Elvis Did What?

Every once in a while (decade) I get a hankerin?  hankern?  hank'rn? for something other than fries.  And it's usually something really weird.  Read a story recently about a fairly known Elvis action that got me thinkin about a giant sandwich called the "Fool's Gold" that was made by a no longer existent restaurant in Denver called "Colorado Mine Company" (stupid name for a restaurant).

You can google "Fool's Gold Loaf" if you want all the details but the short version is that Elvis wanted this sandwich one night during a party at his cottage in Memphis so he flew his private plane (along with the party goers) to Denver to get it.  The 2 things that disturb me about this whole affair are chiefly what the sandwich is (you'll see in a bit) and that the dang thing cost $49.95 in 1976!  That would be like $250 today.  Idiotic!

Sooooo...the sandwich is a giant loaf of bread, a whole jar of peanut butter, a whole jar of blueberry jelly, and ONE WHOLE POUND OF BACON.  If you're thinking that sounds disgusting, you're right.  For some reason I accidentally grabbed sugar free blueberry jelly when I was buying the stuff so sue me.  Also I used 2 pounds of bacon on accounta 1 pound didn't really look like enough.

First you hollow out one side of the loaf and toast it lightly.

Then you add the jelly.

Then the PB.

Finish with a 2-pound sprinkling of bacon.

All done!  Holy cow.  Ruler and obligatory fork for scale.

The Grunion was amused/disgusted (mostly cause he doesn't like jelly and how dare I ruin a perfectly nice snack with that crap).

 I served it to my brunch guests with a single dried out baby carrot.

And 500 napkins.  Because this thing makes a huge freakin mess.  Oh and a Diet Coke to counter the calories.  Hey who ate the carrot?

They say Elvis ate this by himself.  I shudder to think about how much speed/cocaine/assorted pills/monster energy drink it would take for someone to be able to eat this whole thing.

It is gross on a level that is hard to describe.  The torrent of sugar makes your teeth grit and grind.  9,000 calories of sheer disgustingness.  One of my test tasters ate a slice of it and vomited in my yard about 15 minutes later.  The stomachache I got from it was formidable and lasted 2 hours.

Do not eat this sandwich.  Even with fries.

Finger Licking Depression

I've been working from home (pretty much) for about 6 months now and the depression is starting to seep in on me.  You can imagine how my spirits were lifted when I started seeing the commercials for the new KFC Secret Recipe Fries that were being touted as "Seasoned with a secret blend of herbs and spices and fried to crispy perfection like our world-famous chicken, Secret Recipe Fries are unrivaled in flavor."

How exciting!  Finally a fast food place is gonna give fries the respect they deserve.  I hustled right out and got some.  Mmmmm...marketing....

I got a regular size and a "family size. The one on the left is regular and the one on the right is the family.  WTF?  What a rip.

Weirdest spork I've ever seen for scale. Oh well, it won't matter since they're gonna be so good right?

They looked okay.

But no.  Apparently the 7 secret spices are salt, salt, chicken bouillon with extra salt, salt, more salt, more extra salt, and a pinch of salt.  These things were borderline uneatable - and they certainly didn't taste like the chicken.  The new kitten licked a few and then barfed under the couch.

I dunno if I got a batch or what, but the fact that it took them 18 minutes to make them indicates that they were at least "fresh".  FAIL.  Why do I keep subjecting myself to this abuse?

Jimmy Hula's Daytona Beach

"That place stinks and we won't be back.  It won't last a year."

-Gibby's Dad

I saw this place online before a trip down to Daytona to see my folks and I asked my dad about it.  Typically when he gives this kind of review there is an extenuating reason that his experience was less than satisfactory such as he can't eat most stuff anymore on accounta health reasons or they had loud music or there were lots of college-looking kids around being loud and stuff.  This also means that the place is probably okay.

The building looks like the tourism industry barfed all over it.  Definitely a full on Jimmy Buffet vibe.

I guess LOUD would be the main descriptor of the decor.

Seriously it kinda looks like a preschool playroom.

But what's this?  SIX kinds of fries on tap?  NICE.  Well, technically FOUR kinds of fries since one was sweet potatoes and the other was made from some weird thing call zoo-key-knee.

And also something called "Reggae Fries"?  NICE II.

I went with Truffle Parm, Jerk, and an order or regular fries as a control.  I only got three on accounta I had already eaten about an hour prior. They were good.  Hot, crisp, tasty. And $3 for this many fries at a tourist trap a block from the beach is a ridiculous deal. 

Mmmmmmm.

Mmmmmm II.

Contrary to what my pop says, DO IT.

P.S.  They had a bottomless mimosa thing going on for $9 so Amy also gives this joint two boozy thumbs up.

New Era Fine Fermentations in Tulsa

Okay so the name of this joint is pretty silly.  But I guess when you open something as specific as an all gluten-free brewery and restaurant you can call it whatever you want.   NEFF is located in downtown Tulsa and I was shocked/excited to see that it was pretty empty the night we strolled by on accounta everywhere else was jam-packed.

All the beers and food are gluten free which they accomplish by using quinoa*.    They have all the required flavors.

The place is standard warehouse turned brewery.

The chef/co-owner of the place was getting ready to shut down the kitchen but he was really nice and made us some fries.  He also gave us some soup on the house that was really good.  I should start a soup blog.  And why did I choose such a dirty menu to take a picture of?

Anyway for $4 this behemoth was delivered to us.  Soup bowl/hand for scale.

Holy cow!  That's enough fries for a naked pyramid of rugby players!  The pile was like 4 inches tall!

And they were really good.  They had sage (whatever that is) and garlic on them and oh my there were SO MANY.

I gotta tell ya every once in a while a place really stands out and not only were the people at NEFF super-friendly (even with us dragging a little kid in there) but the beer and fries were super.

This is what went back to the hotel with us.  Unbelievable.  DO IT.

*quinoa beers make you fart.  A lot.

The Gathering Place TULSA

A while back I went with the fam to this joint we Amy found online called The Gathering Place that was supposed to be amazing and FREE.  I didn't actually think they were also gonna have fries but they did so it was on!  This place is right on the riverfront and we managed to pick a weekend when Tulsa was basically getting flooded by the river.  Oops.

Amy was super smart by suggesting that we go on a Friday morning on accounta there probably would be less people.  She was right.  We had the place pretty much to ourselves for the first few hours.  It's kind of a hard joint to explain.  Imagine an amusement park/playground with no electricity.  All the fun stuff is done with action by humans.  Like paddle boats, water features that are operated by cranking and moving levers, hedge mazes, big pieces of interactive artwork, zip lines, stuff like that.  The playground climby stuff is all crazy too.  There's a platypus.

And cranes.

An elephant.

And castles (Grunion up at top right).

The Gathering Place is awesome.  And free.  You should do it.  There's a ton more stuff there too like a fancy restaurant and a museum but this is a fry blog yo.

Fries targeted.  Sorry the pic is blurry I was excited.  Did I mention the place also HAS BEER?  Noice.

$2.99 for this at a free amusement park?  Totally worth it.

They were those lightly battered frozen jobs.  Not too bad.

I liked them.  Especially with the Goose Island IPA.  DO IT.

P.S. I scared the crap out of the Grunion when he was coming down one of the slides.  Heh.

Sassy's Revisited

Ten years ago I checked out the fry offerings of this joint in Fayetteville.  Went back recently to check for any changes.  The patio is pretty sweet when the weather is nice.  I recommend it as the interior can seem claustrophobical.  Irish nachos with waffle fries as the base and pulled pork?  Yes please.  I should note that on Sundays you can get a $10 bottle of champagne with a carafe of OJ or cranberry juice (yuck) and pour your own mimosas.  Much better deal than the $2.50 single mimosas IMO.

Boom!

Solid execution of the American doctrine of excess!

The pulled pork is awesome and the waffle fries are perfect.

I got to this point and said to myself "I should stop eating now.  I can take these home for later."

So much good.  10 out of 10.  DO IT ON A SUNDAY.

P.S. I ate the whole damn thing.  I was so embarrassed. 

The Holler

Bentonville AR has kinda finally become like a real place you can hang out (see here).  It's only taken 146 years for that to happen, but whatever.  And what happens when a town finally becomes "cool"?  Exactly.  You need to have a dedicated indoor shuffleboard court joint that is part of a much larger farmer's market/deli/shared workspace/brewery/coffee shop/clothing store/juice bar/restaurant...oh let's cut the crap it's a hipster mall called 8th Street Market.

The place is what a hipster designed casino would look like.  Visually noisy and confusing.  I guess that's what young people like.

There was a group having a party there with some snackies.  Think they'll mind if I snag a few?

I was there for a bachelor party kinda thing but it was on a Thursday night so I couldn't get crazy but they had REALLY good beers on tap.  I had a Pseudo Sue by Toppling Goliath -good!
There's the shuffleboards.  Meh.

About 10 minutes in I noticed they had fries so here we go.  Obviously jumping on the retail trend of self checkouts, this joint makes you order your own stuff on a computer touchscreen.  I got the "Holler Style Fries" and an order of regular ones.

And here's what we got.  Oh I see.  Large orders come on a "larger" pan and regular/small orders come on a pan made for a baby.

I chose no onions on the Holler Style ones so I guess they got nervous and put the scallions on the side.  Heh.

The Holler Style ones were okay.  Not amazing.

The regular ones were much stronger.  Funny how some places never seem to get that just throwing a bunch of crap on your fries won't necessarily make them better.

I say no to the Holler Style Fries.

And yes to the regular ones.

And if you are a professional shuffleboard player I guess I can suggest this place.