McDonalds is a standard, but I prefer Arby's seasoned curly fries
Wendy's recently changed their fries and they're good enough, but prefer Smash fries.
(Special mention goes to Canadian KCF, which offers fries and gravy instead of mashed potatoes and gravy. I don't know if their US fries are different because I don't mess with that if mashed 'taters are an option.)
Five guys and Checkers
Steak 'n Shake and Popeyes
Overall, if I were choosing a place based solely on the fries: Smash > Five Guys > Popeyes > Arby's
The top two spots were tricky. I like the 5 guys fresh cut style, but Smash mixes a traditional thin cut fast food fry with rosemary. And they don't make things weird by giving you more than you can or should eat.
The only one I actively dislike is Chick-fil-A, but some of the other offerings are 'meh' enough that they need ketchup.
Missing entries: Penn Station and Skyline. They're both regional, but I like both of them over most of the other offerings. Penn Station has fresh-cut style and Skyline's fries are thin and crispy.
A double double animal style is a good fast food burger. And hits the spot when you’re in the mood. But those fries. Getting them animal style mostly redeems them but barely.
More talking about eating it regularly, I just don’t get it. If I’m at a service station in the middle of nowhere, sure I’ll eat a McDonald’s. But in a city, with hundreds of better options, I don’t get why anyone would choose it over better takeaways.
All I’m saying is I don’t get it, I haven’t eaten enough to know the differences in any of their food. You could put every frie(fry?) And every burger from every FF chain and I wouldn’t be able to identify a single one.
Do you need to eat something multiple times to know how it tastes? Or do you just pay so little attention to what you eat that you can’t tell the difference between thick cut vs thin cut fries, or seasoned vs unseasoned, and so on?
Or are you just blindly saying that any place that’s smaller is inherently superior because it’s less popular? Because you clearly can’t even remember how the fast food tastes…
i have to say living in a country with more options i have not eaten in any of the places on that list in somewhere between 7-10 years and in that time i atleast have forgotten what their fries taste like other than vague memories of slight dissapointment. Also smaller places I would say have to be better than large fast-food chains as why would anyone go there if it was worse. Of course at least in my country there are tons of random no-name grills and kebab-pizzerias that have the most wildly swinging quality but even for them its very rare for the food to be noticeably worse than what I would expect from mcdonalds so atleast for me i would rather throw the dice between "technically edible"and “holyshitthisisthebestthingever!” than choose “tastes like dissapointment engineered to taste “good””. And even if the frood from the Nonamekebappizzeria™ is just barely edible i guess at the end of the day i supported a local business(altough sometimes it might be that they dont pay taxes(not like the multinational corporations are too keen on that either).
I'm guessing that you're some combination of "not poor" and "not from the US."
I'm no longer poor, but I do travel through the continental US on a regular basis. Even though my workplace reimburses me for food when I travel and budget doesn't enter into the equation, I eat fast food fairly frequently.
Scenario A) I've been though a series of planes, airports, and rental cars for the last eight hours. I'm in central Iowa, I've just checked into my hotel, and there's a major winter storm 30 minutes away. Non-fast food takeout isn't an option because this town has 20,000 people in it and I would need to travel for an hour to find a larger town. I could find a nice local restaurant, but there's an Arby's that's a block away from my hotel. Since my priorities are 1) putting some warm food into my face, 2) not driving through snow, and 3) going to sleep, it's Arby's.
Scenario B) I'm driving back home from Chicago, which is about a 7-hour trip by interstate highway. I'm in the scary part of Indiana when I realize that I'm hungry and still hours away from civilization. Food options are a) fast food and b) truck stop food. That last option is basically "unknown fast food with an unreadable label that's been sitting in a heated tray for 4 hours."
Scenario C) I'm in a small southern city that I've never visited. My plane was delayed and my luggage is lost. The rental agency couldn't find the car that I had reserved, so I'm driving a lifted pickup through dark and unfamiliar streets. By the time I finish shopping for some basic overnight things (deodorant, hairbrush, underclothing for the next day), it's 9:45 and most nearby restaurants are closing. Five Guys is a block from the hotel and because they close at 10, I can either choose that or try finding and walking to a restaurant that's open later.
Those are all examples from this year. Basically, takeout options outside of major cities are horrible. In small cities, most places - if they even exist - close earlier than fast food chains. If I have the time and energy I'll absolutely find the nicest local restaurant and enjoy some regional cuisine. And under normal travel circumstances, that's exactly what I do. But sometimes you just need to put warm food into your mouth and get to sleep.
Latish reply, but how do you make yours? Do you do the ‘restaurant’ steps of using water & freezing to get the starch out?
Me, I just slice up baking potatoes and pop them in my air fryer for a while, turning and re-basting with oil a few times. Not restaurant grade, but good enough.
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