Robert and I go to a lot of pubs and I oftentimes find myself ordering a salad and side of fries as my dinner. I stole the idea from my sister. It may sound odd or perhaps even gluttonous to have an entire order of fried potatoes as my dinner but it’s really hard to go to a pub and pass up the fries and sometimes I don’t want to order a whole veggie burger just to get my fries fix. The Elysian Brewery, a few blocks from my apartment, has really good fries. They make two kinds: “fatties” which are like jo jo’s and “skinnies” which are crisp and delicious. I can make it about a quarter of the way through a serving of “fatties” before becoming too full to continue so I usually go for the “skinnies” which, for some reason, I can keep eating long after I’ve become full. Fries at the Garage are hit or miss depending on whether they are served hot or not. A few years ago, we had great fries at the Canterbury. They were crispy crinkle-cut fries sprinkled with kosher salt but, when we went back, they had changed to regular fries and they were not as good. Tonight, we went to a new-ish restaurant in our neighborhood called 22 Doors. They make these great shoestring fries. According to the website, their fries are made with “essence of truffle” and, indeed, they did have a slight mushroom aroma to them. In a good way.

A word of caution: if you take my cue and begin ordering fries-for-dinner, be sure to make your intentions known, especially in large groups. One time, the waitress set my fries down in the middle of a table full of people and, when I slid the plate over directly in front of me, I received many nasty looks and one very mean comment for my selfishness in not sharing with the group.