When visiting Montreal last summer I was really looking forward to trying poutine. The Montreal comfort food specialty, it's essentially fries covered with anything you can imagine and some locations are known for particular toppings.

See http://www.montrealpoutine.com/.

Well... it was okay. But, honestly, it had nothing on Ghetto Fries or Buffalo Joe's cheese fries with hot sauce and jalapenos IMHO.

No votes for Susie's? Granted I usually end up here at 3am after a few drinks but still...

Here's a past thread about it:
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=11133

Dmnkly wrote:It seems to me that a discussion of Chicago area cheese fries and variants wouldn't be complete without Max's Ghetto Fries.

Dom,

You truly are an excellent photographer as your picture makes Max's Ghetto Fries appear appealing.

I should note, I'm a fan of Max's Italian beef, crisp regular fries, giardiniera and, if the timing is right, broasted chicken, but find the Ghetto fries a goopy mess with the cheese/BBQ sauce/gravy/giardiniera soaking the crisp right out of the fries.

Enjoy,
Gary

Max's
5745 N Western
Chicago, IL

jhawk1 wrote:Nothing like dancing on the pool table at F&M's after a night at Tip's!

Amen!

Cathy2 wrote:My Mom likes the port wine. Did you know the red color is from beets? A friend went on a tour of their factory, that was the only nugget of information extracted.

Unhh! That's as close as I can come to figuring out how to type the sound I'm making. It's the sound of disillusionment. If the red is from beets (not that I'm anti-beet; not that there's anything wrong with that ), then where does the port wine come in?

This has always been my favorite Merkts flavor; in fact I have some in the refrigerator right now. I am relieved to see that port wine as an ingredient comes before the various coloring agents, one or more of which must be from the beets. Still, a little of the pleasure of port wine Merkts has gone for me, and I fear will never return.

I grew up on Michael's cheese fries in Highland Park. Now I live around the corner from Wiener Circle. So I've always been close to some of the best cheese fries in town.

Another candidate would be the ones at Paradise Pup (recent GNR winner) in Des Plaines. I used to go there when I worked near O'Hare. I can't remember what they call them, but they're topped with Merkt's cheddar, bacon and sour cream.

Katie wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:My Mom likes the port wine. Did you know the red color is from beets? A friend went on a tour of their factory, that was the only nugget of information extracted.

Unhh! That's as close as I can come to figuring out how to type the sound I'm making. It's the sound of disillusionment. If the red is from beets (not that I'm anti-beet; not that there's anything wrong with that ), then where does the port wine come in?

This has always been my favorite Merkts flavor; in fact I have some in the refrigerator right now. I am relieved to see that port wine as an ingredient comes before the various coloring agents, one or more of which must be from the beets. Still, a little of the pleasure of port wine Merkts has gone for me, and I fear will never return.

This was a claim so outrageous I had to respond to it. The following information is taken from Karen MacNeil's Wine Bible. If you love drinking wine and you don't own this book, go get it. It's becoming one of the most used books in my wine and spirits collection as it's our go to for anything wine related (in a general sense).

p. 488, Making Port

"the condensed version would go like this: Add one part grape spirits to 4 parts red wine while it's fermenting...First, red grapes are crushed and put in a special automated tank to macerate...After the grapes have been macerated in a tank for about 24 hours, fermentation begins and the grapes sugar begins to be turned into alcohol. At the point when about half the natural sugar has been converted, fermentation must be stopped. To do this the wine is poured off into a vat containing neutral grape spirits (clear brandy) with an alcoholic strength of 77 percent (150 proof). The alcohol in the spirits causes the yeasts in the wine to die and fermentation subsides. The result is a sweet wine with about 10% residual sugar, fortified to about 20% alcohol."

OK, now without going into every single detail, there are about 10 styles of port out there, and I'm only going to talk about main ones. Basically the breakdown of what happens next is either it's barrel or tank aged or it's aged in the bottle.

Bottle aged port: Ruby (really takes almost no bottle age before release), young tawny (though bottle aging is kind of a misnomer as it's really unaged port), vintage port (part barrel, part bottle), single quinta ports, crusted port (i think, but not sure), garrafeira port (wood aged for a short time, then bottle aged for a long time)

Barrel aged port: Aged tawny port, Vintage character port, Late bottle vintage port, traditional late bottled vintage port, vintage port (part barrel, part bottle)

I'm a little confused. The quote tells us how port wine is made but doesn't address the "outrageous claim". Perhaps you were thinking that since they colored the Merkts with beets that somehow they were connected to the port wine? I read that as two totally separate ingredients. Perhaps the process of using the port wine as an additive reduces it's color impact wo it is enhanced with beet coloring.

Octarine wrote:I'm a little confused. The quote tells us how port wine is made but doesn't address the "outrageous claim". Perhaps you were thinking that since they colored the Merkts with beets that somehow they were connected to the port wine? I read that as two totally separate ingredients. Perhaps the process of using the port wine as an additive reduces it's color impact wo it is enhanced with beet coloring.

Sorry, I meant to add that with my post, that is the complete and utter totality of making port wine. I'll leave the fact that it ain't port unless it comes from Portugal for another day. In my reading of the post it was that port wine itself was colored with beets.

HI,

The cheese is Port wine flavored, whatever that means, they use beet dyed cheese to suggest the port.

I think you go a bit overboard with your use of the term outrageous.

Regards,

G Wiv wrote:...but find the Ghetto fries a goopy mess...

There, we are in total agreement. I can't defend 'em... but I do like 'em

Octarine wrote:Those are so unbelievably better looking than the sodden hideous mess I got at Max's, it's hard to fathom they are from the same place. Clearly a reeat is in order.

Must say, I am down on Max's from my one visit. The fries were just lousy frozen fries---sure if you put great stuff on them, you can use them as the chips for a dip. But alone they are awful and in my ghetto fires order, it was the goopy mess. I also thought their burger was mediocre and all their stuff overpriced. One could easily spend $7 for a burger/fries/coke deal. And I found the boy taking orders to be immature and unpleasant.

Is the Italian Beef that special that it redeems this unspectacular joint?

Mr. T. wrote:It's in Evanston at Clark and Benson. Regarding the blue cheese, I've seen them use it at the restaurant and confirmed it as Merkts but haven't seen it at the store.

Buffalo Joes
812 Clark Street
Evanston, IL
847.328.5525

There is also a second Buffalo Joe's location on Howard (west of Chicago Ave if coming from Evanston, west of Clark if coming from Chicago). I never had the cheese fries at Buffalo Joe's, don't know how I missed them but must admit that Paradise Pup is my goto place when consuming cheese fries. Per happy_stomach's comment, Paradise Pup seems to use the sharp Merkt's which I like.

I do like the BBQ rib tips at Buffalo Joe's when I'm on the northside, better than Hecky's IMO.

I'm so surprised that there haven't been any votes for Hot Doug's. I've never like cheese fries before-- until I had them there and now I can't get them out of my mind. I swear they are addictive. The fries there are great alone, many of us are fans, and the cheese is so, well, cheesy. Not that I've ordered a lot of cheese fries in my life, but this was the first time that the cheese actually tasted like cheese. If you haven't tried them yet, I highly recommend.

DebbieR wrote:I'm so surprised that there haven't been any votes for Hot Doug's. I've never like cheese fries before-- until I had them there and now I can't get them out of my mind. I swear they are addictive. The fries there are great alone, many of us are fans, and the cheese is so, well, cheesy. Not that I've ordered a lot of cheese fries in my life, but this was the first time that the cheese actually tasted like cheese. If you haven't tried them yet, I highly recommend.

But that's just the thing. Doug's fries are -so- good, it is kind of overkill to put anything complex on them.

blipsman wrote:I grew up on Michael's cheese fries in Highland Park.

Yes, but ... before Michael's, there was Stash's: little oily paper bags of fries you could eat on the walk home, with cheese or without. Both great.

Mind you, that was the old, just-barely-on-the-right-side-of-the-health-department Stash's. I could just never get excited about the new one.

Katie wrote:

blipsman wrote:I grew up on Michael's cheese fries in Highland Park.

Yes, but ... before Michael's, there was Stash's: little oily paper bags of fries you could eat on the walk home, with cheese or without. Both great.

Mind you, that was the old, just-barely-on-the-right-side-of-the-health-department Stash's. I could just never get excited about the new one.

I never had cheese fries at Stash's until Michael's came to town. Remember Michael's original name was something like Coney Island Dog, then it changed to Michael's. Same owner, but a different name.

Regards,

ChgoMike wrote:When visiting Montreal last summer I was really looking forward to trying poutine. The Montreal comfort food specialty, it's essentially fries covered with anything you can imagine and some locations are known for particular toppings.

See http://www.montrealpoutine.com/.

Well... it was okay. But, honestly, it had nothing on Ghetto Fries or Buffalo Joe's cheese fries with hot sauce and jalapenos IMHO.

I had completely forgotten that I spent a very intense week almost two years ago, trying to find any place around here that served poutine. Couldn't do it, so a couple of friends and I ended up buying a fryer and doing it ourselves with some sauce poutine (as I recall, tasting mostly like extra-salty beef broth) smuggled from Montreal and cubes of Jewel brick cheese, because we couldn't find any place to get cheese curds (after the fact, we learned that the Vienna Beef factory on Damen has 'em in their factory store). They were awesome! I have no idea how authentic they are, but count me among those who prefer fry toppings that soak in rather than roll around and just don't work (which was my one experience with ghetto fries).

Cathy2 wrote:[Remember Michael's original name was something like Coney Island Dog, then it changed to Michael's. Same owner, but a different name.

Regards,

Michaels used to be called Nathan's. We still call Michaels Nathan's. He got a cease and desist letter and the rest is history

Ive purchased a couple different styles of cheese curds at whole foods. Very tasty little cheese snacks. Didnt think of melting them a la poutin, but might help you in your quest to re-create the recipe.

Went to Michael's in Buffalo Grove today and got a hotdog with everything, cheddar fries, and an order of gribbiness.

The cook asked me what I wanted on the hot dog and I said "everything!" and he put it all on and then asked "sauerkraut?" Well no, not quite everything. I got it to go which is probably wrong for the fries because they serve them in a skinny bag with a cup of cheese on the side that when you pour over the top sort of globs up on the top. It would be much better if poured over a plate of the fries. In any case, the hot crispy fries melted the cheese into a glaze which was wonderful. I would go back just for them, but I want to try their burger too. The hot dog was very good. two pickle spears, a half dozen sport peppers, really tasty. The gribbiness? Never again. No chicken skin, just a huge pile of burnt onions.

A little pricey, about $2.50 for each item plus tax making it $8 for lunch.

iblock9 wrote:Michaels used to be called Nathan's. We still call Michaels Nathan's. He got a cease and desist letter and the rest is history

Oh yeah, right! I vaguely remembered something about Nathan's, but was reluctant to mention it, lest I be ordered to cease and desist!

I hate to digress, but I'm wondering about bacon cheese fries. Bacon has been mentioned in this thread but not a lot. Is Pup's is the place to get the cheese fries with bacon? There's a chili chain in the suburbs of DC called Hard Times Cafe that has great bacon cheese fries and OK somewhat oily chili. I was back visiting a few months back and my friend who has gone vegetarian asked if I would skip the bacon. I told him we could each order our own plates.

Hi,

Long ago when Stash's was granted the best Chicago style hot dog by Chicago magazine. When you said wanted 'everything,' then you got the full Chicago style hot dog treatment. At both Stash's and Michael's 'everything' now takes a broader spectrum than before. I now tell them, "I want them dressed Chicago-style heavy on the onions." It saves a lot of time and spares the sauerkraut discussion.

Thanks for recalling the original name of Michael's. I think they went for nearly a year as Nathan's before the cease and desist letter.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote: Remember Michael's original name was something like Coney Island Dog, then it changed to Michael's. Same owner, but a different name.

Michael's was first opened as "Nathan's." The name was short lived because of the original Nathan's in NY.

because we couldn't find any place to get cheese curds (after the fact, we learned that the Vienna Beef factory on Damen has 'em in their factory store).

Trader Joe's now carries cheese curds. The "cheese guy" at the Lincoln Park farmer's market always has them too. Aside from out of the bag as a snack or melted on fries they are great microwaved for just a few seconds--warm little hunks of deliciousness.

Ravinia Farmers Market has Jalapeno Cheese curds. Every Wed from 7-1:30 at the Jens Jensen Park on Roger Williams 1/4 blk east of St. Johns Ave. Not sure when the last wed of the season is.

This Wednesday, Halloween, is the last day of the season. How sad!

I received a healthy splash of gravy on my fries at Depot this morning- just add cheese curds and, hmmm........

Behold, the great and terrible splendour that is...homemade poutine!



Cheese curds from the Brunkow booth at the Evanston Farmer's Market, fries and gravy from my pantry and fridge.