Chick-fil-A is stereotypically southern, to a degree that even Waffle House might not be, so it is kinda cool that there’s one only a few miles drive away from my house. This place is definitely closer to a fast-food experience than a dine-in place, even though it’s not a “name” fast-food restaurant. It’s got the paper fry containers on the plastic tray thing going that McDonald’s started some 60 years ago. So, how are their fries? The obvious thing, is the fries are waffle fry style, which is unusual in general, and even more unlikely given that Chick-fil-A, as mentioned before, is leaning toward the fast-food style of restaurant. It’s not an easy style to make outstanding. Given, that it’s also a difficult style to truly screw up, but average doesn’t make memories, especially not with fries. So, the good. The individual “waffles” are large and strong, not prone to breaking into crumbs. The salt is done well on these fries, not much, but very thick, giving a good emphasis of taste for a limited amount of mess. For the not so good, the fries aren’t exactly fresh. Not exactly bad, but meh. Warm, not hot, etc. And a moderate crispiness, particularly on the edges, gives way to a sogginess in the center of many of the individual fries. A little bit of crumb residue from the oil is present, but that’s not exactly unusual. Generally okay fries, but kinda featureless, as tends to be the case for waffle fries. The cut is usually expected to be its own experience, and any unique features are limited because of this fact.

Price: $1.85 (a redeeming feature, very cheap for the style and a pretty decent amount given).

Cut: Waffle (obviously).

Salt: Light, but thick “grains”. Another good feature.

Seasoning: None.

Johnny Rockets has the style of a 1950’s diner, with a definite tendency toward chain restaurant sensibilities. In a way, it’s very comparable with Steak & Shake, in that they intentionally try to cultivate the dine in fast food niche. Does it work? And how are their fries? For the first, yes. I can definitely imagine this being an updated version of how that era’s diners would look. For the second? Not so much. Despite the industrial fryer being close enough that I could stare right at it from my seat, the fries were surprisingly not fresh. They were closer to lukewarm than piping hot, and that’s simply unforgivable for a place that doesn’t have a drive-thru and encourages family dining. The fries had moderate skins on them, not exclusively focused on the edges, but evenly distributed. A moderate cut, about a 4.5/10, and similarly moderate crispiness. No seasoning and only a very light salting. But the story here is that the fries seemed to be not fresh at all, even though there’s no way they could have been anything else.

Price: $2.99

Cut: Moderate (4.5/10).

Seasoning: None.

Salt: Very light.

Blue Danube is a staple of affordable restaurant food in the OSU campus area. Located about 1/4 mile south of Hudson Ave. on High Street, it’s a very artsy place with a bar and food. This place actively attempts to cultivate it’s own version of the college student hipster culture, clearly extant, but not overwhelming. So, how were the fries here? First, they’re a crinkle cut, probably about a 3-3.5/10 thickness, so that’s fairly thin, but not extremely so. Either no salt, or very little salt (it’s not always easy to tell salt from crumbs, especially in dim light where there’s not enough salt to actively notice the taste). No seasoning either, so these fries are definitely on the plain side. Very hot and fresh (and this was a pleasant surprise, I’ve been here a few times in the past, and the freshness isn’t always given here, maybe they’re doing better about that now), and the crispiness is about average, which is pretty good. With fries that trend thin, keeping the crispiness at a reasonable amount is a sign, while still having properly cooked fries, that they’re being cooked in a good way. Price is $2.49 for a basket, definitely a good deal, as the serving size is pretty big, and you’ll get full in a hurry, especially if you’re eating anything else.

Price: $ 2.49

Salt: None, or an extremely small amount.

Seasoning: None

Cut: Crinkle, about 3-3.5/10 thickness.

I love diners, just something about them. Sitting at a booth, food that’s made with the style of your grandmother’s home cooking, the aesthetic that’s a bit too old for the technology and food around you. All that. Which is why my blog is quickly becoming about, “find the best fries, and breakfast food too”. Beechwold Diner is just another stop on the road here. Located on Indianola Ave. just north of Cooke Road, this is a true 1950’s style diner. But the fries are actually pretty modern, with a crinkle cut that’s thinner than normal, probably classifiable as thin-moderate.  Slightly above average crispiness, with no salt or seasoning, makes a fry that’s very good and fresh, but maybe slightly less of a serving size than you’d hope for. Not bad by any means, but not the bursting bucket of fries that can be found some other places. Still, very good, if slightly on the plain side. Which isn’t really a problem at all. At a price of $2.25, and covering most of the plate, these fries are very filling, and definitely the best of what’s offered at Beechwold Diner.

Price: $2.25

Salt: None

Seasoning: None

Cut: Crinkle, thin-moderate cut (about a 4/10 on thickness).

Two thirds fast food chicken, 1/3 Kentucky Icon, KFC is the place to go if you want biscuits and chicken in every type imaginable. While what they have doesn’t exactly say french fries, their potato wedges are fries in all but explicit name, so they’re worthy of being rated. They’re not the typical fries, or the typical wedges, they have a thick cut, but they’re unusually thin for a typical wedge, which typically are really meaty, like oversized steak fries. These are very thin, with exceptionally crispy skins, spicy seasoning applied moderately, and a rough cut so distinct it’s not only relevant for the texture, but the look as well. They come in a large box, and the price is $3.49 for a large order, and they do taste very nice. No salt, but very hot and fresh, and as far as wedges go, these are above average, though I do have a preference for the thicker style that KFC had two years ago, the last time I went to one. (For some reason, there’s no KFC anywhere near campus, even though if this ever happened, the store could probably print its own money.)

Price: $3.49

Cut: Wedge, big, but also thin.

Salt: None

Seasoning: Moderate, spicy seasoning.

Chumley’s is a bar, a campus bar. Which usually means I’m not going there. But there’s always exceptions. And exceptions is why I went to this place. So, right. How was the fries at a bar with a ton of people on a weekend night? The answer is a definite, okay. The cut of the fries is a true shoestring, the second thinnest I’ve reviewed (I’ll be surprised if I find fries thinner than Steak & Shake’s),  with light/moderate salt, but the salt was very thick, likely the sea salt variety that some places now use. The taste of the salt on the fries was very noticeable. There was moderate seasoning of pepper on the fries. This didn’t augment the taste as much as the salt, but was still reasonably welcome. The negative here was the excessive amount of grease on the fries. I know, it’s a bar, and people get fries here to wash down the alcohol, but the amount of grease was simply inexcusable, especially considering how thin the fries were, the experience was dangerously close to drinking grease rather than eating fries. On the plus side, the fries were very fresh, which is good, because these fries if not fresh, would be disastrous. There was a little bit of skins visible on the fry edges, but nothing special or altering to the fry taste. The price was also high, at $4.95 for a bucket, but that’s to be expected at a bar. Gotta get a profit margin somewhere, all that alcohol isn’t gonna pay for itself.

Price: $4.95

Cut: Shoestring

Salt: Moderate, and thick salt grains, likely sea salt.

Seasoning: Moderate pepper.

DK Diner is a non-traditional diner, on Third Avenue in Grandview. A very busy place in general, at the time I went there was a line of people waiting to have their breakfast. Fortunately, the staff really seems to be on top of everything, because I was seated within 15 minutes, and could get started on having my meal. So how do their fries stand up? For starters, the best way they can be described, is as “Five Guys styled”. With darker than normal potatoes, lots of skins, the general hand-cut style is exemplified well here. The biggest negative to these fries is they’re probably fried at a bit too high of a temperature, leaving the skin intact, but the potato inside is almost “melted” away. Some fries even had just an outside left over, and no potato “meat” on the inside. This wasn’t common, but a few fry specimens had this phenomenon happen. Price was $2.50 for a single basket, and the cut was moderate thickness. The overall experience with these fries is that if you like Five Guys fries, you’ll like these fries, though these aren’t fried with the peanut oil Five Guys uses.

(Disclosure: Pretty much everything about the aesthetic of this place rubbed me the wrong way, just in a personal preferences kind of way. Although the pancake was marvelous.)

Price: $2.5o

Cut: Moderate, definite hand-cut roughness

Seasoning: None

Salt: Moderate

Dairy Queen is not usually a place people go thinking of getting fries. It’s all about the ice cream and other frozen products. But as a result of this, there are some advantages to getting fries here. But first, a review of their quality. Their cut is a moderate to (perhaps) slightly thinner than average moderate cut. Not approaching shoestring cut by any means, but it’s noticeable to someone who pays attention to fries a lot. With an above average crispiness, and again with a slight hint of fast food style their fries do have a nice texture and taste to them. A bit more salt than most of the restaurant fries that have been reviewed recently, probably categorized as light-moderate salt. As is usual for fast food fries, no seasoning. But the best part about Dairy Queen fries is that because people don’t come here for hot food often, all the hot food you buy is made to order. This ensures maximum freshness, and also since I usually get two servings, what they fry is normally somewhat more than two servings, so they’ll just throw the extra fries in the bag. It ends up being a great bargain for the $2.29 price.

Price: $2.29

Cut: Moderate to slightly thinner than moderate

Salt: Light-moderate

Seasoning: None

Burger King’s one of the main fast food chains that’s known for selling hot foods. After McDonald’s and Wendy’s, it’s probably the next most popular. And they’ve had a few different french fry styles over the years. So how are they? As it turns out, not that bad. With a moderate cut (perhaps slightly thicker than average if you’re being really discerning) they have no particular distinctive quality, other than perhaps that their latest style is closely related to the old Wendy’s style, with the less than average crispiness which can occasionally border on sogginess on a few fries here and there. At the bottom of my serving was a lot of smaller fry crumb pieces. Which is always one of my negatives, but that’s a variable thing. Also a variable thing, the freshness of Burger King’s fries. The particular ones I had today were very fresh, but Burger King is known for some clunkers in this department, they have by far the longest time they’ll let fries sit out in the open waiting for a customer to buy them of any of the major fast food chains. But these were pretty good, and at $2.19, with a slightly bigger serving size than in the past, the deal was pretty good too.

(Picture is not of the greatest quality)

Price: $2.19

Cut: Moderate

Salt: Light

Seasoning: None

Nancy’s Home Cooking is located in the Clintonville area of High Street, just over a mile north of the north edge of campus, and is a local hotspot for good food, and possibly a bit of a cultural icon for the immediate area too. Inside, it looks like a traditional diner, maybe a bit on the small and cramped side, but nothing unusual about the decor. So, how about their fries? First off, they’re a normal cut, but with a twist. They’re definitely in the traditional fast food style, rather than a clean fry. This just means there’s roughness to the outside skin of the fry, and this place does the style very well. No salt, but a tiny amount of pepper seasoning does add a bit of extra to the taste. Some of the fry corners do a small amount of exposed skin, but it doesn’t do anything good or bad for the taste, definitely no hint of country cooking here. Fries cost $1.75, and the serving size for this is average to above average. As typical, pictured is two servings.

Price: $1.75

Salt: None

Seasoning: Light Pepper

Cut: Moderate, with a distinct fast food fry style