in, but I also recall the service that night being Applebee's standard. The fries as I recall are non-impressive salt and pepper natural cuts, nothing to write home about, and as I said before, Applebee's obviously doesn't think so either.

Further and much closer inspection of the online menu revealed that Applebee's also has crispy red potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, crispy onion strings, and fried onions, although I could not find these items alone, much like the fries. Now you're probably asking why wouldn't I just order those items a la carte, right? Well, those of you asking that question have obviously never experienced the fine, fine customer service at Applebee's. Good luck with that.

All that said, my buddy Ray came down for a buddy movie night. We were going to see the Hindu special effects spectacular Ra. One, and the only real restaurant near the theatre is Applebee's. At first I was hesitant, but seeing as Ray had just gotten back on to Weight Watchers, and Applebee's has a special WW menu, we went for it.

When we got there, it was packed, because it was a Friday night, of course. There was a thirty-minute wait. We weighed our options. Go someplace else, or wait a half hour for crappy service? Applebee's aborted this night, maybe another time. We'll try again.