So I was on my way to work today - yes, I work on Saturday's and I have every Saturday for the past three years. And as I was just finishing up my drive to Rockford I drove by a "Steak n Shake" While I can't say a whole lot for the intelligence of the people who named the restuarant I do have a lot to say for the cooks who dreamed up the menu - particularly the frisco burgers. (I am officially craving a burger right now - just so you know). But I'm not going to discuss the golden toasted sourdough bread, or the ground steak used in the burger, or the thousand island dressing (disgusting on everything except this sandwich) or the wide selection of delicious, creamy shakes that really do enhance the whole meal experience (side note: these shakes are probably my favorite chain restuarant shakes - wide variety of flavors and good, consistent quality. My favorite shake of all time is probably Union Dairy, with a close second awarded to Mullen's, both of these are local joints - one in IL the other in WI) I want to discuss Cheese Fries.

There is something inestimably perfect about the combination of cheap, processed cheese sauce that glops out of cans into a saucepan, heated and then ladled out onto a plate packed with crisp (on the outside only) golden fries and then served to you right before the cheese starts to cool and develop a skin.

Steak and Shake does a pretty decent job on their cheese fries. They give plenty of fry's, plent of cheese, serve it on a separate plate so the other food doesn't contaminate its perfection and generally contribute to obesity and heart attacks in America. The only problem is that they decided to go with the shoestring potatoes. This is a problem because it is next to impossible to eat the right amount of a shoestring potatoe. If you pick up one its a complete waste of effort. If you use your fork you get too many and you can't enjoy the taste of good fry slathered in cheese. This downside is just bad enough to pull the Steak n Shake cheese fry out of first place on the list of best cheese fries in America - a list that is headed by the Outback Cheese Fries which prove that the only thing better than eating starches and whatever cheese sauce is - is adding bacon.