Irene Jiang / Business Insider
- French fries are an essential part of the fast-food experience.
- We taste-tested fries from fast-food stalwarts Arby’s, Dairy Queen, Five Guys, Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack, McDonald’s and Burger King to see how they compared.
- Shake Shack’s crinkle-cut fries won our taste test, with Arby’s and Burger King close behind.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
There’s no food item more perfect than hot, crispy, salty, starchy fries.
They’re the perfect palate cleanser for a greasy burger meal, a low-commitment fling between bites of ground beef or fried chicken.
However, fries are as ephemeral as they are perfect. I wouldn’t wish a cold, limp, soggy fry upon my worst enemy. Of all its fast-food brethren, the fry lives fastest and dies the hardest.
That’s why we’ve pitted fries from eight fast-food chains — Arby’s, Dairy Queen, Five Guys, Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack, McDonald’s, and Burger King — against each other in a taste-test battle royale.
The rules are simple: One standard order of medium fries from each restaurant. No condiments. Fries are tasted onsite at restaurants for consistency.
The judging criteria is based on a one-to-five scale in four categories:
- Crisp: Is the fry encased in a golden shell of poreless crisp, or is it limp and lifeless?
- Flavor: A fry should taste like good potato, good oil, and good salt. Fishy flavors? Cardboard? No.
- Mouthfeel: Smooth, gritty, chewy? Structurally sound?
- Salt: A top score is a perfectly salted fry. Anything over or under loses points.
May the best fry win.
Despite continual controversy over the company’s charity choices, Chick-fil-A fries have their loyal fans.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider
These waffle-shaped taters deliver the crisp you’d expect from a fried potato slice with their surface area. However, they seem to be part of the "salt is for squares" gang. And these desperately need salt to compensate for their dry and oily, cardboard-like flavor. With an overall mouthfeel that’s sometimes stiff and sometimes soggy, these don’t put up much of a fight.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider
Dairy Queen’s challenger is almost as pale as its soft-serve ice cream.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- Chick-fil-A is dominating fast food while teaching workers to say ‘my pleasure’ and putting flowers on tables — here are 6 strategies the chain has used to become the most polite in the industry
- I tried the 4 international menu items that McDonald’s is bringing to the US, and they shattered my expectations
- We tried Whataburger, the ‘In-N-Out of Texas’ — here’s our verdict
Source: Business Insider – ijiang@businessinsider.com (Irene Jiang)